The Charity Commission has been collecting data on public trust in charities since 2005.
In early 2024, as part of the Charity Commission’s ongoing research, they worked with panels and focus groups to understand the public’s trust in charities.
During the BHP 2024 Charity Conference, we asked our delegates for their views on three specific questions. We asked for five responses to be ranked in order of importance to each of their charities. Our delegates consisted of trustees, volunteers, finance staff, and CEOs.
Public Trust
The public’s trust in charities has not changed in the last three years. It ranks very high compared to other organisations (banks, local councils, police, etc.), with only trust in doctors ranking higher than charities.
We asked our delegates to rank five specific responses of what they believe is of importance to the public’s perception of charities, the results of which were as follows:
Low Trust
We were therefore interested in how charities perceive reasons for any low trust in charities – we asked for five specific reasons to be ranked in order of importance, and our delegates responded as follows:
Unsurprisingly, this is very similar to the findings of the Charity Commission survey, with only “disagreement with the charity’s actions” moving down to fifth below low visibility and a lack of financial information.
Challenges
Finally, we asked our delegates to rank, in order of importance, five specific challenges their charity is facing, the results of which were as follows:
Over 75% of the delegates selected “securing adequate funding and inflationary cost pressures” as the top two priorities. However, it is comforting to see that our delegates ranked “attracting the right trustees and expectation – meeting demand” lower down the list, indicating that they believe their charities have a good level of support and advice.
We’d like to take the opportunity to thank our delegates for taking the time to complete the three polls during our conference, and we look forward to seeing everyone again in autumn 2025.
Take a look at our recent article that covered the Charity Commission’s research on public trust in charities within the UK.
