New research suggest fundraisers should stop seeing older people as a soft touch
Older people are far more annoyed with charity fundraisers than younger people, according to new research.
A total of 42% of people said they are less likely to donate to charities following media stories, such as those surrounding 92-year-old poppy Olive Cooke. However, the media coverage has particularly affected older people with 54% saying they are less likely to donate now.
The research from YouGov on behalf of data communications company Read Group also highligted that significantly more older people than younger people feel they are contacted too often by charities.
The research shows that Dorothy Donor has simply had enough and is demanding change
As a whole, 47% of people believe they are contacted too often by charities. However, while only 39% of 18 to 54 year olds feel they are contacted too often, a massive 59% of those over 55 are fed up with how often charities get in touch.
Read Group claims that the survey findings suggest charities have been over targeting older people in the belief that they are a soft touch.
As only 33 per cent of the younger demographic stated they would be more likely to sign up to a charity if they could choose the frequency at which they are contacted, Read suggests frequency of contact is not the issue for younger people.
Charities should turn their attention to the younger demographic therefore in a bid to avoid losing billions of pounds of income from the UK public.
Jon Cano-Lopez, chief executive of Read Group said: “It seems rather naive to target one segment time after time after time. The research shows that Dorothy Donor has simply had enough and is demanding change.
"However the good news is that the research also shows that the vast majority of the population are happy to receive requests for donations. Surely the time has come for charities to embrace these other lucrative segments.
"If you only ever target the recent donors or fixed groups such as females over 55, you are creating a self fulfilling model that will eventually reach saturation and by definition ignores the rest of the population.”
Read Group has used YouGov’s study, in conjunction with its own intelligent database, to profile different types of charity donors.
YouGov surveyed 2,061 respondents in total and 175 of these were based in Scotland. There were only marginal differences between Scotland and the UK. In Scotland, 40% of people stated they were less likely to donate following recent stories around aggressive fundraising compared with 42% of the UK in total.
