In recently released research, by Work for Good, it has been discovered that nearly half of UK charities are missing out on crucial support and funding by SME businesses.

Work for Good, a giving platform that matches charities to SMEs, has found that around 60% of small to medium sized enterprise businesses make regular charitable donations – with an average of 1.8% of their annual turnover being donated. Given that the SME market equates to 5.7 million businesses in the UK, equating to 60% of the private sector, bringing in a total of £1.9 trillion to the UK economy, the charity third sector is missing a huge opportunity!

Currently, in the UK 97% of all register charities are classified as ‘small’, with an annual income of below £1 million per annum. A collaboration between many more of these charities with UK SMEs could catapult annual donations.

If revenue streams are down in this SME sector, it reiterates the importance of other fundraising activity. One of the key areas for charitable donations is telephone fundraising. Experts in this field, Purity Fundraising, offer a unique way to raise invaluable funds for their charity clients, as well as it being an opportunity to rejoice their clients’ brands too.

Telephone fundraising has the power to not only raise monies, but also to discuss, evoke, motivate and inspire the general public – it goes over and above a crude ‘we need your cash’ message. Instead it is community-action driven.

Purity Fundraising, having raised over £1.8million for their clients in just 7 months, believe their achievements demonstrate the compassion shown by the British public in supporting charitable causes.

Therefore, surely, small charities should capitalise on this momentum. Their appeal should be great to smaller businesses – many of which have a genuine desire for regular charitable givings. Yet, with poor strategies in place to directly target this market, charities losing out on crucial donations from SMEs, and revenue streams are down.

“It’s worrying that smaller charities do not have the time or resources to maximise the huge earning potentials from this source.” Says Purity Fundraising’s CEO, Helen Mackenzie.

Given the recent bad press regarding Oxfam, and other major charitable organisations in recent months, it’s vitally important to celebrate the good 99.9% of the world’s charities actually do, at home and abroad.

“The general public are very open to donations – whether they are regular givings or ad hoc gifts. Our fundraisers find that despite unsettled economic times, and recent bad press surrounding charities, people want to do good; believing that somewhere, someone is worse off than themselves. They want to help.” Helen continues.

“Businesses are the same. They want to make a difference, not just a profit. This research proves that the SME donation market is hugely untapped; bringing to the forefront the need for charities to address their SME donation strategy in order to raise more essential funds. By charities pursuing this angle an even greater amount of good can be done across the third sector.”