Charities dodge begging ban
CHARITIES are circumventing a ban on sending begging letters to elderly people by delivering anonymised “dear homeowner” mailshots, the Fundraising Regulator has admitted.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, its chairman, Lord Grade, set out plans to stop charities sending free pens and cards to attract donations and further regulations to force fundraising websites to disclose hidden fees.
The regulator was set up after the death of Olive Cooke, a 92-year-old poppy seller who took her own life in 2015 after being bombarded with thousands of requests from charities. The regulator said 243 million anonymised begging letters were sent out by charities in 2013.
Since a new Fundraising Preference Service hotline was set up in July, 10,000 people have demanded that their names and addresses be removed from charity databases. A fifth of requests were from family members or carers of elderly or vulnerable people.
However, the regulator admitted that it was powerless to stop charities from paying Royal Mail to deliver unaddressed mail to their homes begging for money. Stephen Dunmore, its chief executive, said: “If it is addressed to an individual then the Fundraising Preference Service will stop it; if it is just mail that comes through then there is no one stopping it because the Post Office has to deliver it.”
Lord Grade said it was “very encouraging that relatives and carers are getting involved and using the service – that proves its worth”.
But he refused to guarantee that elderly people would never again be overwhelmed by begging letters, saying: “I wouldn’t predict that it’s not going to happen again but the chances of it are getting slimmer.”
Junk mail is the single biggest issue complained about by donors, with 16,000 out of the 43,000 complaints in 2016 referring to unsolicited letters. More than 80 per cent of these concerned enclosed free items such as unsolicited pens, badges and Christmas cards.
Lord Grade said: “They are saying, ‘Why are they spending this money? That could go to the charity’, which actually is a really smart public response.”
The peer was also concerned about a lack of awareness among donors about fees charged by fundraising websites to run donation pages. Justgiving keeps 5p of every pound donated.
Lord Grade said: “We are trying to agree greater transparency so that you know exactly what the commission is for the pay platform.” Karl Wilding, the policy director at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which represents charities, said: “Charities need to be able to get in touch with people in order to attract new supporters, and writing to addresses in a specific area is an efficient way for them to do that. Unfortunately, Royal Mail don’t exclude specific addresses when they’re delivering to an area, they either deliver to all the homes or none.”
Sir Stephen Bubb, from the Charity Futures think tank, added: “No charity intends to upset anyone through direct mailing but if they were to stop, then less money will be raised and charities’ vital work will suffer.”
Charities might be banned from sending unsolicited free pens, badges and Christmas cards to try to raise money from members of the public, under a new crackdown. The threat has come from Lord Grade of Yarmouth, chairman of the Fundraising Regulator, which was set up after a series of scandals exposed the methods some charities use to raise money.
Figures show that a third of complaints about charities last year – 16,000 out of 42,000 – were about direct mail. More than eight out of 10 of these “junk mail” complaints concerned “the accompanying enclosures sent to charities”.
Lord Grade said he had initially found it a little odd that “anybody is complaining about getting a free gift” but now agreed with the concerns.
He said: “They are saying ‘why are they spending this money, that could go to the charity’ – which actually is a really smart public response. So we are learning from the public.”
The Fundraising Regulator was set up in July 2016 after the death of Olive Cooke, a 92-year-old poppy seller who took her own life after being bombarded with thousands of donation requests from charities.
That came in the wake of some of Britain’s leading charities – including the NSPCC, RSPCA, Save the Children and Oxfam – apologising for intrusive and overly aggressive telephone calls.
A new Fundraising Preference Service, which allows people to demand that charities stop sending them fundraising messages by phone, text or email, was launched by the regulator this July.
In its first three months of operation the service received 1,979 requests – 20 a day – from carers or families of pensioners for them to be removed from mailing lists.
Lord Grade said: “A lot of these ‘suppressions’ are as a result of the old regime, the old wild west of datasharing. It is very encouraging that relatives and carers are getting involved and using the service – that proves its worth.
