In general, I approve of non-profit organizations utilizing marketing techniques that are common in the traditional business world. A non-profit has to raise money somehow, in order to survive. It has hard to imagine how a non-profit would survive without, for example, literature based marketing that is also used in the traditional business world. (Brenkert, 2008) However, since a non-profit is competing for dollars not on the basis of price, as traditional businesses do, a number of other issues must be considered.
A first issue is fact that, in order to even have a chance of being successful from a marketing standpoint, non-profits are forced to use emotional appeals. According to Brenkert (2008) emotional appeals, in and of themselves, walk a tight line between ethical and unethical. Appealing to emotion instead of logic and reason can create a questionable ethical environment as it pertains to marketing strategies and is something that non-profit organizations need to carefully consider before releasing a commercial or other form of advertisement. A second issue worth raising is the issue of disparagement in non-profit advertising. Many non-profits have the same mission and must compete against each other for dollars; this can lead some organizations to disparage others which, like emotional appeals, are highly questionable from an ethical perspective when non-profits are involved. (Brenkert, 2008)