Cancer remains UK public’s favourite cause, says nfpSynergy
Melanie May | 11 October 2016 | News
Cancer remains the public’s favourite cause, selected by 48% across all age groups, followed by animals, and children and young people, according to research from nfpSynergy.
In fact, Facts and Figures – Public’s Favourite Causes 2016 shows that the top five favourite causes of cancer, animals (34%), children and young people (29%), hospices, and health and medical (excluding cancer) have remained the same since 2010, although other causes are rising in popularity, such as the UK Armed Forces.
However, despite cancer being the most popular cause, it does not attract the largest proportion of public donations. While overall the top five favourite causes received the highest proportion of individual donations in 2015, the cause that attracts the most individual donations is children and young people (30%), ahead of medical research this year (29%) for the first time. This is despite a decline in popularity of children and young people’s charities, which has dropped from second to third place this year.
The research also shows that:
- Older people are more likely to support causes that affect older people, while young people are more likely to support children and young person’s charities.
- Children and young people are the public’s third most popular cause, and have surpassed medical research to attract the largest proportion of individual donations since 2015.
- Support for homelessness and social welfare causes has increased significantly over the last 10 years.
- The four least popular causes have also remained the same, including dementia, which is favoured by 9%, down from last year’s 14%.
nfpSynergy found that most causes are fairly equal in popularity amongst males and females, with two notable exceptions. While both male and females picked the same top three causes (cancer, animals and children and young people), men are slightly more likely to favour armed forces causes. 21% of men picked armed forces causes, compared to 17% of women.
Women are also far more likely to favour animal charities than men (40% and 28% respectively), while social grade, household income and political opinion do not seem to have much of an effect on people’s choices of favourite charities.
Advertisement
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.