Charities show four-fold improvement in social responsibility ratings since 2006
11/07/07

Four times as many UK charities now perform or support Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities on their websites compared to last year, according to the iConcertina 2007 ‘Charity Website Benchmarks’ report.

Commissioned by e-Consultancy, online publisher of best practice internet marketing reports and how-to guides, the report continues the work of last year’s inaugural research by evaluating over 100 UK charity websites in the following categories:
• Usability – is the site easy to use?
• Accessibility – can everyone access the site?
• Communication – can users communicate with the charity and each other?
• Transparency – is the charity open with its information, providing details of its Corporate Social Responsibility activities?
• Responsiveness – does the site encourage and support giving, volunteering, fundraising, and corporate involvement?
• Housekeeping – does the site work in harmony with social networking sites?

‘Transparency’ is important to the sector, since charities need to instil and maintain a high level of public confidence to collect donations. Those organisations willing to provide information about how they work, what they do, and where the money goes, seem more likely to receive funds.

The sector has shown a four-fold improvement since last year’s report, when only three of the evaluated websites had a CSR policy.

In 2007, the researchers were able to find a policy, statement, or similar text on 14 websites and discovered that UK charities perform or support CSR-related activities as follows:
• Recycling – 44 sites
• Environment-friendly activities – 14 sites
• Other activities (child protection, AIDS, health) – 14 sites

Score reports
The report’s scores reflect whether a charity site explicitly states CSR involvement or policy, and whether the charity engages in typical CSR activities While the four-fold improvement is impressive, there’s only 17% compliance overall to the idea of CSR. This is a rather low figure, considering that the UK is a leading international contributor to CSR thinking and practices, and that the UK government is vocal in its ambitions on the subject.

Obviously Charities are not under the same fiduciary parameters as listed companies to have a CSR policy.

However they are put under scrutiny and the more transparent and forward thinking they are will only be of benefit to them and their beneficiaries. What’s more, a higher CSR score would reflect greater transparency within the sector, which could generate higher donation levels.

While it makes sense for charities to take more interest in their CSR activities, it’s worth noting that policies and actions should reflect a genuine concern for being socially responsible and not be tokenistic - since that would be likely to make the public more cynical and less generous.

Subscribers of www.e-consultancy.com can down load the full report for free and non members can pay a one off fee £99.00.

Charities can commission iConcertina to prepare a personalised reports for them and their peer groups specific results. Please contact Michelle Mace by email michelle@iconcertina.com or phone +44 20 7269 7919 with your request. [ends]

For further information please contact: Michaela Carmichael, Marketing Consultant, iConcertina Creative Ltd (e: michaela@iconcertina.com, t: +44 (0)20 7269 7914)

Chris Lake, Editor, E-consultancy.com (e: chris@e-consultancy.com, t: 020 76814052)

About iConcertina:
iConcertina Creative is a custom online solutions provider. We build bespoke solutions to meet our clients' specific needs by blending superior creative design, technical functionality and business process understanding.

About E-consultancy:
E-consultancy is the UK’s leading online publisher of best practice internet marketing reports, research and how-to guides. It also publishes buyer’s guides and has a directory of 100,000+ third party internet marketing white papers. Since moving to a paid-content model in 2003 E-consultancy has amassed thousands of paying subscribers, more than 36,000 registered users and 150,000+ unique users sessions per month. Its weekly newsletter is sent to 20,000 users. Subscribers pay from £149 per year to access the exclusive and highly practical content, which helps internet marketers get the most out of their websites. E-consultancy has more than 100 events lined up for 2007, including roundtables and monthly Supplier Showcases, where six suppliers pitch to an audience of pre-qualified buyers (typically between 100-150) in a Central London venue. E-consultancy also provides a range of public and in-house training programmes, such as seminars and workshops.