While recognizing the value of a unique and consistent organizational identity, NGOs understand that their behaviors, rather than their identities, generate the credibility, trust, and loyalty among NGOs’ stakeholders both domestical-ly and internationaldomestical-ly. Neardomestical-ly all interviewed executives agreed that, although corporate reputation is in the eyes of the beholder (i.e., the organization’s stakeholders and publics), its management is not out of the organization’s control. Therefore, the four NGOs take a strategic approach to building their reputational capital both in the United States and abroad. As mentioned earli-er, some of the reputational strategies NGOs employ include: (a) commitment to quality of the services they provide directly to stakeholders and projects they fund through implementing partners; (b) relationship-building ground-ed in the empowerment of host-country stakeholders; and (c) thought-out management of issues concerning stakeholders at home and abroad.
NGOs believe that the quality of what they do is one of the building blocks of a good reputation—from lobbying the government on human rights issues (e.g., AJC) to selling family planning products in low-income communities (e.g., DKT), and from offering volunteer services to grassroots community-based human rights organizations (e.g., AJWS) to supporting micro-finance initiatives in the developing countries (e.g., ERD). Moreover, NGOs working through host-country civil society organizations (e.g., AJWS and ERD) expect their implementing partners on the ground to use the fund-ing provided by NGOs effectively.
DKT focuses on promoting its family planning and reproductive health products and services rather than the organization. According to the inter-viewed executives, DKT’s brands have gained recognition in the developing
world for their safety and affordability. The NGO delegates responsibility for marketing contraceptives to its country-office managers who understand both the politics and markets in their respective host countries. Although the establishment in some host countries may not approve of family planning programs, DKT seeks to comply with local customs and foster long-term partnerships with national governments and civil societies. Such autonomy and flexibility of operations in each country allows DKT to be accepted as a natural part of the commercial landscape and become a key player in the area of family planning. Frequently, host-country governments and international aid agencies either buy the NGO’s products or award grants to DKT for im-plementing family and HIV/AIDS prevention programs in those countries.
As a result of a growing demand for its brands, DKT generates most of its revenues from sales, thus reducing its dependency on grants or donations. “I think we do care about how we are perceived, but we spend more time trying to get our job done,” noted a DKT executive.
Another reputational strategy by NGOs involves building and maintain-ing relationships both domestically and internationally with such stakeholder groups as members and donors in the United States, host-country civil so-ciety organizations, and governments. Most NGOs earn the trust of their counterparts in host countries by strengthening local capacities and encour-aging local initiative.
In its relationships with grassroots organizations in poor countries, AJWS avoids throwing its weight around. The making NGO wants its grant-ees and project partners to have a say in how to use the funding for effec-tive community development. AJWS is also aware that its volunteers (i.e., predominantly U.S. citizens) might draw unwanted attention to their host organizations, which often represent marginalized populations or work on human rights issues that aren’t supported by local authorities. Because media coverage might jeopardize the safety of both the volunteer and local staff, AJWS’s volunteers are not allowed to speak with the press or blog about their experiences in the host country without the New York City-based headquar-ters’ permission.
A DKT executive underscored humility in interactions and respect for host-country stakeholders. The executive cautioned against making the bene-ficiaries of assistance “feel an obligation that can never be repaid.” DKT wants its employees to remember that the NGO’s stakeholders should be given a choice to accept or reject the assistance, “They are the ones who can choose to improve their lives.”
ERD’s philosophy is to “leave no footprints” and empower the imple-menting partners on the ground “to be active agents of change.” In addition
to providing financial support, ERD encourages those local organizations to grow and eventually generate other sources of revenue. For the most part, ERD’s implementing partners are known in their countries for providing services the respective governments don’t provide. Nevertheless, the NGO monitors how its relief and development funds are spent. ERD believes it en-joys a favorable reputation by ensuring that the implementing partners in host countries live up to the organization’s principles and methods of providing services. ERD’s executive said, “Our corporate reputation is also dependent on the quality of the work carried out in our name. And it is why we establish vigorous monitoring and evaluation standards.”
AJC’s relationship with its stakeholders such as U.S.-based members and donors, as well as Jewish communities around the world, is premised on the understanding of their needs and expectations. The NGO engages in opinion research to identify the issues of concern for the Jewish minorities. AJC’s re-lationship-building efforts also involve finding a common ground with those stakeholder groups that might not share the same ideologies and beliefs (e.g., building alliances with Catholic and Muslim institutions in the United States and overseas). Furthermore, AJC generates intangible reputational capital by nurturing connections with the U.S. political, business, and cultural elites and by encouraging its board, management and staff to engage in the civic and political life of the United States. The interviewed executives believe that being associated with the American establishment enhances the effectiveness of AJC’s advocacy work with U.S. and foreign governments on behalf of the NGO’s domestic and international stakeholders. When AJC disagrees with U.S. or foreign government policies vis-à-vis the Jewish people or universal human rights, the NGO can capitalize on its connections to power to “take on the government directly or indirectly, publicly or privately,” thus establish-ing itself as a credible representative of its constituents.
One more component of NGOs’ reputational strategies is addressing the issues that might affect them or their stakeholders. As expected, for the two advocacy organizations (i.e., AJC and AJWS), issues management is more than a reputational strategy, it is also what they do. Guided by a sense of urgency for constituents and the availability of adequate resources, advocacy NGOs identify decision-makers, build coalitions with allies and map out the advocacy strategies. AJC manages issues both reactively and proactively. An AJC executive explained that the NGO responds to the news and to visits of government officials to and from the United States as opportunities to catalyze its human rights agenda. “We are sensitive to a particular role that our government may play in advancing our agenda,” added the interviewed executive. Part of AJC’s issue management requires years of proactive work
on Capitol Hill to influence a particular piece of legislation (e.g., on Israel and Palestine or on immigration in the United States).
