Sometimes it can almost seem as if charities are bracketed with bankers and estate agents in the category of those who engage in sharp practice and cannot be trusted. Along with a host of lurid stories about executive pay, uncontrolled spending and questionable commercial tie-ins, a principal complaint has been about that most fundamental issue for charities; how they raise their funds.
Much has been written about how the sector came to this impasse and (rightly) how unfair it is to tar all charities, or even most of them, with the same brush. But the question now being asked of the sector is how will it respond and what will it do to regain the public’s trust?
Sir Stuart Etherington’s review, ‘Regulating Fundraising for the Future’ makes a number of recommendations, including the establishment of a new Fundraising Regulator, independent of but with close links to the Charity Commission, and the creation of a Fundraising Preference Service to enable members of the public to prevent the receipt of unsolicited contact by charities and other fundraising organisations. Charities will also be expected to move towards and ‘opt-in’ rather than an ‘opt-out’ system for fundraising communications, about which we have blogged previously.
There is no reason to think that Sir Stuart and his august review panel didn’t consider their recommendations very carefully. Indeed, the report is extremely comprehensive. But the almost universal concern from charity executives attending a recent seminar on the proposed changes (organised by the Institute of Fundraising and the Small Charities Coalition) was about their unintended consequences; specifically the scope of the communications that would be caught and the administrative burden of managing the preferences expressed by supporters who might end up simply opting out of communications altogether.
The Etherington review panel heard from a number of charity chief executives, and others involved in the sector, but with thousands of charities each with its own approach to fundraising and donor relations, the consultation clearly needs to go out as far and as wide as possible. With that in mind the National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ (NCVO) working group has published a paper looking at the remit of a proposed Fundraising Preference Service and is inviting feedback from charities. The working group will also hold a series of roundtables and evidence sessions throughout March 2016.
To respond to the NCVO paper and to find out about the roundtables and evidence sessions, charities and others are invited to submit comments to the working group chair, George Kidd, at george.kidd@fpswg.org.uk.