Next Is The Charity Assignment...

So with a new day, brings a new assignment.  This time it is based around Charity, which to be honest, does not sound too scary.  But ofcorse this means Research again....

Firstly, it would only be right of me to explain the actual assignment to you, well actually there is three assignments involved in this.  The first one is for the module 'Understanding the Customer'  whilst another is for 'The Role of Marketing in Business'  and then finally the last one is for 'Effective Modern Marketing Communications.'  The main aspect based around these three assignments was charitable giving.  The first assignment we completed was to gather Primary and Secondary research based upon giving to charity.  The second assignment was to raise a certain amount of money for a chosen charity and finally the third assignment was to create a presentation based on all the marketing techniques which we used during this process.  But before we could actually move onto the second and third pieces, we had to gather a general basis on Charitable Giving and this is what I discovered through research:

1) General information about Charities -

• Charitable giving is becoming increasingly popular within society today, due to a majority of charities having a number of awareness and fundraising campaigns. Therefore around two thirds of adults in 2010 donated to charity, with nearly half of them donating regularly throughout the whole year, (mintel 2010). 
• Stated by charitycommission (2011) there are more than 180,000 registered charities in England and Wales which in total generate more than £52 billion income.  However according to recent research of charitable giving, donations are now down due to the recession. 
• Charitycommission (2009) suggests that 56% of charities have reported that they have been and are currently affected by the economic downturn.  Even though many consumers are committed to donating and are making plans to donate in the future, (Mintel 2010).

2) Information on Charitable Giving - To complete this task it was important that I used different research techniques which included a variety of both Primary and Secondary research.  I used focus groups, mintel, TGI and many others to discover different things about charitable giving this is what was discovered:

Firstly, it was easy to discover that males were less likely to donate than females.  Using Charities Aid Foundation (2010) its states that women aged between 45-64 are the most likely to donate to charity.  Nfpsynergy (2006) also showed that 28% of single women compared to 18% of single men would have given to charity within the last month. This was also supported by the focus groups which were held.  It was also proven that females were more likely to donate more on a regular basis.  Within the focus groups which were held one female said "I give £2 a month" whilst a male said "I don't give very often."  This again is supported by TGI (2007) where 54.7% of women and only 45.3% of men have donated over £5 to charity within the last 12 months. 

The differences between gender charitable giving was also the fact that men preferred to give to large well known charities such as; comic relief and Cancer Research as they like to see where their money is going and who it is helping.  Whilst females prefer the smaller charities, “when I see lesser known charities doing fundraising I like to help.”  This is due to women being more trustworthy than men.  TGI (2007) supports this as Cancer Research UK was the charity with the most donations, 18% of consumers would donate to them.  It was also discovered that medical and children charities were the most popular within society and both receive the most funding.

Females in both groups were motivated to donate mostly by the emotive advertising on the television, usually relating to children and animals.  When asked which charities do you give to and why? A female expressed that “those adverts on TV always get me, with the starving dogs and abused children,” whilst other female members agreed. This is shown within the TGI (2007) where a 64% of women donated to NSPCC due to the emotive adverts compared to only 36% males.  An example is shown here:

Whilst the male respondents preferred the factual advertisements where they were given genuine information about the charity and what it does and also cartoons rather than the use of realistic people.  A good example of a male orientated charity advert is:

Both genders are mainly motivated to donate due to personal experiences whether they had previously suffered or had known someone who had.  Only a little number of people would donate for religious reasons.

According to TGI (2007) the biggest age group to donate £5 or more was 65+ whilst the lowest band was 15-34.  The focus groups suggested that over 30s would donate monthly and regularly whilst students said “I couldn’t really say how often I give, it depends on my mood and if I have any money at the time.”  Another fact which I discovered using Nfpsynergy (2007) is that single women and couples with no children give the most amount of money to charity due to the fact that they have bigger disposable incomes.  Finally a surprising fact which I discovered was that although higher income households give a larger total amount to charities on average, its the lower income households which are more generous.  By this it means that a low income household will give a higher proportion of their income than people with more money.

Gather Some More Facts: http://www.nfpsynergy.com/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/w/who_gives_to_charity_updated.pdf

In contrast to the large number of people who donate to charity due to goodwill or due to the fact that  many have been personally affected by it, I also discovered through this research that there are many selfish reasons why people give to charity.  Many people would perceive a charitable person in a good way and therefore this could lead to an ego issue, which relates to personality and self concept.  By this I mean, many people feel the main reasons they give to charity is the fact that "it makes them feel good," and "people preceive them as being charitable, nice and kind."  This ironically leads to many cases of charitable giving becoming a selfish act to make a person feel or look good amongst society.  Many people like to be perceived as kind and thoughtful, which is based around self image which does not actually relate to helping a charity.  If people have reasons such as guilt, social pressure and to impress the opposite sex which makes them give to charity, then this really suggests that a person actually is not naturally generous or charitable.

Our group 'Amity' helped raised money for 'Children with Lueakemia' we raised £715.30 through many different methods such as; ticket sales, silent auctions and online donations.  We held an event called 'Paint it Red' at 'The Wycombe Academy of Music and Arts,' which was a huge success... So all I can say now is.... WELL DONE GUYS!!

Why Don't You Give A Pound or Two??