An evaluation of advertising strategies of not-for-profit institutions: a case study of Tanzania revenue authority and the president’s office-public service management

The study evaluated advertising strategies of not-for-profit institutions in Tanzania using the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and the Public Service Management division in the President’s Office (PO-PSM) as case studies. The motive was to investigate how advertising strategies are used by not-for-profit institutions to communicate with target customers so as to reveal how effectively and comprehensively advertising has been employed by these organisations. The research design was descriptive (cross sectional) which best suited the nature of the study. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to taxpayers, public servants and Tanzanians. Interviews were conducted with the Public Relations Officers of the two Institutions. Data was analysed using the SPSS package and summaries were presented in the form of tables, graphs and narrative models and The Pearson’s Chi square test was employed in assessing the relationships between variables. The findings suggested that customer perception of advertising of not-for-profit organisations differs from that of commercially oriented ones. Most respondents have seen TRA adverts portraying its operations, but about half of the respondents never saw or read PO-PSM advertisements. Also the findings revealed that the Institutions do not have centralized departments to prepare the advertisements instead each department prepares its own adverts. The study results have shown that TRA and PO-PSM organizations do not put much effort in advertising their services. However, TRA does better in advertising programs compared with PO-PSM where for the latter, few people understand their operations. It is recommended that PO-PSM and TRA need to have advertising departments separate from public relations and employ qualified personnel in order to increase efficiency in developing and managing their advertising programs.