New research has highlighted the lack of positive news sources available to the public.

Just a fifth of the population have heard positive news about charities (22%), universities or colleges (18%) and local councils (17%) in the last three months.

According to Sapio Research, the picture for social enterprises (13%) and trade unions (10%) is even worse.

In all, 54% have not heard any positive news about charities, social enterprises, local councils, trade unions, universities or colleges.

To address this problem, social enterprise Campaign Collective launched a new media outlet – The Rooftop – a month ago to provide the public with a daily dose of positive news.

This new research highlights the scale of the problem we want The Rooftop to address.

We knew that there was a dearth of positive news in mainstream media, but it’s even more worrying that social media and other marketing isn’t filling this void.

The Rooftop is providing a daily dose of positive news to the public and the initial reaction from readers has been amazing.

In its first four weeks, The Rooftop has seen more than 430,000 content views of stories about the positive impact of social enterprises, great charity campaigns, exciting developments from local government, trade union victories in the workplace and ground-breaking research by universities.

The website and social channels are designed to help charities and campaigners connect with the general public and get their positive stories heard in what is often a negative mainstream media climate.

This negative climate is having an impact on trust and reputation of all the sectors surveyed and we need everyone to get behind The Rooftop and make it a success – for charities’ and all our sakes.

Photo by Elijah O'Donnell on Unsplash