Garden Staters Suffer from Donor Fatigue

 

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Tabular Results
Survey Details

As Garden Staters push back from the Thanksgiving table and head into the holiday season, a majority say they've given about all they can give to the victims of natural disasters. According to the most recent results from Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind poll, 55% say they have “donated about all they can at this point.”

About one in four New Jersey residents (27%) say they can donate more and will do it soon, and 19% haven't decided. One in four adults also (27%) say they've not donated at all, at least not yet.

The good news is that 72% of New Jersey residents report they have given money in response to one or more of the past year's natural disasters.  Three-quarters of women report they have donated money, making women more likely than men to have done so.

When asked to recall the natural disasters of the past year, New Jerseyans are far more likely to recall Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast of the United States, than other natural disasters, including the recent earthquake in Pakistan or last December's Pacific tsunami. While 88% recalled Hurricane Katrina, only 32% remembered to name the earthquake in Pakistan.

A majority (61%) of residents say the U.S. Government's response to natural disasters has been “only fair” or “poor,” including nearly half of self-described liberals (48%) who say the U.S. government's response was poor. Liberals are also more likely than others to recall the Pacific tsunami and the recent Pakistani earthquake, and to say they have donated all they can. However, they are not more likely than others to report that they have given money for relief.

The PublicMind poll of 600 New Jersey residents statewide was conducted by telephone from November 15 through November 20 and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

 

 

Poll Analysis

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Peter Woolley 973.670.3239
or
Krista Jenkins 973.443.8390

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Copyright © 2005, Fairleigh Dickinson University. All rights reserved. FDU PublicMind Poll [Latest update 051129]