Friday 29 October 2010

The favourite ways of giving for UK Christians

Here is some interesting data from our Why Christians Give survey:

1. Nine out of ten evangelical donors have a favourite way of giving.

2. More than half of evangelical donors (56%) prefer to give via standing orders and direct debits.

3. The least popular ways of giving were: online donations (2%) and Stewardship or CAF accounts used by respectively 4% and 7% of evangelical donors.

4. On the whole evangelical donors are more likely to give regularly to charities compared to UK donors’ at large (52% vs.37%).

However, while the relative popularity of methods for UK donors might have changed little in the last decade, the popularity of regular giving methods has changed a lot for evangelical donors.

A partial comparison of preferred ways of giving in 2009 vs. 1998 reveals that giving by cheque was the most popular way of giving followed by standing orders and CAF accounts. Today, we see a 25% increase in giving by direct debits and a 14% increase in giving by standing orders, while giving by cheque remains almost at the same level.

So, do you know your donor’s favourite ways of giving? Have you ever asked them? In what ways would that information affect the way you ask for money in the coming year?

2 comments:

Anthony McKernan said...

The research sample is only EA members, not all evangelicals, so this has to be borne in mind.

So....point 3 is being transformed as we speak. Stewardship account members gave £250,000 in the first 12 weeks since doors opened on the new online giving service. The figure will be about £460,000 after just 4months.

So Christians do want to give online - especially those who organise their giving with Stewardship!

Redina Kolaneci said...

Thanks Anthony.

I suspect some evangelical donors who like the give regularly might be using Stewardship accounts... where they deposit money regularly and distribute it from there.

Regarding online giving - our question was focused on whether donors go to a charity's website and donate online or give in response to email campaings etc. This figure I believe is still relatively small compared to giving via standing orders oy by cheque in response to appeals.

Even for people who give through Stewardship - they are organising their giving online and transfering funds but are probably not going to a charity's website to donate there directly. In other words it is not likely that seeing a website would have made them want to give...