Marketing Plan for the Federation of Female Lawyers (FFL)

Marketing Plan for the Federation of Female Lawyers (FFL)

Student’s name

Institutional affiliation

Introduction

The Federation of Female Lawyers is a non-profit membership organization for female lawyers that provides free legal aid to underserved women and children. Since its inception 30 years ago, FFL has reached over 3,000, 000 women and children and served them with free legal assistance. The organization has more than 1,500 women lawyers, advocates and law students. The organization is committed to attaining a society that upholds and respects women’s rights. Through its flagship Access to Justice program, FFL prides itself as one of the premier organizations committed to serving marginalized women through the provision of legal aid, legal advice, pro-bono scheme, self-representation and strategic impact litigation.

The Federation of Female Lawyers has its main office located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with four more branches in Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana. The reason for selecting Oklahoma state as the location of the hypothetical company is that the state records the highest rate of domestic violence Statistics show that about 49.1% and 40.7% of men and women, respectively have encountered domestic violence at one point in their lives, including intimate partner violence, partner rape and partner stalking. Discussed in this text are FFL’s mission statement, goals, environmental analysis and SWOT analysis.

Mission Statement

The Federation of Female Lawyers (FFL) has a mission to promote the individual and collective power of women to claim their rights in all spheres of life. The rationale for selecting this mission statement has to do with the values and goals that define the organization. The institution seeks to ensure the rights of women are upheld and respected. Additionally, the mission statement reflects the values of versatility, professionalism, transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness that the organizations hold close to its heart.

Goals

Over the next years, FFL will undertake programmes meant to address the challenges of women in accessing their economic, social, and political rights. Access to Justice (AJ) and Women and Governance (WG) form the bulk of the organizations activities. To implement these programs, the organizations will mobilize stakeholders and resources to deliver justice to women and children.

Long-term Goals

One of the long-term goals of the Federation of Female Lawyers is growing its membership. FFL realizes that there is strength in numbers as they are bigger membership means more resources in terms of manpower which goes a long way in attaining the mandate. To grow the membership, FFL needs to provide adequate communication and strictly adhere to the principles of fair play and equity. All FFL members must be treated with fairness and given a chance to be elected into leadership positions in the organization at the board level. The organization intends to keep track of its membership numbers by maintaining an updated digital membership portal and sending reminders for membership subscriptions. They also plan on conducting quarterly recruitment drives, particularly in higher institutions of learning to encourage law students to sign up as members and giving recruits incentives. Another long-term goal is reducing the level of inequality between women and men in their workplaces, politics, and family setups and overall access to social justice, which is quite significant. The Women and Governance docket which will be in charge of these programs will keep track of the goal by keeping track of the number of women elected to political positions and tracking online and in mainstream media the progress of women in family and work set-ups and taking necessary action.

Short Term Goals

One of the short-term goals that the Federation of Female Lawyers has is to increase the number of women accessing justice by 50% in the next three years. This short-term goal can be measured through tracking the number of women that contact and get assistance from the organization. The organization has a digital data collector employed when screening the clients where clients’ details are recorded. Keeping track of this digital register is a great way to know whether the number of clients receiving help is growing or not. Another short-term goal that FFL has is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. To measure this goal, the institution will undertake client engagement so as to know whether it is making an impact or not.

Environmental analysis

This section contains an analysis of the environment within which the Federation of Female Lawyers operates. It is intended to lay bare issues that the organization prioritizes for intervention. Discussed are also the strategies that the Federation of Female Lawyers intends to use to resolve women’s issues.

Competitive Analysis

The main organization that the Federation of Female lawyers consider as competition is the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The organization’s mission is to answer calls to provide support and shift power to victims of relationship abuse. The organization links clients who contact them to expert and highly trained experts that provide free, compassionate and confidential crisis intervention education, information, and referral services in more than 200 languages. In the last 25 years of existence the organization has responded to over 5.5 million calls, texts, and chats from survivors of abuse, pushed for policy change, forged lasting partnerships and shifted advocacy to best suit the ever-changing needs of survivors (McDonnell, Nagaraj, Mead, Bingenheimer, Stevens, Gianattasio, & Wood, 2018). National Domestic Violence Hotline is considered FFL’s biggest competitor seeing that it provides the same services that FFL does and has been in existence for nearly the same time as FFL.

