Implementing the Marketing Plan: How Higher-Level Engagement Can Create Value for Students and Their Nonprofit Partners

Abstract

Marketing and soft skills are increasingly important for success in the nonprofit sector. As such, marketing and fundraising plans are among the most widely assigned experiential projects in nonprofit education programs; yet they often occur with a low level of interaction, culminating in students’ presenting the plan to nonprofit leaders. Rarely do students interact at higher levels such as by working with the nonprofit to raise funds. The purpose of the current study is to compare the benefits afforded by two different pedagogical approaches—one that involves a project where students simply write a marketing plan and one that involves a project where students also implement the marketing plan—and to explore how higher-level interaction, compared with lower-level interaction, impacts perceived student learning, actual student learning, and the tangible value created for the nonprofit partner. Importantly, the projects are suitable for students with little or no prior marketing experience.