November 2015
Featured in this insight: Charity & not-for-profit, Electricity, Gas
Public’s trust in charities is declining, survey finds: A recent charity awareness monitor by NfpSynergy has revealed that the public’s trust in charities in declining throughout the United Kingdom.
The survey discovered that just 48 per cent of the UK trust charities either “a great deal” or “quite a lot”, compared with 53 per cent who said the same in August.
As part of the research, the respondents were asked to rate how much they trusted a variety of different organisations across a number of different sectors. Of the organisations on the list, charities were ranked in 12th place, in comparison with 8th place in August.
According to the results, charities are less trusted than the BBC, the police and supermarkets.
The survey findings, which are based on the surveys of 1,000 people, perhaps cannot be fully applicable to Scottish charities, as only 78 of the respondents were from Scotland. Although, of the Scottish people who took part in the research, it can be seen that Scotland’s levels of trust is below the national average, with just 47 per cent of the Scottish respondents (or 36 individuals) saying that they either trust charities “a great deal” or “quite a lot”.
Of the respondents, 45 per cent said that they either trusted charities “very little” or “not a lot”. The remaining percentage said that they were not sure.
Joe Saxton, the head of NfpSynergy, said that the third sector is a nine year low in trust, in comparison with the results from previous years.
“These are sad results if not surprising given the recent coverage of charities,” Saxton said.
“The image of charities and their activities have had six months of unprecedented negative coverage in a number of areas.
“The decline in trust for charities is not part of a wider trend with, for example, trust in the police, schools and the royal family all either increased or stable over the same period.”
View more of our sector specific insights: Charity & not-for-profit, Electricity, Gas
