Competitor analysis practices of British charities

Abstract

Competition among charities for donor income has increased dramatically in recent years. Moreover, charities have to compete against each other for cause related marketing contracts with commercial enterprises and sponsorship deals, and must bid competitively for government grants. This empirical study explored attitudes and behaviour in relation to competitor analysis (CA) within a sample of 134 British charities. It examined, inter alia, the main sources and uses of CA information, internal stakeholders’ views on whether non‐profit organisations should compete, CA management methods, satisfaction with CA, and possible linkages between CA and fundraising performance. An important aim of the investigation was to establish whether the presence of certain factors known to affect the extent of competition (and by implication the intensity of CA) in purely commercial markets similarly influenced organisations in the charity sector. Conversely, internal stakeholder resistance to the idea that charities should compete against each other did not appear to modify the sample organisations’ actual CA behaviours in any way.