In our day-to-day interactions with charities, many of us hear about the importance of informing supporters about charity impact. While it’s no surprise that some donors want to know their contributions are helping to accomplish great things, has anyone stopped to find out if the term “charity impact” means different things to different people? Last week, BBB’s Give.org released a Donor Trust Special Report on Charity Impact, that, in part, seeks to answer that question.

One of the inspirations for this survey research was whether an idea intended for a subset of donor types has turned into an assumption about what all individual donors look for when they want to help a charity make a difference. Despite all the dialogue around charity impact, little is understood about how individual donors view the issue. Our findings show that almost half (47%) of adult Americans are unclear about what “charity impact” means. Moreover, respondents with different giving levels were split about how to best describe the term. People of giving levels between $51 and $5,000, for example, were most likely to define “charity impact” as “organizations reaching defined goals.” People who donated more than $5,000 were most likely to define “charity impact” in terms of “how efficient the organization was in its spending.”

We suspect that donor confusion may be grounded by a lack of clarity when some charity appeals reference “impact” but don’t take the time to explain what is intended. For a term that is so important and charged among sector professionals, we believe the lesson is twofold: (1) There is no single, universal definition of this term and (2) Charities seeking to avoid misinterpretation in their appeals would be wise to explain what they mean by “impact” when they choose to use this word in their communications and fundraising messages.

Video of the Week

 As part of the Building Trust Video Series, we are pleased to provide a video featuring Christopher Banks, President & CEO, Autism Society (a BBB Accredited Charity) which seeks  to advance the dignity, self-sufficiency, independence and quality of life of all living with autism. The organization works to accomplish this through advocacy, education, a national call center, support groups, training, resource updates, national, local and state leadership, neighbor helping neighbor efforts, lifespan support, adult transition, early diagnosis, and early education therapy.

Heart of Giving Podcast 

This week’s Heart of Giving Podcast features an interview with Bob Johansen, a Distinguished Fellow with the Institute for the Future and frequent keynote speaker who has spent more than 30 years helping organizations around the world prepare for and shape the future.

Recent Reports

We are always working with charities to publish or update reports for donors. Visit Give.org or local BBBs to check out any charity before giving. Our recently evaluated charities include:

• American Brain Foundation
• Movember Foundation
• Younique Foundation