The new Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) will be launched sometime in the summer of 2017, and it’s something of which all charities will have to take serious note.
Prompted by public concern about unsolicited mail, email, text and telephone contacts by charities, the new Fundraising Regulator proposed the FPS in 2015. A consultation was launched and 1,133 respondents gave their views on how best to develop a means of allowing members of the public to prevent such contacts in the future.
From the outset charities expressed the concern that the FPS would be a blunt instrument that would only give the option to end all communications and not merely to reduce their frequency. As things stand, that looks to be the way the service will indeed operate.
So what does this mean for charities? Put simply, if a member of the public uses the FPS to ask that communications from your charity cease, you must comply and stop sending any direct marketing communications. You will still be able to send communications relating to payments, such as thank you letters, direct debit and Gift Aid information, but that’s pretty much it. No newsletters, appeals or updates about your activities.
Underpinning the FPS is the Data Protection Act. Under the Act individuals about whom charities hold data can already insist that you do not send them communications and only use their data for certain purposes, or that their data must be deleted entirely. Indeed, the Fundraising Regulator says that members of the public are encouraged to inform charities directly if they don’t want to receive mailings. What the FPS will do, however, is give people a means to shut down all communications at a stroke.
Charities haven’t always helped themselves or the sector in the way they have handled data, as the recent fines imposed on 13 well-known organisations so starkly demonstrated, but the new service should make charities think about how they communicate with supporters. In particular, charities will be well advised to give supporters more options about the frequency and nature of the communications sent to them – something we are increasingly used to banks, for example, offering us. Rather than the all-or-nothing approach they should be asked if they agree to receiving a range of communications, newsletters, appeals and updates. And social media also has an important role in maintaining connections with supporters and engaging them with your activities in ways that dry mailings never can.
For more information on the Fundraising Preference Service, Data Protection or a range of governance and compliance issues, please contact me here.