ABSTRACT
Corporate managers need to recognize that there are two broad types of non-governmental organization (NGO): service NGOs, such as humanitarian aid or development assistance; and advocacy NGOs. This chapter focuses on a company's relationships with advocacy NGOs. Corporate Engagement Project has seen a number of senior managers of large and powerful corporations become unnerved by advocacy NGOs. Corporate managers often assume that advocacy NGOs are well-organized and well-financed adversaries whose sole interest is in making the company look bad. Advocacy groups say that it is not their duty to provide solutions for companies. Some advocacy NGOs focus their efforts on a single issue, a single company, or even a particular site of a company. Sometimes these NGOs effectively become the authorities on the area of their focus and are cited by other organizations that base their own campaigns on information obtained from these expert NGOs.
