Visceral Business begins third annual study of charities’ use of social digital tools

Howard Lake | 26 July 2013 | News

Visceral Business is once again studying how charities are connecting with supporters and stakeholders through digital technology and social networks. Its 2013 Social Charity study, its third annual report on the issues, is this year being conducted in partnership with online giving site JustGiving.

Charities of all sizes are invited to take part in the online survey. The results will be published in mid-September and should, as in past years, offer a useful benchmark for charities keen to see how other charities are using these tools and channels.

Anne McCrossan, Managing Partner of Visceral Business, says that the 2013 Social Charity study is the largest of its kind in the UK. She undertook it in 2011 to understand and to share how charities are evolving as social organisations, and how they adapting to the demands of funding and budget cuts using the opportunities of digital technology and open data.

She commented: "Charities have experienced a 20% drop in funding according to reports in the last year. They have smaller pockets, but arguably more connections.

"This research gets under the skin of that shift and explores how dynamically and responsively charities can tackle these challenges by creating deeper dialogue with supporters and using data to track and create efficiencies in terms of fundraising and charitable impact."

She acknowledges that every charity will approach these opportunities in different ways. "Part of the purpose of the 2013 Social Charity study" she added, "is to help level the playing field between large and smaller charities and we’re delighted to be working in partnership with JustGiving again this year to help us do that.

"JustGiving’s involvement highlights how sharing can power charitable giving and how social philanthrophy is happening across social networks and we’re excited about what the findings will reveal."

Five themes for 2013

This year's study will focus on five themes:

1. The relationship of revenue to social connections.
    
2. Data and developing impact.
    
3. Social narrative and curation.
    
4. Networked organisation.
    
5. The future.

The survey is open from today to 23 August 2013. You can download free copies of the 2011 and 2012 results from Visceral Business.

Photo: Donate and computer mouse by Raywoo on Shutterstock.com

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.