AJWS engages in both direct and grassroots lobbying. The NGO tries to influence those policy issues that might affect its worldwide projects (e.g., global funding for AIDS, debt forgiveness for developing coun-tries, or the U.S. foreign assistance reform). According to an interviewed executive, Americans ought to know more about the hope that U.S.
NGOs-sponsored development projects bring to small communities in developing countries, but the U.S. news media do not cover those issues frequently. “Most of our projects are in urban slums or in rural areas, and the press is not actually walking around, looking for quotes…. This isn’t the type of thing the New York Times looks to write about,” said an AJWS executive. Therefore, AJWS encourages its volunteers returning to the United States to speak and write about their experiences in the developing countries and advocate for global justice at home. “The best way to get involved with us locally is to be an advocate for all kinds of social change,”
explained an AJWS executive.
An ERD executive mentioned that a controversy in the church, such as the debate within the Anglican Community on the ordination of gay bish-ops, would be one of those issues that might affect the organization and its relationships with stakeholders. The NGO’s implementing partners in host countries might disagree with the position that the Episcopal Church in the United States takes. In those instances, ERD finds a common ground with host-country counterparts and diplomatically shifts the focus from ideology to disaster relief or development projects. “We have a lot of things we can agree about,” an interviewed executive said. At the same time, the NGO seeks to demonstrate to its donor base in the United States its ability to work out disagreements with host-country partners and direct its support to those in need regardless of their beliefs.
NGOs’ Autonomy and Pluralism as U.S. Reputational Assets
The findings from these case studies suggest that NGOs contribute to strengthening the United States’ global standing by being epitomes of the autonomy and pluralism of the U.S. civil society. Nearly all interviewed ex-ecutives underscored that their NGOs’ relationships with the U.S. Govern-ment are based on equality and autonomy. Inspired by the U.S. values of democracy and freedom, these four NGOs reserve the right to disagree with government policies and openly share their dissenting position with domestic and international stakeholders and publics.
According to an AJC executive, generally, the NGO works with the gov-ernment, not against it. However, as another executive pointed out, being an advocacy organization requires that the NGO challenge the official U.S. pol-icies when those contravene the NGO’s values or fail to meet its stakehold-ers’ expectations. When the U.S. Congress and Administration have different positions on the issues of importance for AJC (e.g., immigration reform or protection of the rights of asylum seekers), the NGO capitalizes on this differ-ence of opinions by allying with those in government who share its stance on these issues. AJC’s executives argued that other U.S. faith-based international NGOs (e.g., Evangelical, Catholic and other Jewish groups) are equally un-constrained in their speech.
AJWS, DKT and ERD frequently oppose the U.S. government’s foreign aid policies. Most interviewed executives argued that U.S. development assis-tance programs prioritize national interests over global development needs.
An executive explained that, because of such disagreement, AJC is not only reluctant to pursue government funding, but also actively advocates for a policy reform. According to a DKT executive, disagreement with official U.S.
foreign aid policies would not prevent the organization either from applying for government contracts or from making its dissenting voice heard. Like-wise, being a recipient of government funding, does not deter ERD from expressing its opposing views.
The interviewed executives argued that their NGOs’ global stakehold-ers and publics make a distinction between the U.S. government and U.S.
NGOs. In those instances when U.S. NGOs might be perceived by some publics as agents of the U.S. government, NGOs’ source of funding (i.e., whether or not the NGO receives funds from the U.S. government) appears to play little or no role. By and large, however, in the international arena these NGOs tend to be perceived as agents of U.S. civil society. By virtue of rep-resenting specific segments of U.S. society (e.g., American Jews or American Episcopalians) and sharing inherent American values (e.g., pursuit of justice or social marketing), the four NGOs bring to light the plurality of U.S. civil society and assume ownership in the U.S. national identity.
Furthermore, while these cases studies reflect only NGOs’ own views on their corporate reputations, NGOs’ interactions with their stakeholders and publics in host countries appear to be connected with the U.S. standing in those host countries. The four NGOs recognize that the U.S. reputation in host countries either facilitates or impedes U.S. NGOs’ operations in those countries. Likewise, these NGOs are cognizant of how their corporate behav-iors in host countries affect the overall perception about the United States and, in turn, impact the operating environments in those countries for all
types of U.S. organizations. As a result, while U.S. NGOs may not be engag-ing in strategic reputation management on behalf of the United States, the outcomes of their own reputation management go beyond their corporate in-terests. In addition, because of their explicit country-of-origin identities, the four NGOs have an intrinsic interest in improving the U.S. standing overseas.
Therefore, U.S. NGOs share responsibility for the U.S. reputation and add to the nation’s global outreach efforts.
Finally, although the examples reviewed in this chapter ostensibly em-phasize the American identity of U.S. NGOs and First Amendment-based freedoms of expression, association and petition, the argument for non-state actors’ global outreach applies in the context of other nations as well. One of the interviewed executives suggested that American NGOs are more likely to challenge the U.S. government’s foreign policies whereas, for example, comparable European NGOs tend to limit their advocacy before respective European governments to domestic issues. Such a subjective generalization may not reflect the reality of European NGOs, and U.S. NGOs’ inherent dissent may not be uniquely American after all. Notwithstanding the degree of independence from their respective governments, civil society groups such as NGOs represent a range of opinions and play a role in formation of public opinion in their own countries and abroad (Cohen & Arato, 1992; Haber-mas, 1989). This fundamental aspect of civil society implies that none of the three layers of a nation’s of public diplomacy (i.e., mediated, reputation-al or relationreputation-al) (Golan, 2013) can succeed unless it embraces the nation’s NGOs—those with close government ties, those in opposition, and all those in between.