• 3 in 4 people think London-based offices are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ wasteful (slide 2)
• 72% feel the same way about rebranding, i.e. changing name, look or logo etc. (slide 2)
• Two thirds feel that advertising and developing a website is ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ worthwhile (slide 2)
• The best way for charities to make people feel confident they’ll spend a donation well is to not allow staff to travel first class on expenses, with 62% choosing this option (slide 4)
• Over half of people would feel confident if the organisation was run mostly by volunteers and no one earned more than £50,000 (slide 4)
• Two in five said they’d feel confident if a charity had no offices in London, while one in five would if staff paid for their own Christmas party. One in ten would if staff worked a day a month for free (slide 4)

Three in four people think that London-based offices for charities are a waste of money, new research shows. The public also take a dim view of paying for rebranding, but more than half say they would feel confident that a charity spends donations well if they vetoed first class travel for staff.

The poll of 1002 adults, published by research consultancy nfpSynergy, shows that 74% of people feel London-based offices for charities are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ wasteful, with just 4% saying they were even ‘fairly’ worthwhile. Rebranding provokes the same sentiment for 72% of people, with just 9% seeing their worth.

More positively, two thirds of people deem advertising worthy of spending money on and 70% feel the same about developing a website. Nearly half think it’s worthwhile for charities to create magazines to update donors on their work, while 58% see the value of spending donations on lobbying.

When the nationally representative poll asked people to name ways a charity could make them feel confident they’d spend a donation well, 62% said a veto on first class travel for staff. Just over half said the same about a charity run mostly by volunteers and one where no one earns over £50,000 a year.

One in five would feel confident if staff paid for their own Christmas party, while one in ten opted for staff working for free one day a month.

nfpSynergy’s Driver of Ideas, Joe Saxton, said:

“London offices make complete sense for many charities, so they need to be honest and proactive about the benefits. Being in London provides a much better pool of staff to recruit in and the small savings outside London would be a false economy.

The same is true about paying someone more than £50,000 and £100,000. If that person brings a skillset, a breadth of experience and other benefits, be proactive and tell the world about it. I think every major charity can justify paying their CEO over £100k. What charities need to remember is that if London offices or £100k salaries are worthwhile, they need to scream and shout about why. The sector needs to talk about these issues now, not hope that nobody notices what they are doing.”

Please see the attached slides for more details.

For further comment from nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton, please contact him directly on 07976 329 212 or joe.saxton@nfpsynergy.net

SOURCE:  include details of Monitor, its survey sample, e.g. ‘nfpSynergy’s Charity Awareness Monitor, which regularly surveys a representative sample of 1000 16+ year olds throughout mainland Britain’ and which waves were used.

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MEDIA COMMENT:

To interview nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton about these findings, please contact him directly on 07976 329212 or joe.saxton@nfpsynergy.net. If you cannot contact Joe, please contact Rob White (07512 709140; E: rob.white@nfpsynergy.net) for further assistance.

Note to editors:

nfpSynergy (www.nfpsynergy.net) is a research consultancy dedicated to the not-for-profit sector. They aim to provide the ideas, the insights and the information to help non-profits thrive. They provide a unique insight into the social and charity-related views of everyone from public and parliament to media and business, not to mention not-for-profit organisations themselves. nfpSynergy has a vast and ever-growing knowledge pool and shares this with the non-profit sector, through both paid work and regular free reports and seminars.