Charities sorry for cold calls but say public should have complained
SOME of Britain’s biggest charities have apologised for intrusive and overly aggressive telephone fundraising — but suggested the public are partly to blame for not complaining enough.
The chief executives of the NSPCC, RSPCA, Save the Children and Oxfam appeared before MPs to accept the blame for tactics used by fundraising agencies acting on their behalf and promised to make changes.
But MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee were told that charity trustees had failed to pick up on the problem because the complaints had not been at an “unacceptable level”. Last year, there were almost 52,400 official complaints about charity fundraising tactics, according to the Fundraising Standards Board – one of several overlapping voluntary regulators.
The charities are now considering whether voluntary organisations that persuade donors to give money should be banned from cold calling or using “chuggers” to approach passers-by.
Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children UK, suggested setting up a charity-run call centre.
MPs said that a series of scandals — including targeting vulnerable people and contacting others against their stated wishes — left some respected charities looking as if they treated their supporters as “cash machines”. The MPs described the system of regulating fundraising as a “dog’s breakfast”.
Mr Forsyth admitted that disclosures about the bullying of pensioners had been a “wake-up call” for charities. Peter Wanless, of the NSPCC, said: “I think that there has been an imbalance between the desire to raise money and the importance of valuing the relationship with the donor, either potential or actual.”
Cheryl Gillan, a former Conservative cabinet minister, accused the bosses of trying to “insulate yourself from the distasteful job of raising the money”. Bernard Jenkin MP, chairman of the committee, told them they should be “more like Marks & Spencer and not double-glazing salesmen”.
Mr Forsyth issued an apology to the public over charity fundraising tactics. “The standards we had may have been strong but they weren’t enforced in
‘Our standards may have been strong but they weren’t enforced in practice. We did not look hard enough’
practice … we were looking but not hard enough,” he added.
Mark Goldring, of Oxfam, said his charity had about one complaint for every 1,600 calls. He said trustees regularly receive an “accountability report”, but that complaints “weren’t at an unacceptable level”.
Mr Forsyth said Save The Children had seen a 42 per cent fall in complaints last year. “There is obviously a problem here and our system didn’t pick it up and also the public didn’t complain about it so we have to look at what went wrong here and I think we have to accept that,” he said. “That’s why we have suspended all of our telemarketing agencies and are re-looking at contracts and standards.”