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Charity websites weather the credit crunch
October 15, 2008
Today is Blog Action Day, and this year the subject is poverty. Alan has already written an excellent post about the online charity landscape in Australia, so I thought that I would do the same for the UK. The most relevant Hitwise category is Community – Humanitarian, as it includes websites such as The Hunger Site (currently top of the category), Oxfam (#4), the UN FAO (#5), the Red Cross (#6), UNICEF (#9) and FreeRice (#10).
As the chart below illustrates, traffic to this category fluctuates throughout the year, peaking to coincide with international humanitarian disasters and major national charity events. The biggest peak during the last 12 months was for Sports Relief in March, Year on year, traffic to Community – Humanitarian websites has increased by 12%. The recent growth is good news for charities, many of which may well be concerned that the economic downtrun could result in a fall in donations.
Looking at the demographic data for the category during the 4 weeks ending 11/10/08, we can see that 55% of visitors are female, while London and the South East are the most over-represented regions. Our Experian Mosaic data reveals that the lifestyle groups currently most likely to visit Community – Humanitarian websites are Urban Intelligence (Young, single and mostly well-educated, these people are cosmopolitan in tastes and liberal in attitudes), Welfare Borderline (People who are struggling to achieve rewards and are mostly reliant on the council for accommodation and benefits) and Twilight Subsistence (Elderly people subsisting on meagre incomes in council accommodation.).
However, the clearest story with the demographic data is this: the older you are, the more likely you to visit a charity website. The chart shows this by illustrating he swing of visitors to the Community – Humanitarian category against the online population as a whole.
One website that’s done particularly well over the last few weeks is Oxfam Unwrapped, the charity’s gift website. It currently ranks third in the Community – Humanitarian category, one position above Oxfam’s UK homepage. As We pointed out a couple of weeks ago, UK Internet searches for fair trade goods and ethical gifts peak at Christmas time, so expect Oxfam Unwrapped’s market share to continue increasing over the next couple of months.
Posted by Robin Goad at 11:00 AM
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In Categories Charities | Christmas | Demographics | Economy | Mosaic lifestyle | Retail | Shopping and Classifieds
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Comments
Hi Paul - that is certainly true with regards to Oxfam Unwrapped, but the growth rates for the charity cateogry overall are year on year, so already take seasonal fluctuations into account.
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | October 15, 2008 12:41 PM
Might be something to do with the season of giving fast approaching too?
Posted by Paul Anthony | October 15, 2008 10:33 AM