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People prefer to donate money to children’s and animal charities, while those collecting for people living with HIV/AIDS and the sick struggle to generate cash, according to a new survey.
Career network site LinkMe found that of its 2000 jobseekers, almost half the survey respondents said they would give their time to a children’s charity and four out of 10 would give to animals or the elderly.
But when it comes to the sick, disabled, poor and homeless, the level of giving dropped noticeably, with just a quarter of people who would help the sick and only 14 per cent willing to spend time with people living with HIV/AIDS.
“People want to help kids but they are three times less inclined to help an AIDS victim,” site owner Campbell Sallabank told the Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s not as appealing or sexy to give to those.”
Cash donations reflected the same trends, according to Sallabank, who said less popular charities need to improve their marketing skills.
“Charities with dynamic figureheads and good marketing do better. If you can successfully market depression as Beyond Blue has done, it proves it is simply a marketing challenge,” he said.
ACON CEO Stevie Clayton said the survey’s findings reflected the organisation’s own experience. “I suspect a lot more money is going to HIV/AIDS via Unicef and things like that where people can see it’s going to orphaned babies, which is much more attractive,” she told SX.
Part of the problem is people tending to think health programs in this country should be funded by the government, and fewer people with HIV/AIDS looking visible ill, Clayton said.
“There was a dramatic downturn in people spontaneously donating to HIV/AIDS in 1996 when anti-retrovirals came along. Before then they could see people were obviously sick and dying around them, losing family, friends and partners. Now it’s seen as being much more under control, less of a crisis.”
As to whether HIV organisations should be doing a better job of marketing themselves, Clayton said, “If we went out there and promoted a picture of HIV that looks like HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, talked about babies getting HIV, and were prepared to promote the notion of innocent victims that we’re so morally opposed to, we could reap in a lot more money.”
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