Donations by text message to charities fell by 28.1 per cent last year, latest figures show.
Data published by the Phone-paid Services Authority shows the amount donated was £35.9m in the year to the end of March, down from £50m in the previous year. It is down from a record £65.8m in 2020/21.
The report, which was produced by the research firm Analysys Mason and published this month by the Phone-paid Services Authority, notes a number of contributory factors to the steep decline including the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, the lack of notable telethon events and the declining popularity of telethons in general.
It is also reported that an overall decline in linear TV viewership since the Covid-19 pandemic was likely to have negatively affected the numbers of text donations during telethons.
The absence of Stand Up to Cancer was partially blamed for this drop after it took its first year off since 2021.
The event is one of the biggest telethons in terms of on-the-night donations and has raised an increasing amount each year, reaching £31.2m across payment channels in 2021/22.
The PSA, which regulates premium rate phone-paid services in the UK, had previously forecast a reduction of £5.4m in mobile phone text donations in 2022/23, which equated to a percentage fall of 10.7 per cent.
But the report predicts an increase in charity donations by text over the coming year.
“Consumer spending on charity donations is forecast to increase by 15.8 per cent year-on-year,” it says.
“This growth will be largely due to the return of the Stand Up to Cancer televised event, which will return in 2023/24 after a recess in 2022/23.
“This biennial event raises increasing amounts of donations every time it runs and is a direct reason for the seasonality of the phone-paid charity donations market, which usually sees increased donations every other year (with an exception during 2020/21 and 2021/22, when Stand Up to Cancer was held consecutively).
“Donations will be lower than in the ‘comparable year’ of 2021/22 because of continued cost-of-living pressures and because viewership of other telethon events is declining.”
But this uptick will not be consistent because the PSA believes the numbers will fluctuate going forward in line with Stand Up to Cancer, which usually takes place every two years.
This will likely result in donations falling in 2024/25 before increasing again in 2025/26, the report says.
The report also says: “We do not expect charity donations to reach the high levels seen in 2020/21 and 2021/22 because charities are increasingly diversifying the payment channels that they offer to donors and are continuing to run an increasing number of online fundraisers.
“Declining TV viewership following the end of Covid-19 lockdowns, in line with longer-term trends, also explains why donation amounts are not expected to reach the amounts raised via phone-paid service payment channels in 2020/21 and 2021/22.”