Charities's disaster appeal communications need improving, say Plan
Howard Lake | 14 February 2011 | News
A survey for international children’s development charity, Plan UK, suggests that fewer than half (43%) of people who donate to charity disaster appeals are told about the difference their money has made. The survey, carried out by research company ComRes on Plan’s behalf, found other elements of donor communications that needed addressing by international charities.
The research was commissioned in order to understand the public’s perception of the media’s reporting of humanitarian disasters. In terms of donor communications, it found that only 20% who contributed to disaster appeals received some sort of communication regarding their donation. Only 5 per cent of these were personalised; and remarkably just 9% of respondents were thanked.
“Rightly, many people want to take some kind of action when they see a disaster unfold,” said Plan UK’s Director of Fundraising, Jeremy Cooper. “However, if we don’t thank and inform them properly, we miss the opportunity to build support and understanding for the fact that aid
works.”
The research confirmed that awareness of disasters is mostly high amongst the British public, with only 4% of people not recalling seeing coverage of events in countries like Haiti and Pakistan in the last year.
More than half of those surveyed (51%) said that they were likely to donate to specific appeals from charities following natural disasters; 56% said they have already taken action after watching reports on events like floods, famine and earthquakes, with 36% donating money. More women said that they gave to disaster appeals: the survey reports that 43% of women had contributed cash to disaster charities, compared to 29% of men.
Former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, and Plan UK patron, Sir John Holmes, commented on the survey’s findings, saying: “Aid agencies need to learn how to communicate more effectively and journalists need to understand better the dynamics of a disaster and what is possible and necessary in aid terms.”
ComRes interviewed 2051 adults online between 14 and 16 January 2011. Data was weighted to be representative demographically of all adults in Great Britain.
www.plan-uk.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.