According to a new charitable statistics from Ketchum, there were three causes in 2018 that Americans were the most eager to support.

Ketchum's Charitable Statistics

Animal Welfare

The most popular cause was animal welfare, with 41% of Ketchum's respondents saying they were interested in supporting charities focused on this field of philanthropy. For as long as Ketchum has been conducting this study of charitable statistics (three years), animal welfare has always been in the top three most popular cause types Americans have been the most eager to support.

Children's Education

Children's education was the charitable cause type that earned the spot of second most popular this year. 38% of Ketchum's respondents said they were interested in supporting charities with this type of focus. "Children's education is consistently important with Americans, hovering between 35% and 38% over the study's three years," said Ketchum.

Hunger

Last but not least, Ketchum's charitable statistics revealed that hunger was the third most popular type of charity to support among Americans in 2018. In 2017, hunger was the number one cause to support, but this year, only 33% of respondents voted for it.

About 21.4% of adults in the U.S. are Cause Marketing Responders, according to AudienceSCAN.

Ketchum's charitable statistics revealed that this lineup does not remain consistent across all fields of respondents. While animal welfare remains that top cause to support among 43% Americans ages 35 and older, only 37% of younger Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 agree. 44% of these younger Americans would rather support children's education causes instead.

When it comes to race, white, Black, and Hispanic consumers would rearrange the order of the top three charitable cause types that they're the most eager to support, but animal welfare, children's education, and hunger remain the top three charities to support among the three races, even if they're in different orders.

In addition, the general consensus of the top three charity types to support remains the same for Americans with total annual household incomes of up to $49,000. However, Ketchum's charitable statistics found that Americans with annual household incomes of between $100,000 and $150,000 say that environmental causes beat out hunger as the third most important cause type to support.

At the end of the day, Cause Marketing Responders want to buy from companies with the same values as them. According to AudienceSCAN, these consumers are 249% more likely than average adults to shop at a store that supports a cause or charity that is important to them and another 107% will avoid companies with values that conflict with their own.

So, how should companies market to these consumers? AudienceSCAN reports that about 66.8% of this group took action after seeing an ad on TV within the past 12 months and another 66.1% did the same after receiving ads and coupons via direct mail.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. Media companies and agencies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.