importance of their contribution. A training and development programme
was announced that would be an on-going process and aimed to empower
staff to take customer-focused initiatives. Entitled ‘Full Power’, it aimed to
underline the importance of every individual’s role in communicating the
message of the RSPB to the outside world. All participants would be
encouraged to:
●examine the way in which the Society communicates its messages to the
outside world
●identify ‘audiences’, both internal and external
●use clear communication skills in dealing with these audiences
●identify different opportunities to get messages across effectively
●apply these principles to improve the way the RSPB communicates.
The RSPB and other charities are different from other types of industry in
terms of staff and staff recruitment. They embrace the whole spectrum of
the labour market, from unpaid part-timers to full-time, highly paid exec-
utives. As some now operate highly sophisticated sales operations, it has
been more recent practice to employ talented and experienced executives
and to pay the market price for that skill.
Most employees are passionate about birds and highly committed to the
RSPB cause. As a result, recruitment is usually a case of trying to identify
the best candidate from large numbers of applications for each job. This is
in addition to the increasing number of volunteers that give their services
free to help in the shops and reserves each year.
Policy development
Policy issues also became broader under the outline of the plan. It recog-
nized a need to develop policy on a more global basis and now covered
such issues as trade and aid. Environmental and conservation issues
would also increase their scope and concentrate particularly on the EEC
dimension. The RSPB has always had a wide range of policy interests and
has great expertise in actively campaigning and getting wide publicity for
policy issues. For example, MPs, MEPs, EC officials, civil servants, peers
and political advisers are constantly briefed and lobbied to promote
changes to UK and EC legislation.
In order to campaign effectively, membership levels are vital to the
Society; it has more members than the Labour, Liberal and Conservative
parties combined and MPs are known to listen much more carefully to an
organization that has influence on a large number of his or her con-
stituents. The Society relies on members’ endorsement of the work that is
done; renewed memberships reflect this approval and give added strength
to their lobbying power.
134 Relationship Marketing