Charity f irst to shift funding tactics in wake of MoS probe
THE Royal National Lifeboat Institution is to become the first major UK charity to radically change its fundraising methods in the wake of a furore over unscrupulous tactics revealed by a Mail on Sunday investigation.
The charity has pledged to adopt an ‘opt-in’ system, contacting individuals only if they explicitly give fundraisers their consent.
Last year, an undercover MoS investigation revealed Britain’s biggest charities – including Oxfam, Cancer Research UK and the RSPCA – were funding a call centre where staff were trained to squeeze cash from potential donors, including 98-year-old pensioners and cancer sufferers.
The MoS investigation was praised by MPs for uncovering hard-sell methods, and it resulted in amendments to the Charities Bill. Under the new rules, charities will have to set out how they protect vulnerable people – including the elderly and those with Alzheimer’s – from being hounded by aggressive fundraising calls, simply because they have not ticked ‘opt-out’ boxes often buried in small print.
No one has accused the RNLI of employing unscrupulous fundraising techniques, but the charity’s changes are now leading the way for others.
Writing to the MoS, RNLI chief executive Paul Boissier explained: ‘The Mail on Sunday played an important role in highlighting the way that some charities contact members of the public.
‘We pride ourselves on our ethical approach. We don’t target vulnerable people – and never have. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t listen to what the MoS and its readers had to say. We’re moving to “opt-in” communications where people can choose if and how the RNLI contacts them. This is the right thing to do.’
The RNLI, which provides an on-call 24-hour lifeboat searchand-rescue service across the UK and Ireland, will implement its changes next year.
The move comes in the wake of the death of 92-year-old poppy-seller Olive Cooke, who committed suicide after being hounded by several charities.
Although Mrs Cooke’s family insisted the charities had nothing to do with her death, they acknowledged that she had been distressed by the high number of approaches she had received from the organisations.