With the EU referendum just around the corner and polls showing a tightly-fought contest, both sides are arguing fiercely about what the future of the UK would look like outside of the EU.

One thing both campaigns can agree on, however, is that a vote to leave would spark a major upheaval in British politics – and charities campaigning in parliament would undoubtedly be affected by this.

So what sort of challenges would charities face in the event of a British withdrawal from the EU, and all of the political turmoil that could come with it?

During the last few decades there have been some fundamental changes in the rights of disabled people with legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) coming into force in 1995. More recently, the topic of support for disabled people has been brought to the forefront of the political agenda, resulting in the resignation of a senior government minister.

This report looks at the key trends in how the public engage with politics and how they perceive charity engagement with the political process. It draws on nfpSynergy’s research with a range of audiences, including the general public, MPs and journalists.

The report includes the following sections:

The Government has recently announced a new clause that will be added to grant agreements, meaning that no proportion of a grant awarded to a charity can be used for lobbying Government and Parliament.

We would like to thank our clients and partners for inspiring us to keep researching the topical issues in the sector. As part of our Social Investment programme we regularly produce Free Reports and feed our finding back to the sector so any charity regardless its size or sector can find something useful. Here are the 12 popular reports this  year.

Robbie Macmillan, 22-year old graduate, Founder and Chairman of Children of Rwanda, a new charity promoting children's health and education in the western part of Rwanda, is contributing to our blog this week. 

Charities face tough battles ahead on campaigning with many MPs – particularly Conservatives – new research shows. Two thirds of Conservative MPs think that the charity sector is too political, and one third think that charities should not campaign in Parliament at all.

Anna Wates explores polling techniques, and why prediction can sometimes be a fool’s game

Parliamentary campaign emails allow charities to harness the power of constituents to gain valuable support from MPs, but crowded inboxes make it difficult to make an impression.