November Charity Benchmarking – BBC Children in Need nails top spot

You couldn’t have missed it if you tried. Last month saw the annual BBC Children In Need appeal reach its glitzy climax, with the final live show at the M.E.N. arena raising a record on-the-night total of over £26 million pounds. After all, that’s what you get when you put the likes of Gary Barlow, Coldplay and Lady Gaga under one roof.

No surprise then, that the BBC’s corporate charity blew everyone else out of the water in Metrica’s Charity Radar for November, our monthly benchmarking report that compares the media profile of over 100 UK charities by measuring print and online coverage across the sector. Children in Need topped the league table with 9.982 mentions, with volumes ramped up by lots of buzz around different fundraising stunts.  In case you missed it, click here to see The One Show’s Matt Baker ride 482 miles from Edinburgh to London – in a rickshaw no less. Saddle sores be damned!

Kudos too, to the Royal British Legion, which came in second by scoring 6,374 mentions. Their main driver of coverage was the Poppy Appeal/FIFA controversy, a story that developed over a period of two weeks. The sports body came under fire for disallowing the England football team from wearing poppies on their jerseys during an international friendly against Spain, which angered David Cameron so much he took time off from saving the Eurozone to call the ban “outrageous”. FIFA backed down, England won 1-0 and all was well with the world again.

The top five charities for the month of November were:

BBC Children in Need (9.982 mentions)

Royal British Legion (6,374 mentions)

RNLI (2,573)

UNICEF (2,504)

Help for Heroes (2,396)

I’m giving a special mention to the most memorable story for the month, about the RSPCA launching a search for a man caught on CCTV swinging a cat by its tail. A day after the public outcry, the culprit turned himself in.  It just goes to show: Never understimate the power of viral media, and also, don’t mess with cats.

Metrica’s Charity Radar benchmarking report provides a great bird’s eye view of the Third Sector by showing you which charities are dominating the media conversation – and how they’ve achieved this. If you’d like to know more, get in touch with govandngo@metrica.net

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