Poll: Many who don't give, can't afford to do so. (Newsline).

Women are 40 percent more likely not to contribute to a nonprofit than men are because they don't have the money, according to the first ever Vertis Customer Focus 2001: Direct Marketing survey.

That is just one of the many demographic questions answered in the survey of 2,000 adults 18 and older, conducted during April and May of this year. The answers represent giving during the previous year.

Thirty-four percent of men who participated in the survey stated that they didn't have the money as their reason for not donating to charity. And, 74 percent of women in the survey sited that same reason.

"There's a 40 percent difference there as far as women are much more likely to donate cause they didn't have the money," explained Scott Marden, director of strategic marketing for Lawrenceville, N.J.-based Webcraft, the direct marketing service of Vertis.

Marden said Webcraft met with a few industry leaders to find out what's hot in the industry, and to see what they were seeking from a donor survey.

"So for instance in the nonprofit category they wanted to know what were the most popular types of charities that people were donating to," he said. "Whether or not they would like to be acknowledged after they make a donation; how they heard about the charities that they donated to; different types of media; direct mail use; also the demographics of the people who are most likely to donate."

Some of the key findings were:

* 87 percent of all adults polled have contributed to a charity during the past 12 months, with a majority of the population (54 percent) donating less than $250;

* Only 15 percent of Americans thought recognition of their donation was somewhat or very important, led by African Americans at 21 percent;

* The number one reason given by adults that do not contribute was a lack of money. An average of those respondents salary indicated an average household income of $20,250;

* The number one method in which contributors get information about the charities they donate to is direct mail (49 percent), which was led by Seniors (60 percent);

* Charity/fundraising direct mail was the most popular (55 percent) type of direct mail surveyed led by readers from the support of environmental and animal related charities (72 percent) and by adults with $75K+ household incomes.

"Our leaders in the nonprofit industry really created the survey, we executed it for the nonprofit industry," said Marden. "But when I designed the survey I wanted to ask the nonprofits what they'd like to know first, so when we went to the consumer we asked them meaningful questions. I think these questions are pretty meaningful."