Static and dynamic pricing strategies: how unique for nonprofits?

Abstract

Coherent pricing strategies are important to for-profit firms, but can also be vital to nonprofit organizations. This is clearly true for the arts, education, and hospital and health-care sectors, but can also extend to nonprofits providing vital social services to low-income and otherwise vulnerable populations. By clarifying both static and dynamic pricing strategies that have been successfully used by for-profits, and examining their current application and potential expansion within the nonprofit sector, the striking similarities as well as ongoing distinctions between the two sectors are clarified. Especially in a political climate threatening to be less generous to nonprofits committed to diverse missions, understanding how to generate more earned revenue via shrewd price discrimination, tying/bundling, and yield management and peak-load pricing strategies is vital. Classic research results are incorporated with current theoretical and empirical developments to provide a comprehensive picture of pricing in the nonprofit sector.