138 Relationship Marketing
National TrustFacts
●Membership stands at 2.29 million.
●Own 241 hectares, 550 miles of coastline and 245 properties.
●Spend £9.9 million on routine property repairs and maintenance.
●Million paying visitors per year to houses, gardens and land.
●Have high tech, interactive computer centres in over 30 properties.
●32 000 volunteers give over 1.86 million hours of their free time per year.
●All property is inalienable – it can never be sold or mortgaged in the future.Aims and objectives
●The Trust’s role is to: ‘preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty
permanently for the benefit of the nation’.
●They believe the reason for their success comes from: ‘the dedicated people
who serve our mission, whether paid or volunteer, whether donors of prop-
erty or funds; and our great army of members’, and also from ‘our independ-
ence of the serving government’.
They have recently been taking a more holistic view of their role to get away
from the ‘stately home image’. Using language similar to the RSPB they stress
both their habitat management role and focus on conservation.Perception of the National Trust
●The majority of members see it as a guardian of habitats, animal and plant
life.
●Only a third of members believe the Trust aims to encourage participation in
its work by the local community, few see it as pioneering or innovative.
●Members see their subscription as being both a contribution to heritage
preservation as well as an encouragement to visit.
●The public see the Trust as wealthy as they own wonderful and impressive
places filled with treasures.The Trust goes to great lengths to stress that they
are not rich and inevitably a lot of houses run at a deficit.Future strategic directions
●The Trust will emphasize more strongly their conservation/environment work.
More involvement with global and European issues – 11 of the Trust’s regions
now get financial aid from the EU.Figure 2.6.2 Competitor profile