Strategic Communication for Non-Profit Organisations: Challenges and Alternative Approaches

Communication in the public sphere as well as within organizational contexts has attracted the interest of researchers over the past century. Current forms of citizen engagement and community development, partly enabled through digital communication, have further enhanced the visibility and relevance of non-profit communication. These are performed by the civil society, which is 'the organized expression of the values and interests of society' (Castells, 2008) in the public sphere. Non-profit communication feeds the public sphere as 'the discursive processes in a complex network of persons, institutionalized associations and organizations, ' whereas those 'discourses are a civilized way of disagreeing openly about essential matters of common concern' (Jensen, 2002). Despite the relevance in the public sphere, non-profit communication was never properly defined within communication research. The aim of the present book is to offer an overview and report on Strategic Communication for Non-Profit-Organisations and the Challenges and Alternative Approaches. Considering the assumption that key principle of strategic communication is the achievement of organisational goals, the majority of research developed in the field has used business environments to develop theories, models, empirical insights and case studies. Here, we make a step on the proposal of new approaches that are centred on the concept of non-profit in various dimensions and from various perspectives, showing the diversity and complexity around this subject and at the same time the need of further theoretical and empirical work that provide frameworks and also tools for further understanding of the phenomena.