Economic Analysis

Several economic issues are bound to affect the nature of business at the Federation of Female Lawyers. The United States is the richest nation in the world with a gross domestic product of $20.94 trillion as of 2020. Specifically, Oklahoma State which has a population of 4,002, 612 has recorded an annual growth of 0.3% in the past five years, ranking it position 32 out of the 50 states in terms of growth rate. In 2022, Oklohama’s GDP got to $197.0 billion. Businesses employed about 1, 595, 221 individuals in 2022 with manufacturing, mining, and real estate and rental leasing as the three top sector employers. In 2022, the current rate of unemployment across the state stands at 3.0%. With the current inflation rates skyrocketing and an anticipated stable political environment, FFL is looking to attain growth while at the same time executing its mandate. Despite being one of the richest country in the world, it remains unequal with a myriad of economic and social inequalities. Notably, wealth distribution varies across regions however, women still have the least shares of wealth even at a family level.

Political and Legal Analysis

The United States has a progressive Constitution that gives women with a broad set of rights. However, the laws developed to implement those rights still remain somewhat non-responsive to the needs of women. FFL and other interested parties have come together to advocate and made the laws responsive to the needs of women and children. Politics in the United States are highly divisive, with parties divided into Democrats and Republicans. With such an environment, it is easy for women issues to be forgotten as other agendas take center stage.

Technological Analysis

Technological developments create opportunities for enhancing organizational efficiencies. The Federation of Female Lawyers has already incorporated information technology particularly in its financing sector. The organization has opportunities to use information and communication technology (ICT) in its programmatic works, members and service beneficiaries, and in managing its operations. The organization, for instance, has robust website that facilitates interactions with beneficiaries by posting reports, newsletters, pictures, annual reports, and announcements of any other information that might interest the members of the public.

Socio-cultural Force Analysis.

The United States society is founded on western culture and has been evolving since long before the US became a country. It has its own unique cultural and social characteristics such as arts, music, dialect, cuisine, social habits and folklore. What is interesting is that the world’s greatest superpower has nearly the same great extremities of relative poverty and wealth just like other countries. The general open market has various legal barriers that make both downward and upward status change difficult. Broadly speaking, United States culture is characterized with moderate social mobility.

SWOT Analysis

This sector comprises an analysis of the internal environment within which the Federation of Female Lawyers operates. It covers an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the institution. Worth noting the opportunities and threats facing the organization are considered external.

Strengths

Presence of a grants desk that handles resource mobilization challenge

Established a niche as a leading rights organization for women.

Partnerships and linkages that facilitate referral of cases to like-minded organizations such as the Children’s department or the police

Weaknesses

Funding challenge

Minimal involvement of men and other third parties in championing women’s rights

Overstretched staff, covering a wide area

Opportunities

Leveraging collaborations, alliances, linkages, and partners’ support in deepening program reach

ICT use in service delivery and communication

High demand for services Threats

Partner lethargy to fund the access to justice programme

Competing interests from other human rights organizations

Reliance on a limited poor of donors for a large percentage of funding.

Strengths

Having a grants office is a stronghold as it gives the organization a chance to put one or two persons in charge of fundraising. This is beneficial as the organization is better placed to implement programs without worry of fundraising. Having an established niche in the women’s rights sector is helpful as it indicates they come with experience as well as already established structures. Linkages and partnerships are helpful in facilitating referral cases that need additional support, such as from the police and the Children’s department.

Weakness:

Funding is a challenge for FFL just like other organizations. Meeting the annual budgets required to implement programs and cater to administration costs is not a walk in the park. It requires drawing constant proposals to potential donors as well as cold-pitching. Another challenge is finding men in support of women’s agendas as most of them shy away from such development agendas for women. An overstretched staff is another problem as the staff present there will be expected to cover a wide area that stretches them thin.

Opportunities

One of the opportunities is leveraging collaborations and support from donors to deepen the reach of their programmes. Additionally, also using ICT to communicate and delivery services would push the organization one step closer to its goal. Moreover, the high demand for their free legal aid services is another opportunity they should explore.

Threats

One of the threats that FFL faces is the lethargy of partners in funding the Access to Justice program which is the most demanding and also forms the bulk of the organization. Another threat is competition from other human rights organizations. Also, there is the reliance on only a limited pool of donors for high percentage funding.

Conclusion

In closing, the Federation of Female Lawyers (FFL) is a premier women’s rights organizations group with headquarters in Oklahoma, United States. Its mission is to promote women’s individual and collective power to claim their rights, the organization runs three program with the Access to Justice program as its flagship project. Facing many challenges, the institution trudges on in its mandate of providing women and children with free legal aid services.

References

McDonnell, K., Nagaraj, N., Mead, K., Bingenheimer, J., Stevens, H., Gianattasio, K., & Wood, S. (2018). An Evaluation of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and loveisrespect.