The Charity Brand Index

In the past couple of weeks I have been writing a lot about charities and how they are faring in these troubled times.

This is the first time I have come upon the “Charity Brand Index” that is produced by PRWeek and Third Sector, in association with Harris Interactive.

It bills itself as a comprehensive assessment of the Top 100 UK charity brands based on a survey of more than 3,000 members of the public.

The index attempts to measure things like:
• Recognition of the charity
• Willingness to donate
• Attitudes towards their cause
• Trust
• Effectiveness of media relations and advertising
• Understanding of their work

These are all important factors so if you have £1,200 in your budget you can learn why The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain receive 10 points compared to Macmillan Cancer Support that received 350.

The trouble with these types of scoring systems is that they take no account for the relative size of the charities. So whilst the recognition of Macmillan is clearly zillions times higher than The Watch Tower, it is wrong to also make a judgement about the effectiveness of their media relations and advertising.

I guess what this type of study provides is the mechanism for marketers to be judged on their performance (i.e. have they increased or decreased their ranking year on year). It also guarantees that you buy next year's edition. Dick Stroud