Britons prefer charity donation to unwanted Christmas present
Howard Lake | 19 November 2008 | News
A survey for Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has found that nearly two-thirds of Britons would prefer a donation to charity rather than an unwanted Christmas present.
CAF’s research showed that 54% of the UK adult population received unwanted Christmas presents in 2007, and that 65% would rather receive one less gift and a donation made to charity instead. Nearly a fifth (18 percent) received a charity donation on their behalf instead of a Christmas present in 2007.
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Chocolates (27%), soaps or perfume (21%), books (17%) and DVDs (16%) topped the list of unwanted Christmas presents in 2007.
Following this research CAF is launching the "Pants Presents appeal" to encourage people to say no to ‘pants’ presents this Christmas and for friends and family to donate to charity instead.
From the appeal’s website, users can send an email to their friends and family asking them to give to charity instead of giving them a present. A dedicated Facebook page featuring the campaign will also be created.
Both website and Facebook page allow users to search over 170,000 charities for causes that matter to themselves, their friends or family. Users will be able to make payments to them directly via credit and debit cards or from CAF Charity and Trust Accounts.
Charities who work with CAF will receive a free campaign pack. This could serve as a do-it-yourself Christmas fundraising campaign for charities on very limited budgets.
The decision of what to do with any unwanted presents that are still received will be tackled in a post-campaign email. Last year, donating to charity shops was the most popular outlet for unwanted presents (37%), ahead of giving to family or friends (34%) and selling the unwanted presents on eBay (7%).
Shelia Hooper, Marketing Director at CAF, said: "We recognise that charities are facing a potential shortfall in funds . With the Pants Presents campaign, CAF is helping charities launch a Christmas fundraising drive at no cost to them. For many small and medium sized charities this may provide a financial boost in what are tough economic conditions."
The research was conducted for CAF by GfK NOP via telephone between 26-28 September 2008 amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,002 UK adults aged 16+.
www.pantspresents.org
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.