What do David Cameron, Catherine Tate and Jason Orange have in common? Tea at Number 10? Or perhaps a musical collaboration between Take That, the Doctor’s assistant and a politician in search of approval ratings?
Well, not quite. They all feature in Metrica’s Charity Radar for October, a monthly benchmarking report that compares the media performance of UK charities by measuring both print and online coverage across the sector. The organisations are primarily ranked by volume of mentions – but we also look at issues and themes that took centrestage, as well as the most prominent celebrities or public figures appearing in coverage.
Click here for some sample slides from the report
And that’s where ol’ Dave comes in. With 1,892 mentions, he was the most mentioned person in charity coverage this month, as the Department of Work and Pensions’ announced plans to delay the increase in the state pensions age by six months to October 2020. This in turn propped up mentions of social care charity Age UK, which earned 1,841 mentions by weighing in on the government’s decision. Its charity director Michelle Mitchell said: “We would have liked the changes being made to have gone further”.
Similarly, newly minted couple Catherine Tate (547 mentions) and Jason Orange (542 mentions) helped boost the profile of Comic Relief, thanks to a widely-reported factoid claiming that the pair met earlier this year when Tate played the Take That star in a spoof sketch at the charity’s fundraising show. The charity got 821 mentions, illustrating how star power – planned or unplanned – can certainly help to drum up media mileage.
Public figures aside, the top performing charities for the month were Cancer Research UK (2,709 articles), The National Trust (2,550) and Amnesty International (2,472). The key story for Cancer Research UK was the unfortunate passing of 11-year-old Harry Moseley, who helped raised over £500,000 for the charity.
If you’d like to receive unprecedented levels of media insight into the charity industry, featuring over 100 charities, get in touch with govandngo@btsdev2.co.uk/gorkana/metrica.
