Thread by @carolinefiennes

Giving Evidence today publishes #research about Royal patronages of charities: what are they, which charities have them, and whether they help.
It's in today's @TheTimes (£).
Our findings include these (thread):

thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/h…
#charity #Royal #royalfamily

2/ UK charities should not seek or retain #Royal patrons expecting either many public events with them, nor an effect on revenue.

We couldn't find any effect of Royal patronages on charities’ revenues, despite multiple sophisticated statistical analyses.
#charity #fundraising

3/ We were surprised that three-quarters (74%) of UK charities which have #Royal patrons did not get a single public engagement with them during 2019.

Only 1% of charities which have #Royal patrons got more than one public engagement with them during 2019.

4/ Royals do far more public engagement w/ charities they set up than with pre-existing charities they take on.

The latter (Prince’s Trust, the Duke of Ed Award, etc.) are 2% of their charity patronages, but get 36% of public engagements that they do w/ their patronee charities.

4a/ We found this pattern for both all charities in 2019, and the sample of charities we analysed for the three years 2016-2019.

5/ #Charity patronages seem to matter to the Royals. 26% of the Royals’ public engagements during 2019 were with patronee charities.

{So, taking public engagements as indicator of workload, they're 1/4 of the Royals' work. We could find no effect of that.}

6/ The Royals seem to be* patrons of 1187 registered UK charities. Of those, 1064 have one Royal patron, and 123 have multiple Royal patrons.
Their patronage positions have various titles, incl. patron, honorary patron, president, honorary fellow, & in one case, Companion Rat.

7/ *The data that the #Royalfamily publishes about its "charities and patronages" (its term) has many errors, duplications, omissions, and is hard to use. It took us six weeks to construct a defensible list. So these numbers are from Giving Evidence, not the Palace.

8/ #Charity patronages are very unevenly distributed. The Queen, Charles and Anne have 532 between them*: by contrast, William has just 12, Kate 9 and Harry has 8.

(*= half of the single-patron patronee charities).

19 UK Royals have charity patronage positions.

9/ Re effect on revenue, the complicated maths couldn't find an effect*.
But here are revenue of air ambulances: they go red when they get a Royal patron. You can see that nothing much happens then:

(*note: this ≠ conclusively finding no effect)

10/ Much the same for revenue of children's hospices. And for all the other comparator groups that we looked at.
(The report has more graphs - many more!😉.)

10a/ Of course, revenue isn't everything and Royal patronages may have effects on other things, eg., beneficiaries, staff morale. But we're trying to do science, and there's no analysable data on those other outcomes.
We tried to analyse press coverage, but couldn't.

11/ Charities with patronages are generally large: their revenue is (on average) nearly 30 times larger than the average UK charity.
The charities with multiple Royal patrons are huge: on av. >80x the ave revenue of UK charities:

12/ Charities with patronages are disproportionately in London, the South East and South West of England – where the Royals’ main residences are. More deprived regions seem under-represented.

13/ Charities with patronages are concentrated in ‘#environment and animals’ and ‘culture and #sport’ - relatively uncontroversial causes. The sectors with fewest Royal patronages are #housing, #employment, social services, and #religion.
#charity #Royal

14/ We found no evidence of Royalty having any ‘macro’ effect on generosity. There's no correlation between the % of #Royal patronages in an English region and the
‘participation in #giving’ there (the % people who have given recently).*
#philanthropy #charity

15/ (*I'm well aware that we are here using English regions as controls / comparators for each other & that that is not perfect b/c there are loads of confounding factors. I do not need a lecture about that from anybody! We looked from many angles to try to get a line of sight.)

16/ And internationally, it is not the case that countries with resident #Royal families (the UK, Cambodia, the UAE, Morocco, etc.) are more generous than countries without. No country with a resident Royal family has been in the top 8 most generous countries over the last 4 yrs.

17/ We found no reason to think that charities with Royal patronages are better (more effective) than those without: the selection process and criteria aren't clear, but it looks like history, geography, the Royals' personal interests and serendipity play large roles.
#charity

18/ Giving Evidence takes no position on the #Royal family (or Royalty more broadly). Our interest is providing sound #evidence to inform decisions by charities & donors to improve their #effectiveness.

19/ Our research is here, with some explanatory videos🎊🎉: giving-evidence.com/royal-findings

It was funded by the Belgian Red Cross, Flanders, @RodeKruisVL (see also giving-evidence.com/flemish)

Cambridge University was not involved. Many others were - thanks! 👏🤜🤛 - eg, @DrSylviaMcLain.

20/ I'm happy to talk to press.

Note to journos: there are several Caroline Fiennes'es.
I was never married to Ralph & Joseph's father, my husband wasn't stabbed, and I don't sell soap...😠