Donors often struggle to describe what makes one charity different from another. I've seen people in research groups trying to prise child welfare organisations apart by talking about levels of "seriousness" or average age of beneficiaries. I've seen healthcare charities being discussed in terms of bedside manner….

I blogged about the effects of directly talking about the credit crunch in appeal copy in early December. I’m now able to share details about the test. It was undertaken with The Prostate Cancer Charity as part of their Christmas appeal. We mailed two packs that were virtually identical….

Polly Toynbee in The Guardian on Saturday painted a grim picture of the current state of philanthropy. Read her article and you could be forgiven for pulling the duvet over your head and hibernating until spring 2010.  There's Tom Hunter changing his mind about giving…

This is a quick heads up on one of the tests we've been involved with on the effect of directly talking about the credit crunch in DM packs.  Same packs, same projects, same asks – but one version placed emphasis on the effects of the economic downturn. The other pack simply…

There is another piece of research available on the effect of the economy on giving to charity. This time it’s from Rapp and they have focused on attitudes to direct debits. We don’t have access to the whole report but the top line figures don’t…

During the recent rocky times, the fear amongst fundraisers has been of donors cutting back on giving, but every indication we have at Bluefrog is of something different happening. Money isn’t being stashed under mattresses or in biscuit tins in preparation for a financial apocalypse….

We have another piece of data to add to the ever-growing library on attitudes to giving in the current economic climate. I have already blogged on Bluefrog’s qualitative research and the September RNLI study As regular readers wil no doubt remember, ongoing Bluefrog qualitative research (amongst mid-value donors) is…

With Guy Fawkes Night just a few days away it won’t be long before every TV ad, every shop window and every radio station is reminding us that Christmas is still almost two months away. In readiness, I’ve been looking at some of the public…

There is a fair amount of anecdotal information on the interweb on the effects of the recession on giving, but people seem to be crying out for some hard facts. It's useful to remember that many of the major research companies give away absolutely free market intelligence. MORI undertook a study for…

In 2007, Bluefrog undertook a huge qualitative study on mid-value donors – those who give cash gifts of between £100 and £1,000. We spoke to over a hundred people who gave to a wide range of UK charities. If you’d like to see the full…