Who do you want to know about?
General Public
Volunteers, donors, supporters, campaigners, young people, older people, beneficiaries, carers. Who do you want to know more about?
nfpSynergy has been tracking, researching and reporting on a variety of stakeholder groups for over 10 years. We run syndicated programmes targeting the general public as well as specific demographic groups. We can also help with more detailed, tailored research packages to get an even deeper level of understanding.
Our monitors are a great tool for charities to get affordable, high quality, detailed research on a regular basis that also provides useful benchmarking information.
They provide valuable information and insights that can help you with evidence and data for marketing, policy development, campaigning, fundraising, benchmarking and a big picture view of what’s happening in the sector. Our engagement monitors cover giving and volunteering trends and find out about attitudes, awareness and perceptions amongst a representative sample of the relevant stakeholder group.
The Charity Awareness Monitor is a regular tracking survey of the public's knowledge, understanding, attitudes and awareness of charities, their activities and the services they offer.
Brand Attributes is an annual programme of research which centres on finding out which words or phrases the public associates with their “ideal” charity compared to other named charities. In addition, participating organisations can test out a series of statements about the levels of trust the public have in charities and can also establish general attitudes towards individual charities.
Celtic CAM - Comprehensive research for charities which fundraise, campaign or carry out work in any one or all of the Welsh, Scottish, or Northern Irish markets.
The Irish Charity Engagement Monitor (ICEM) is a new tracking study of attitudes, awareness and perceptions among adults in Ireland.
The Youth Engagement Monitor (YEM) tracks younger people’s (7-25 year-olds) involvement in and awareness of charities or pressure groups, as well as more general social topics and areas of interest in the UK.
Professional audiences
Whether you’re looking to understand what politicians think of your campaigning, how journalists view your organisation or how well healthcare professionals understand your cause, our syndicated monitors can help.
We have helped several organisations with bespoke surveys of various stakeholder groups such as experts, opinion formers, staff and trustees to feed into strategy devlopment programmes.
Journalists from all different media, including newspapers, TV, radio and the internet, are surveyed twice a year for our Charity Media Monitor (CMM) on their thoughts and attitudes towards charities' media activities and campaigns.
Primary Healthcare Monitor - The importance of the role played by GPs and nurses in the medical process led nfpSynergy to conduct research in order to better understand GPs’ and nurses' current level of contact with the voluntary sector in general and specific charities in particular.
The Charity Parliamentary Monitor (CPM) polls MPs four times a year and the Lords once a year to look at their awareness of charities and their campaigns, and also how effective they think different charities are.
We also run the Celtic CPM to cover Wales, Scotland and Ireland
Public Sector - The Attitudes and Awareness Parliamentary Monitor (AAPM) tracks the attitudes of MPs and Peers to public bodies, government agencies and other related organisations.
Public think charities are reaching for higher professional standards
- “Fundraising should be as effective as possible whilst being as unintrusive as possible - not always an easy circle to square,” Saxton comments
- The proportion of charity supporters who see their charities as “striving to achieve the highest professional standards at all times” has risen steadily (slide 2), from 47% in 2007 to 55% in 2010 - according to new data out today.
Only one in ten (12%) of supporters now actively disagree with this sentiment.
Leading not-for-profit sector research consultancy nfpSynergy’s Charity Awareness Monitor regularly surveys a representative sample of 1000 16+ year olds throughout mainland Britain, asking them a range of charity-related questions - including how they perceive the professionalism of charities they support, and what key factors that think constitute potential barriers to giving.
Perhaps less encouragingly (slides 3 & 4), half the public (even higher incidence amongst women and 25-34 year olds) say over-persistent (50%) or intrusive fundraising (49%) would put them off giving to a particular charity; and two fifths (41%) say bad publicity would have the same effect (even higher incidence amongst those aged 65+, and lower socio-demographic groups).
nfpSynergy’s Driver of Ideas, Joe Saxton, said:
“The charity sector can by cheered by the fact that more and more supporters seemingly think charities always strive to achieve the highest professional standards. That said, this new data also suggests that charities need to make sure fundraising is as effective as possible whilst being as unintrusive as possible - not always an easy circle to square. High-profile professional standards are the bedrock of this approach - not just in fundraising but also in other areas of charities' work.”
