Background

Non-profit organizations were reassessing how the COVID-19 crisis might affect their communications and fundraising. This report offers early insights into changes in public attitudes, the effects on NGO audiences, how campaigns could respond, and whether pre-pandemic audience data remained useful. Its analysis draws on a six-country study conducted during the first wave of the pandemic.

COVID-19 trends relevant to NGOs

The report identifies four broad shifts with implications for non-profits: a more inward-looking outlook, greater emphasis on safety and health, a stronger focus on the present, and increased local community involvement. For NGOs, these shifts could make international solidarity campaigns harder to connect with, while creating opportunities to show practical local impact and collective action.

Different audiences respond in different ways

The report examines three Glocalities value segments: Creatives, Conservatives and Challengers. Creatives are idealistic and drawn to equality, culture and international concerns; Conservatives tend to value family, tradition, safety and local community; Challengers are ambitious, risk-taking and more focused on personal freedom and opportunity. Their different priorities shape how they respond to the crisis and to NGO campaigns.

Creatives: global concerns and solidarity

Creatives are particularly attentive to environmental issues, human rights and discrimination, and are more likely to volunteer, donate or support causes through their consumer choices. The report finds that 40% of Creatives thought international cooperation should be central to the COVID response, compared with 28% across the surveyed populations. It also describes frustration among Creatives when national interests seemed to take priority.

Conservatives and Challengers: local needs and personal freedom

For Conservatives, the pandemic brought family health, safety and local community further into focus. Challengers, a segment prominent in youth culture, were more concerned about income and the economy, and felt the restrictions on personal freedom more strongly. The report notes that Challengers can be difficult for NGOs to engage consistently, while also representing a future audience for activism and donations.

From audience insight to campaign choices

The report recommends adapting fundraising and communications to each segment: connect Creatives with global interdependence and meaningful ways to act; show Conservatives clear, local and tangible care; and speak to Challengers through personal agency, freedom and opportunity. It also finds that many values changed little during the crisis, while some early trends were still evolving—so audience understanding remains useful, but campaigners should keep checking how circumstances affect their target groups.