MPs must force ‘charity muggers’ to reveal the cut they take
FUNDRAISING group UK Charity Aid is lobbying MPs and councils to make transparent the fees levied by controversial ‘chuggers’, who raise money from passers-by.
Peter Quinn, chairman of the North-West-based group, said that donors do not realise how much of their donation goes to the agencies employing ‘charity muggers’, nor that they are dealing with professional fundraisers rather than volunteers.
‘We contacted every council in the country, and a lot are trying to ban chugging as it is the most damaging form of fundraising,’ he said.
An investigation by the BBC found that a donor agreeing to set up a direct debit of £10 a month in this way could expect all of the first year of their donations to go to the agency rather than the charity.
‘People who want to give to charity should go straight to a charity’s website,’ Quinn said.
‘As well as taking money from donors, chuggers use hard sell tactics that have no place in charity work.’
Quinn, who started fundraising after a fight with cancer, said he had emailed every MP and council because UK Charity Aid believes chuggers are hindering the work of unpaid volunteers, who are mistaken for chuggers.
‘Chugging has brought words like harassment and aggression into what was a noble cause.’
Peter Hills-Jones of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, the self-regulating body for street and doorstep direct debit fundraising, has described the role of professional fundraisers as ‘invaluable’.