Most corporate support still going to big name charities, research finds
Melanie May | 18 April 2018 | News
The majority of CSR managers agree that local causes are losing government funding yet most firms support big charities, research from The Good Exchange has found.
The Good Exchange’s research questioned 201 CSR managers in Q1 this year. It found that more than three quarters (77%) of respondents agreed that many more local charities and good causes are losing or seeing cuts in funding from central and local government with nearly a third (32%) strongly agreeing with this statement. 75% of managers also agreed that corporate and employee fundraising activities are becoming much more important to the local community as a result.
The majority (58%) reported that between one and five charities/good causes had benefited from their CSR initiatives in the last 12 months. However, most of this funding was donated to national charities (42%), compared with just 20% being allocated to those operating at a local level.
54 charities were mentioned by the managers surveyed as having been supported by their organisations over a 12-month period. 54% of these are one of the top 29 charities in the UK by income, an additional 31% (17) are also either national or international charities and 16% (9) are local charities or good causes.
Ed Gairdner, Chief Operating Officer of The Good Exchange, said:
“Smaller charities and charitable initiatives provide essential support within communities that are dealing with the impact of years of local government cuts. However, they are missing out on vital corporate funding as they cannot compete with the big national charities when it comes to generating awareness of their funding needs and having the time and skills to identify and build relationships with the decision makers in businesses who decide which charities to give money to.
“A combination of the arduous administrative burden and the fact that smaller charities are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to marketing themselves in a sector dominated by the large national charities, results in the majority of businesses funnelling money in to the same small pool of large national charities.”
In fact, 34% said that detailed information about each individual charity and their fundraising projects is not easy to find and that this is a challenge they face when trying to choose who their organisation should support.
43% of respondents agreed with the statement that ‘the administrative burden on our CSR team restricts our ability to donate/raise money for multiple/local causes’, showing that this is also a key stumbling block for many to widening support to more causes.
While 76% of the managers surveyed said that outcome tracking, measurement and reporting and charitable programmes are important to their organisation, with 29% stating that it is extremely important, only 1% said they have an online reporting system that displays results of their organisation’s charitable giving. 44% of CSR managers said they relied on asking the recipient organisation to provide results to measure the impact of their charitable giving.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.