Officially the birth of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) begins in 1945 with the formation of the United Nations following the end of the Second World War. Since then, the growth of NGO's across the world has been significant with 40,000 NGO's currently operating in the United States. In many other countries this number is significantly higher. Although NGO's have a significantly different mission than corporations and business, they use public relations in much the same way as these other organizations.
It is important to understand that NGO's operate quite differently than businesses. Although they may be structured similarly as businesses and corporations, they are not motivated by profit. Whereas corporations are responsible to shareholders, NGO's are responsible to stakeholders and beneficiaries. Stakeholders are simply the people who have a committed interest in the mission of any given NGO. They may be donors, but their return on investment is not in the dollar profit but rather in the social profit of the NGO. The missions of NGO's usually involve affecting some kind of change or delivering a particular kind of service usually of a humanitarian nature. They pursue wider social goals than those of companies and can have political leanings, but they are not strictly political organizations.
Because of their missions, NGO's often have the same need for public relations that corporations and businesses do. However, public relations often has a very negative connotation and as a result, may NGO's do not use the word to describe their public relations activities. Mostly their concern is that using the term "pr" will cast a negative light on the organization and interfere with its mission. For all intents and purposes though, NGO's communications activities are identical to those of a large business or corporation. They write press releases and talk to journalists. They maintain relationships with stakeholders and they create and manage events in support of the NGO's mission.
Unfortunately, NGO's have significant limitations when it comes to their resources. Companies can dedicate massive amounts of money to their public relations campaigns, but on the whole, NGO's operate on much smaller amounts of money. However, this creates a work atmosphere within a NGO that allows them to be highly trustworthy and dependable. This also means that NGO's tend to be very resourceful in how they approach public relations. For instance, NGO's were some of the first organizations to adopt social media for public relations purposes because of its ease of use and cheapness. NGO's largely paved the way for larger companies to use social media to target their respective audiences in support of brand and social identity.
Competition for resources has also changed how NGO's deal with public relations compared to corporations. Government resources for social welfare programs have been dwindling not only in the United States, but also around the world. NGO's have seen the need to combine their organizations to pool their resources better to serve their respective missions. A large part of public relations within NGO's is finding willing and able partners. Their PR campaigns need to use highly effective communication to smartly analyze their situations to develop successful campaigns. Although this takes time, its success means that NGO's last longer in order to identify stakeholders and carry on their missions.
Jamie Smith is a full-time writer for higher ed blogs and journals nationwide with a focus on online education opportunities. Several schools offer online degrees, including University of San Francisco and Northwestern University.

It’s never too early to get involved in politics. Knowing what’s going on in the world around you can help you connect with other students, build your community, and make a great impression when you start interviewing for jobs. Getting involved is easy, so get ready to sign up at your school and get involved.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." These first 16 words of the United States Bill of Rights prohibit Congress from establishing or prohibiting religion, and since its ratification in 1791, it have been the subject of debates. This is the basis of the idea of Freedom of Religion, and many people in America now have taken to heart the corollary of that freedom, the Freedom from Religion. This debate is most evident within the public schools where any mention of prayer or Christmas has been thoroughly expunged. In 2000, the Supreme Court even agreed that a student led prayer before a football game constituted "Congress making a law respecting and establishment of religion." What gets conveniently forgotten in most of these suits are the six words after the comma, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Secular Public Schools

One of the main arguments against practicing religion in the public schools is because, as an extension of the State, allowing the practice of religion will in effect recognize and establish a religion. Unfortunately this has been taken too far to the point that teachers and administrators are becoming afraid of even acknowledging that religion exists. This has made the schools an easy target for anyone with a grudge to file suit after suit, both costing millions and, worse yet, detracting the schools from their primary purpose, teaching children.

Parochial Schools

The Roman Catholic Church has schools around the nation, as does the Southern Baptists, Episcopalians, Jews, and Muslims. There are many differences between each of these schools as well as the public schools, but while the religious schools all promote their own religion as the paramount, they all do a great job in educating children. Throughout the country, the students from the private parochial schools outperform the public students in all standardized tests and they also are more often admitted to the prestigious colleges. No religious school in the US teaches that the other religions are evil, nor do they prohibit the exercise of the other religions; they chose to focus on other issues instead.

Pros and Cons

It can be expected that every school will promote the ideals of its chartering organization. Catholic schools will promote Catholicism, Muslim schools will promote Islam, a corporate school will promote that corporation, and public government schools will promote the virtues of the government. An important distinction comes in because the government schools will, by law, deny the virtues of the religions as well as denying the values those religions impart on the individual.

The idea behind preventing a single established religion in the United States is fair, but as the First Amendment states, there should not be the prohibition of religion. Unfortunately, over the last 50 years a very vocal minority has led a push for freedom from religion and all too frequently the courts agree. Alas, that is what has happened in our public schools and the result has led to an eroding of the education most of our children receive.
Michael Muhammad is a career counselor and in his spare time he blogs for militarydegreeprograms.org, a site he often recommends to those who are interested in the Top 10 Best Military Degrees. If you have considered getting a military degree he suggests learning more about Military Degree Programs.