Public overestimates its generosity to tsunami appeals, says survey
Howard Lake | 11 January 2005 | News
According to a Populus poll for The Times, the British public claims to have given eight times more than it actually has to the current tsunami earthquake emergency appeals.
The survey found that 83% of the public said that their household had made a donation to the appeals, with just 15% saying they had not made a donation. The average claimed donation worked out at £33.28.
If these figures were accurate, then the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) would have raised “more than £800 million” instead of the £100 million that it has. Other charities have raised an additional £25 million.
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The survey interviews were carried out between 7 and 9 January 2005, at which point the DEC said it had received around 3 million donations from Britain’s 24.1 million housholds.
While double counting of donations would account for some of this discrepancy, it does seem likely that many individuals are not accurate or entirely frank about their charitable giving. This has been noted in other research into charitable giving which focuses on what donors say rather than on charities’ income reports.
Possible reasons for this discrepancy include people not wishing to admit that they haven’t contributed to the largest and most successful public fundraising appeal to date, or people not admitting that, although they would donate, they hadn’t yet got round to it. The latter is unlikely, however, as 62% of the 15% who said that they hadn’t given said that they were still planning to do so.
The poll also reported interesting differences in the amount claimed to have been given by different age groups. According to The Times, 25 to 34-year-olds gave the highest average donation at £36.53, with over 10% of them saying they gave £100 or more. Those aged 18 to 24 years old gave an average of £29.91.
The lesson from this exercise in asking people to recall what they’d given to a single and very high profile appeal within the past week is that donors’ recollections alone can not be relied upon.
- DEC Tsunami appeal closes but website continues to accept donations (28 February 2005)
- UK public’s response to 2022 DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal sets Guinness World Record (11 May 2022)
- DEC Tsunami appeal reaches £300 million and will close shortly (18 February 2005)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.