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.

Corporate business managers are in key positions in the hierarchy of the company. They oversee projects and the development of their teams, and they are often responsible for the hiring and the firing of those team members. The corporate business manager is in a leadership position, and one of the keys to good leadership is effective communication. A business manager needs to speak well and needs to be able to persuade others. A business manager can find themselves at a round table meeting where new ideas are being pitched or giving a presentation to a group of board members. In either case, there are some tools that a business manager can use to make their presentations and overall communication better and more productive.
The goal of any good piece of communication is persuasion. In a speaking situation, the business manager needs to set themselves apart and ensure that the audience knows that the individual is both trustworthy and worthy of their time. The speaker needs to establish their credibility. One of the ways that a speaker can do this is through an organizing structure. Something like an outline or a story can be a great way to give a speech the direction it needs that people can follow. Affirmations can work as well, but it is important that the speaker know their audience and understand how best to relate their story. A pitch that includes a long story about conscientious objectors might now fly too well when given to an audience of war veterans.
Some people may believe that effective speaking is the result of charisma, but all a speaker is trying to do is to build some kind of relationship with their audience. A great way to build this relationship is through logic. Logic in a speech can mean following an outline or following a series of steps, but what the speaker needs to be aware of is that the audience should repeatedly be made aware of where they are going and where it will end. If the topic is especially convoluted, logic is very helpful, and people are less likely to want to argue with a logically given speech than something that rambles around in circles. Logic also has the added benefit of giving the speaker the aura of authority since they sound like someone who knows what they are talking.
Logic is not the only tool that a speaker has at their disposal to come across with authority. When giving a speech, it can be helpful to cite other authorities. This gives credibility to what the speaker is saying and makes the audience far more trusting. Documentation can help too, but often in a presentation the speaker will already have audio visual aids, and handing out too much documentation during a speech can be distracting. Even more important than logic is the experience of the speaker. This is where a speaker can really shine since citing their own experiences establishes a rapport with the audience because they can feel like they share something with the speaker. Whatever tool the speaker uses, the speaker should know that they are establishing a relationship with their audience, and good communication builds great relationships.
Lisa Drew writes for education blogs where you can read more about emba rankings.