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MEDIA COMMENT: To interview nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton about these findings, please contact him direct on 07976 329 212 or joe.saxton@nfpsynergy.net; or, alternatively, contact Adrian Gillan (0774 086 7215; E: adrian@gillanmedia.com) for further assistance.
Note to editors:
nfpSynergy (www.nfpsynergy.net) is the UK’s only research consultancy dedicated to the charity sector and not-for-profit issues. It provides ideas, insights and information to help voluntary and community organisations thrive in an ever-changing world. Regularly harvesting the social and charity-related views of public and parliament, media and business - not to mention not for profit organisations themselves - nfpSynergy has a vast and ever-growing knowledge pool from which to extract and deliver insights.
Our recent research shows that the majority of the public aren’t aware of the Charity Commission. Only 43% of the public say they are aware of the Charity Commission (with 30% saying they are ‘definitely aware’ and 13% saying they are ‘aware’.). The rest either say they don’t know or they aren’t aware. Interestingly these figures have changed little since 2004 when we last asked this question in the same way (if anything they show a drop in awareness, but the methodology is different so it’s hard to be definitive).
Less than half (43%) of the public think they have heard of the Charity Commission
- Less than half (43%) the public think they have heard of the Charity Commission
- Less than a third (30% - slide 3, attached) of the public have definitely heard of it
- Only a quarter (25%) of public are definitely aware that the Charity Commission regulates and monitors the activities of charities
Public see the Charity Commission’s prime functions (slide 4) as keeping a charity register; and investigating fraudulent/bogus charities
The public appear less aware of the Charity Commission, and what it does, now than 7 years ago (slide 5)
nfpSynergy’s Driver of Ideas, Joe Saxton, comments:
“Awareness of the Charity Commission is surely a vital ingredient of building public trust in charities. If people aren’t aware of the charity regulator, it’s hard to see how they can be reassured by the regulation it does. It’s in every charity’s interest that the public knows about the Charity Commission and the work that it does. This research shows we have a long way to go to achieve that goal.”
SOURCE: nfpSynergy’s Charity Awareness Monitor, which regularly surveys a representative sample of 1000 16+ year olds throughout mainland Britain, asking them a range of charity-related questions.
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MEDIA COMMENT: To interview nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton about these findings, please contact him direct on 07976 329 212 or joe.saxton@nfpsynergy.net; or, alternatively, contact Adrian Gillan (0774 086 7215; E: adrian@gillanmedia.com) for further assistance.
Note to editors:
nfpSynergy (www.nfpsynergy.net) is the UK’s only research consultancy dedicated to the charity sector and not-for-profit issues. It provides ideas, insights and information to help voluntary and community organisations thrive in an ever-changing world. Regularly harvesting the social and charity-related views of public and parliament, media and business - not to mention not for profit organisations themselves - nfpSynergy has a vast and ever-growing knowledge pool from which to extract and deliver insights.
When we started the process of creating a new website last Autumn we asked you, the people who visited our website what you liked and didn’t like about the old site. To be honest you damned us with faint praise. Nothing was terrible (though accessibility was an issue). When we probed a bit deeper people had problems finding what they were looking for. Our crown jewels, the host of free reports we have produced over the years, were difficult to search for by topic or by author or by anything else for that matter.
State of the sector 2011
You know what the key challenges and priorities are within your own organisation – but how are contemporary economic and political challenges impacting your colleagues in the third sector? Exploring the key findings from our regular survey into what the sector is thinking and prioritising right now, drawing on data gathered in Autumn 2011.
Giving in hard times: the latest donor insight from the Charity Awareness Monitor
The Charity Awareness Monitor (CAM) surveys the general public twelve times a year on all aspects of charitable engagement - from awareness of brands and donation habits through to views on campaigning, levels of trust and barriers to giving. Drawing on recent data, this session examines the key trends you need to know about this year.