With a General Election imminent, the public's attitudes toward charities getting involved in politics have become more of a focus.  The Shelia McKechnie Foundation and nfpResearch wanted to understand how aware the public is of the political work of charities.  We were interested in hearing if people felt charities should be occupying the political space and who they felt should be involved in politics. Our report unpacks our findings on campaigning and activism from nfpIntelligence (our regular general public research focussed on charity sector trends).

Ben Roberts

Ben Roberts

As another year draws to a close, we can reflect on what a strange beast UK politics has been over the past twelve months. On the one hand, we’ve had the likes of the Partygate scandal, the rise and subsequent removal of Suella Braverman, a change in Scottish leadership, a huge number of protests, and enough gaffs to fill an episode of You’ve Been Framed.

Ben Roberts

As the curtains fall on this week's Conservative conference, the charity sector is left pondering a curious narrative that’s been thrust upon it. Once again, comments have been made that reinforce the difficulties that charities are apparently doomed to face when standing at the intersection of politics and philanthropy.

Tim Harrison-Byrne & Ben Roberts

Heather Sturgess, Peter Dawson, & Naomi Croft

The past several weeks have seen a lot of speculation around when the next general election will be held, and what a new parliament will mean for the UK. At nfpResearch, times like these often mean fielding questions from charities wondering when the time is right to start monitoring their standing with MPs once we have our new parliament. Our advice: start TODAY. 

As we explored in our free campaigning report last year, engaging MPs can rely on a huge amount of strategy, and some charities can find it difficult to break through the noise and make themselves heard in these arenas. One charity that has managed to consistently make their message heard is Cats Protection, who in recent years have managed to successfully capture and hold the attention of MPs, and advocate for the needs of pet-owners across the UK.

Peter Dawson

Ben Roberts

Sarah Nathan

The past few years have seen the UK public face crisis after crisis. Inevitably, this has led to a shift in the sector’s priorities as we’ve all had to adapt to a few ‘new-normals’ in a short span of time. But even as new concerns arise, the old challenges aren’t going anywhere. This has made it vital to track how the public’s top concerns are shifting at a national level, and whether or not policy is aligned with public demand.