A Non-Profit that empowers people and itself

About

Noorul-Huda Mosque is a nongovernmental organization that focuses on the Propagation of Islam by facilitating Islamic knowledge from sound Islamic scholars in its mosque.

Challenge:

How do you educate Muslims all over Nigeria on their religion and correct misconceptions in the religion every week without relying on donations or sponsorship?

Strategy:

Invite three eminent Islamic scholars to their mosque three times a week and the forth scholar every last Saturday of the month.

They lectures are aired on Lagos Station Television which has the largest reach in south western Nigeria. They also bought time on Bond fm Radio that also have a very larger followership in the south western Nigeria.

 

They got professional producers to package the lectures into videos and audios. The lectures were packaged into CDs and VCDs for mass distribution. They created a nationwide network of licensed distributors.

They embark on regular awareness campaign on piracy and the Islamic negative consequences of piracy on the seller and buyer of pirated products as well as encourage whistleblowing on piracy which made it difficult for pirates to sell their lectures.

Results:

While so many other Islamic organizations are lamenting about poor sponsorship for their projects Noorul-Huda Mosque’s TV and Radio programs have been on for more than five years now without seeking for donors.

Noorul-Huda Mosque has sold millions of copies of CDs and VCDs.

Donors are voluntarily donating to Noorul-Huda Mosque’s project.

PR Lesson

1.      NGOs should collaborate with professionals in their area of interest to produce something that will be valuable to their target audience. 

2.      NGOs can also package this valuable program in such a way that it becomes something sponsors will be really interested in being a part of.

3.      The time has come when we need to drop this idea of seeing CSR as doing the NGOs a favour. NGOs must position themselves as a source of energy for brands and corporation. Corporation should be indebted to the NGOs for helping them build goodwill and providing the needed energy for their brand’s continuous market relevance.

4. NGOs must stop being a dependant organisation and become a self-sustaining and dependable organisation.