Managing the Life Cycle of a Community Project

A review of the literature reveals that it is customary to adopt a marketing approach in community project development, without analyzing the need for different phases in the life cycle of the project. The present article reports a study that examined the implementation of the marketing approach in 11 projects by 54 experts-specialists and professionals in Israel. It suggests that there is a need to match the different components of the marketing approach to different phases of the project's life cycle. The article describes and explains how to combine five central elements in the marketing area, namely, target market, social product, price, distribution, and promotion. The article discusses the necessity of adjusting the marketing components during four main phases in a project life cycle, namely, initiation, planning, implementation, and institutionalization.