There are a lot of people doing their papers on non-profit organizations. That's good. For a lot of you it does represent 'getting out of your comfort zone' and you may not be familiar with an important informational site. Charity Navigator provides important insights into how charities and their donors measure success. It only covers US non-profits; there may be similar services in other countries/regions, and it would be interesting if some of you find them. It is a site that all of us should be familiar with. Their tagline says it all: "Find a Charity You Can Trust."
There are also people doing their papers on educational institutions. In higher ed, the "competitors" are called "peers." The point is less competition than it is to benchmark against their operations. There are tools for an institution to determine its peers, but I doubt that any outsider would have the data to use them. A search turned up a list of the peers for any institution I checked, so that's easy. As a last resort, you could ask them. You'd probably have to go through the press/media relations office.
And for everyone, in the Searches Related To at the bottom of Google search pages you may find some hints about who the major competitors are. I wouldn't take this as definitive, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
I hope by now that you have not only set up one or more Google Alerts for your brand, but you've also signed up for all the customer communications they offer. Over time that will give you insight into their marketing strategy, but you can't do it the week before the paper is due and expect to get useful information.
It never fails to amaze me how much one takes for granted in America. Having access to reliable information on charities is really a privilege, and one that is very hard to obtain in many parts of the developing world, particularly Middle East where many charities are run by politicians for primarily political purposes. For many of these charities, there is no visible strategy online as they still lag behind using the internet. This is a very interesting field for future research, particularly in light of the impact of social media and youth involvement in igniting revolutions in the region. Challenge is how to get these charities to think strategically before thinking about an online marketing strategy!
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