2024 Positive Money supporter survey results

February 27, 2024 

At the start of 2024, over 800 Positive Money supporters completed our annual survey. 

Positive Money’s annual supporter surveys are a great chance to step back, gather feedback on our work from the previous twelve months, and gain a valuable snapshot of what matters most to our community right now. Thanks so much to everyone for sharing their thoughts with us; as a people-powered movement we couldn’t do this work without you!

Our starter question asked how long respondents have been supporters of Positive Money. 

A quarter were fairly new, between 6-12 months, the majority (65%) have been following us for several years, and a faithful 10% have been with us since the very beginning – since we started back in 2010! It’s great to see this mixture of longevity and new joiners in our community as a testament to how our work continues to remain both important and relevant.  

Our second question asked which of our activities supporters got involved with last year.

Almost everyone read our emails, which is very good to hear as they’re the best tool we have for sharing updates about our work (if you haven’t yet, sign-up to our mailing list here!) and a large proportion took part in one of our digital actions. Someway behind, though still some sizeable chunks, helped to spread the word about Positive Money by speaking to their friends, family and colleagues, by sharing our content on social media, and by contacting their MP. Despite our incredible press team, getting our voices heard by securing coverage in mainstream media outlets can be difficult so it’s fantastic to see people taking the time to help us get the word out there in a variety of different ways.

Our next question asked how aware respondents were of each of the campaign actions we ran in 2023. 

By far, the campaign respondents were most aware of was our #TaxTheBanks petition, calling on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to introduce a windfall tax on banks’ huge unearned profits following interest rates hikes over the last two years. Alongside the accompanying actions we ran to highlight this campaign outside the Bank of England in August and September, and the Halloween-themed videos we made in October. This was followed by the online letter we wrote to encourage people to contribute to the Treasury and Bank of England’s public consultation on a digital pound, which nearly 1,500 supporters submitted too. The Bank and Treasury teams published their findings in January and you can read our response here. Other activities we did in 2023 were not as well known, such as our collaborative video with Swarm Dynamics, or our stall at Glastonbury festival. Given the time and resources needed to pull off projects like these, we’ll be taking stock of whether to repeat activities like this again this year, as well as set aside time to think about how we can do more to share our work with our supporters. 

Our follow-up question asked respondents which of these campaign actions resonated the most with them and why. It’s incredibly helpful to hear why certain activities stand out to people, here are just a few of the replies;

• [On #TaxTheBanks] “Because it clearly showed that banks are not working in the public interest, but are private profit making institutions, helping skew wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people.”

• “Climateflation – if that’s not sorted nothing else matters.”

• “Digital pound – this seems crucial for separating the means to engage in money transactions from the (often dubious) investments undertaken by banks with our bank deposits.”

• “Campaign outside the Bank of England as you became more visible”

Looking to the future, we next asked which of our work areas people were most interested in this year, and there were three clear winners;

Clamping down on the power of banks, shifting money away from fossil fuels and towards the green transition, and pushing for homes to be places to live rather than financial assets. So we’re very excited to share that work is already underway in each of these areas for 2024. With a hand-in action for our #TaxTheBanks petition planned ahead of the Spring Budget, a new paper on ‘Financing Green Prosperity’ in the pipeline, and an event in parliament ahead of the general election on why just building more homes won’t solve the housing crisis already in progress – keep an eye out for updates on all these and more over the coming months. 

Diving into the details, we then asked which activities we should do more of to empower and grow our movement in 2024.

Again there were some clear winners; with petitions and email actions to key decision makers, and creating educational resources out ahead. Our educational aim and aspiration to always hold powerful politicians to account are both vital to our work, so it’s wonderful to see such great support behind them. In third place were ‘digital adverts to reach new audiences online’; the more we can grow our community, the stronger we’ll be together, and with social media becoming a key battleground ahead of the next election, it’s reassuring to set aside more budget for digital ads with supporters behind us.  

Next we asked about our local groups; who were kept busy last year, running over 25 events online and in-person in Southampton, Brighton, Belfast, Edinburgh, Devon, Hammersmith and Tower Hamlets. 

Whilst most respondents weren’t interested, hundreds more weren’t aware of Positive Money’s local groups but keen to find out more. Our local group network is a core part of Positive Money’s community, so we’ll do our best to share more info about their activities in the coming months with our wider community.

As the UK is set to hold a general election by January 2025, we asked, when they think about voting, which issues matter the most to our supporters. 

The dire state of public services came top of the list, followed closely by the environmental and climate crisis, and the economy. These results highlight more than ever the need for Positive Money and the work we do. 

Right now our financial system is driving a raft of interconnected crises; from climate change and housing, to ecological collapse and poverty. But if governments and central banks used their powers differently and took a more proactive approach, we could tackle these crises head on. To achieve this, we must expose and push back against vested interests lobbying to maintain the status quo, and build the case for a new macroeconomic framework so governments can coordinate closely and transparently with accountable central banks to scale up the investment we need for a global green and fair transition. 

Our final text box question asked people to sum up Positive Money in just 3 words. There were so many amazing and kind responses to choose from, so we can only share a small sample: 

• “Essential; educational; inspiring.”

• “radical, ethical economics”

• “Honest, clear, unheard”

• “Viewing money differently.”

• “wealth not riches”

• “Well worth following ”

• “Make Banks Work”

And finally – though not strictly in the 3 word limit but we couldn’t resist including! – “For the banked not the bankers”.

It’s so wonderful to have such kind and compassionate people in our movement, so dedicated to our vision for an economy that works for the wellbeing of people, communities and our planet, since we’ll only be able to achieve this if we work together. 

As we’re committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive movement, to help track our progress, and get an idea of who we’re reaching with our work, the final part of the survey included a number of demographic questions. As they were not mandatory, we extend another big thank you to everyone who took the time to answer these as well, it’s really appreciated. 

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to our mailing list to keep up to date with all our work, and to be the first to hear about our next annual supporter survey in 2025!