Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital Challenges - Case Study Example

CB REPORT Name Affiliation I. Context and Problem/Opportunity In the contemporary environment people have withdrawn from supporting charity organizations. This is due to financial crisis that has hit the world in the last five years, making governments and individuals to reduce their will to donate to charity organizations. Per capita income has reduced hence, reducing expenditure rate of both the government and individuals. One of the charity organizations facing such challenge is Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital (RBWH) (Baker, 2010). The foundations objective is to undertake several programs and to conduct research so as to improve the livelihood of patients and individual without the access of this facet. The foundation is faced with problem of getting more dollars to fund their projects. With increased differences and limitations created by global financial crisis and inflations people are not willing to donate a dollar to the foundation hence, RBWH is seeking ways to persuade people to donate dollar or other charity services or products to ensure that the company progress in its functions (Bianchi & Birtwistle, 2010). Thus, the paper is seeking to address several strategies that the foundations is going to use so that it could be able to motivate as well as encourage donors to donate what they have to the foundation. II. Literature Review RBWH Foundation was first established in 1985 as the charity arm of Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital: Queensland's largest hospital (Bianchi & Birtwistle, 2012). While RBWH is part of Queensland Health, funding from the government is limited, and in order to ensure the Royal remains at the forefront of patient care and on the leading edge of new technology and treatment methods, the Foundation's role is to fill that funding gap (Devinney, 2010). Social and cultural concept of personal connection is one of the most important elements of charity giving. The people to people connection build up respect and trust between the donors and organizations together with the recipients of the donor funds (Hillman, 2010). Personal connection and relationship differentiates Australian networking from the rest of the world. In Australia, social life and personal relationship carries a lot of weight than formal or contractual relationships. This explains the reason why Australia donor habit follows a quid pro quo practice: Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital seeks to understand that donor recipients expect reciprocation to donors when asked donation returns (Moosmayer & Fuljahn, 2010). The organizations should also understand that giving or donating of nay product or service such as funds to an organization depends on the host countries attitude and behaviour towards donation or charity work. For this case Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital should be able to analyse motivations attributes of Australian people before making introducing any strategy towards improvement of donor’s motivations towards giving. For example, Australian donors tend to be personal and private as opposed western charitable offering practices which are often professional and independent (Pentecost & Andrews, 2010). This kind of pattern reflects the downward trend of Australian culture beliefs that charitable offering should be done in private and in a quite manner so as to limit personal benefits from the public (Pentecost & Andrews, 2010). This kind of belief limits more entrants to charity work as well as reduces the trust of those willing to donate funds to charity organization such as Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. This is because; the quite nature of handling this donated items or funds has led to mismanagement of funds in some charity organizations in the past (Polonsky, Renzaho & Brijnath, 2010). Most Australians prefer and other donors in the world advocate for open and public giving of funds to organizations to permit auditing of funds as well as counting of stock for non monetary donations. Consequently, most first generation Australian immigrants are less likely to take part in offering arranged gifts and bequest to charity. This reduces the chance of consumer behaviour will of taking part in donations. The reason for this withdrawal exhibited by immigrants is as a result of lack of confidence of proper use of donor funds and limited per capita income. One of the other factors that affect consumer behaviour is the social integration of the people. Social integration of people is always guided by the nature in which the donor integral value intertwines with societal values (Wiepking, 2010). The world supports motivational support of those willing to donate gifts and funds. Lack of technical understanding of what RBWH objectives are is what makes the organizations to have limited funds to undertake its obligations. According to a report documented by RBWH most of the people in Australia and the rest of the world are not aware of the interest of the organization. The social environment is one of the main factors that can also influence peoples view towards donating to charity and other non-profit organizations. In this case people with willingness are objected to persuade donating in the future. Close family members and other member of immediate social setting are able to motivate their fellow members of the community to have general understanding giving (Wiepking, Madden & McDonald, 2010). Consumer behaviour is managed by the psychological framework of a person’s mind. The willingness to give also depends on the rates at which they can also be given or the willingness to donate. This means that the urge to assist other people through charity is based on the level of generosity that an individual holds (Polonsky, Renzaho & Brijnath, 2010). III. Theory/ model/ framework Reciprocity Theory This theory challenges the purely altruistic donor behaviour in Australia. Pure altruistic is an incomplete theory since it contains a “free rider” issue: the considerations that the public demands more public good and services with making any contributions to charity organizations. On the other side, respiratory theory denotes that there should be a reciprocal relationship between recipients and donors (Baker, 2010). The Australian government is not noticing the efforts that Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital: Queensland's largest hospital is making towards research and programs helping patients. Within the theoretical framework receiving gifts should generate moral obligation to take part in future donations when asked for (Wiepking, 2010). For example, a person who is ready to donate a dollar towards assisting others with an expectation that other people will follow suit, and as a result there will be no alarm of lack of funds to manage charity organizations such as of the case of Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital: Queensland's largest hospital. It is prevalent in this theory that consumer behaviour of donating a dollar towards charity work is determinant to other factors such as motivations of the donor and social platform of previous development done by charity organizations out of funds from donors (Wiepking, Madden & McDonald, 2010). iv. Recommendations Despite the fact that helping Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital foundations is a difficult task that has limited solutions, there are several ways that can be of help. This paper will discuss the 4ps of marketing strategy, but three will be used. These are; price, people, place and promotion. The first strategy to deploy is price. Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital should be able to help the government and individuals willing to donate a dollar to do so by showing the potentials of the foundation to the people (Baker, 2010). Such potentials include the significance or price of donating the dollar. The importance of the foundation should be positively reflected by the organization thus improving the willingness to donate a dollar towards the development and sustainability of Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. Giving behaviour of Australian people depends of the outcome of the donations that has previously been funded by either the public or the government. The second strategy is place. This is a marketing strategy aimed at showing or guiding the market the best channels to use when distributing products and services. In this case the product or service that needs to be distributed is ideal about donating a dollar towards a charity organization (RBWH). The place to centralize the donations places is of much significance in this case. RBWH should locate donations centers near busy public working places such as supermarkets, banks, and other shopping zones like warehouses and retail shops (Wiepking, Madden & McDonald, 2010). This improves the willingness to donate funds as well also helps the foundations to offer advisory information about donation. This strategy is workable since most people are always buying and selling products and services in the marketing places. During such businesses many are left with petty cash (change; money that remains after buying commodities). Most people are ready to give this amount of money stating that they are remains of what they expected to use. With this strategy RBWH is able to collect several dollars. In addition, RBWH should distribute donation boxes to several schools or learning institutions as well as restaurants. This is because customers are willing to offer the remaining part of their money after paying their bills. The reason for placing this donation boxes in learning organization is that most students are willing to donate since they are still naïve to expenses hence able to donate the small they have in order to assist others. In addition, promotion strategy is significant step towards restoring the lost glory of government and people donations towards charity organizations specifically RBWH. RBWH should be able to promote charity work as well as donations practices around the country. This is because some people are not aware of the importance donating money to charity. RBWH should promote this over the media, through school curriculums and group meeting. For example, informing young schools children about the importance of the dollar donated to charity organizations such as RBWH will establish clear and permanent attitude towards donating money to charity in Australia (Bianchi & Birtwistle, 2010). The other strategy that would play a significant role is restoring the willingness of the people is strengthening the involvement of people. This step is important to improve people’s motivation to participate to donor activity. Generally, all this is aimed at development and growth of RBWH (Pentecost & Andrews, 2010). This can be done by educating people through advertisements. The organization should also include the community by ensuring that they participate in motivations strategies to persuade the people. Increasing giving emotion as well as social understanding of what donating undertakes is the best way to involve the community. Mentioning the attributes of donating a dollar to charity organization should be the first lesson that RBWH should introduce. By introducing this people will be able to develop confidence and trust to the programs and projects that donor funds can do. References Baker, C. (2010). Estate transmission and post mortem charitable giving in Australia (Doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology). Bianchi, C., & Birtwistle, G. (2010). 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