“If it gets to an extreme, if you are getting repeated complaints about a particular charity then we might have to bring it to the attention of the Charity Commission or the Information Commissioner’s Office.”
Lord Grade could not guarantee that elderly people would never again be overwhelmed by charity begging letters, but said: “The chances of it are getting slimmer.”
A loophole is that the regulator can only stop mail being sent if the recipient’s name and address is on the envelope. If junk mail is sent in an unaddressed envelope to a homeowner who has asked not to receive direct marketing, the fundraising regulator is powerless.
Stephen Dunmore, the regulator’s chief executive, said: “If it is addressed to an individual then FPS will stop it. If it is just mail that comes through then there is no one stopping it because the Post Office has to deliver it.”
Lord Grade, one of the country’s leading broadcasting executives who has chaired both BBC and ITV and was chief executive of Channel Four, has not had to phone his own hotline to complain about a charity’s marketing techniques. But he said he had developed his own way of dealing with unwanted cold callers by pretending to be a “leading litigation barrister” and threatening legal action. He said: “I am so angry, [thinking] ‘how dare they text me unsolicited’. Whether it is PPI, insurance, any of those things, I don’t get them from charities. I get very cross. I say: ‘I am a leading litigation barrister, this is an unsolicited communication, you have invaded my privacy, you have no right to, cease and desist forthwith and consider this a communication before action’. I never hear from them again.”
The peer said the need for a regulator was now broadly accepted by charities after an initial reluctance – a “wall of fear” – that the regulator would try to “stop us raising money”.
“For the first time after 16 months of formal operation, people are beginning to settle down. The fear level has definitely subsided,” he said.
The peer said charities could use call centres to raise funds – as long as there was proper oversight from trustees.
He said: “There is nothing wrong with employing private sector call centres to fund raise, but you absolutely have to police that relationship and have a watertight contract that you can enforce. It is the monitoring that is important and that is the responsibility of the charity.”
The regulator is funded by charities in the UK that spend more than £100,000 a year on fundraising. Each is meant to pay a levy ranging from £150 to £15,000 a year but Lord Grade disclosed he was “staggered” that 100 charities “of quite some size” had refused to respond to requests from the regulator for payment. Lord Grade said: “We have sent them registered letters, we email, we never hear back from them. It is unprofessional isn’t it? It is just hard to understand.”
Promising to name them publicly, he added: “Some organisations decided they were above all this but eventually they have all come through.” Lord Grade said he was also concerned about a lack of awareness among donors about fees charged by crowdfunding platforms to run donation pages.
There was controversy earlier this year when it emerged that Justgiving – which keeps 5p of every pound donated – was taking a fee from a fundraising page set up by the family of Pc Keith Palmer, who was stabbed to death by a terrorist outside Parliament. In March, the Telegraph reported that Justgiving had pocketed £30,000 of public contributions.
Lord Grade said there was a “lack of transparency” among fundraising platforms which “don’t all disclose their fees”. He added: “It is not for us to tell people how to run their business; it is for us to make sure the public has the information they need so that when they are choosing which platform or when a charity decides to use a giving platform it is all transparent.”
A spokesman for Justgiving said: “Justgiving has always been clear and transparent with all fees on donations through our site throughout our 16 years of operation. We are always open to discuss how we do this with the fundraising regulator.”
Lord Grade, 74, who is paid £500 a day to work a minimum of four days a month for the regulator, said charities had to be “mindful of the concern of the public” not to overpay executives.
“Trustees have got to balance the public’s view and concern and at the same time getting people of quality to lead organisations that do such incredibly important work,” he said.
“There are isolated examples that have come to light that look a bit toppy but there may be good reasons for it, in which case the trustees should not be shy about explaining why. Transparency and accountability is everything.”
Lord Grade said he hoped the regulator would be so successful that “we will do ourselves out of business.”
But he warned: “There will always be new people coming in who don’t understand the rules. Then corrective measures have to be put in place that really work well – and then it slips a bit and you have to remind people.”
‘If you are getting repeated complaints about a charity then we might have to bring it to the attention of the charity commission’