I blogged about the Sue Ryder Care charity shop experiment a few weeks ago.  For a two week period, all fixed prices were removed from donated items and customers were able to pay whatever they thought goods were worth.  In light of the economic downturn,…

I was de-briefed on some research a while ago. During one of the workshops a female donor had said that she dreaded canceling a direct debit because she knew that she’d get a phone call asking her to start again.  This fear was enough to stop her canceling. There was…

Yep. Another graph. But hopefully the last one for a  while. I'll try to get back to humorous videos, anecdotes and lovely qually research as soon as possible.  I'm not sure how useful this one is going to be, but it's pretty interesting all the same.  Bill…

It seems the downturn in the amount of goods being donated to charity shops is continuing. David Moir, head of policy at the Association of Charity Shops, is reported in The Guardian as saying:

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….