Macmillan Cancer Support has topped the mid-year rankings for YouGov’s charity brand index, which measures people’s perceptions of charities throughout the year, but the ‘buzz’ scores for the top four charities are slightly lower than their average for 2013.
To compile the index YouGov questioned a representative sample of 125 different people each day about charities they had heard of and talked about recently and whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It turned this into ‘buzz’ scores which it used to rank charities.
Macmillan scored an average 19.7 for 2013 compared to 18.6 for the first six months of 2014. Cancer Research UK moved into second place ahead of Help for Heroes, with a score of 13.6, slightly down on the 2013 average of 13.8. Help for Heroes had an average score of 14.2 in 2013, which fell to 11.3 for the first six months of this year.
British Heart Foundation held onto fourth place, but its buzz score also fell from 8.8 to 8.6. Marie Curie moved into fifth spot with a score of 7.5.
Charity brand index mid-year rankings
- Macmillan Cancer Support (18.6)
- Cancer Research UK (13.6)
- Help for Heroes (11.3)
- British Heart Foundation (8.6)
- Marie Curie Cancer Care (7.5)
Charity brand index 2013 rankings
- Macmillan (19.7)
- Help for Heroes (14.2)
- Cancer Research UK (13.8)
- British Heart Foundation (8.8)
- RNLI (8.0)
Briony Gunstone, associate director in public sector and NFP at YouGov, attributed Macmillan’s success to: “Its activity resonates with people, empowering people to feel like they can participate and help.”
Next week Macmillan is launching ‘Shave or Style’ week; a mass participation event encouraging people to shave off their hair or try out a new hairstyle to raise money.
Last year Macmillan launched three new fundraising events: A Good Night In in April, Dress Up and Dance in March and Go Sober for October in the autumn. Its flagship campaign, World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, experienced another record-breaking year by raising more than £20m.
