Fundraising activities dominate online charity chatter

THE DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

1. Conversation prompts for Age UK

Fundraising / Donations
% .3 16

2. Sentiment towards Age UK

Jobs opportunities
2% 5.

Regional activities
5% 7.

Auction prizes
1% 7.

Press releases
6% 5.

Adverts
9% 4.

Donation campaigns
9% 4.

Love

Like
% .8 12

Balance
% .8 84

Dislike
4% 0.

Hate

0% 2.

0% 0.

n= 630
Specific fundraising /donations initiatives mentioned were Innocent Smoothies The Big Knit (9.7%) and Lets Work Together (4.6%) programmes. Requests for auction prizes were typically made on Twitter, particularly for t-shirts signed by celebrities to support the Macmillan Action Medical Research and Age UK charity auction. Press releases from the organisation, such as those regarding winter deaths (31.4%), were also key prompts in generating discussion about the aged. Adverts and campaign activities were mentioned alongside fundraising and donations in 14.5% of results.

n= 506
Commentators largely expressed positive sentiment towards the charity when mentioning fundraising or donations (42.7%). Like was also expressed during advert or campaign conversations (13.3%). References to miscellaneous activities, regional chapters and press releases were the main sources of neutral sentiment.

3. Top websites for discussion

YouTube Twitter Facebook News

4. Gender
Male Female

5. Location by city
London
% .3 21

Brighton
3% 6.

Leeds
0% 5.

Plymouth
8% 3.

Sheffield
8% 3.

% .9 38

% .0 31

% .4 63

9% 4.

% .6 36

5% 7.

n= 506
The top three websites for discussions highlight the importance of social media to Age UK. Footage of the organisations regional activity (21.8%) and videos of Age UK fundraising events (20.3%) were particularly popular on YouTube. Twitter was largely utilised to circulate requests for auction prizes (28.7%) as well as donations (19.7%). Beyond those listed above, Flickr (4.7%), blogs (3.6%) and forums (3.4%) also featured prominently.

n= 101
Fundraising and donations were the top prompts of conversation for both males (34.3%) and females (29.7%). However, males discussed Age UK events (10.9%) and press releases (7.8%) more often than females, who were largely concerned with the organisation's regional activities (18.9%) and collaborations/partnerships (13.5%).

n = 80
The prominence of London and Brighton based commentators likely reflects the charitys appeal within the capital and the higher concentration of social media users in the UKs Southeast. The Leeds Abbey Dash charity run for Age UK was a main topic of conversation originating in the Yorkshire area. All commentators in Plymouth were interested in fundraising and donations. Beyond those listed above, prominent cities also include Bristol (2.5%), Devon (2.5%), Liverpool (2.5%).

Methodology: The search used to form this analysis ran from 24 November to 25 November 2011, focused on global English language content and produced 918 results, 506 of which were relevant. A 'result' refers to the raw material our system generates when it scours the web. A 'relevant result' is a result that is deemed relevant to the subject of the analysis. 'Data' refers to a refined relevant result - a result that has been considered, and topics and values applied to produce a piece of data. The 506 relevant results used in this analysis produced 1,823 pieces of data, a ratio of 3.60 pieces of data per relevant result. It should be noted that data is not linear, and not every result provides data to every topic. The 'n' value (n = X) indicates the volume of data used in answering each topic. The search term used for this analysis was: age uk".
Copyright Trufflenet 2011. All rights reserved.

Love the little knitted hats on @innocentdrinks bottles to support Age UK through the #bigknit - super cute! http://t.co/gOrx1WkH

Had a lovely lunchtime making Christmas decorations with Age UK. Very rewarding!

RT @VictoriaCoren: The 10% went to Age UK this morning, 6360 with love, on behalf of all us poker players who have no idea what our own future will be.
@VictoriaCoren

@nicolahanley

@HoneySchnapps