Pity the hapless fundraiser who rang an exasperated Alastair Campbell to ask him, not for the first time, to take out a direct debit for a charity to which he had texted a one-off donation. We must hope that the reaction was not one of Malcolm Tucker’s finest.
Campbell, formerly Tony Blair’s chief spokesman and strategist and often cited as the model for Tucker, the volcanic spin doctor in The Thick of It, recounted the story the other day when he talked to charity leaders at an event organised by sector umbrella body the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). He was trying to say that even people like him – instinctively well disposed towards charities, understanding of the need to fundraise and indeed highly active fundraisers themselves – get annoyed by insensitive tactics.
Travelling on the London tube, Campbell had been moved by an image used by the development charity in an advertisement and had been prompted to text a £5 donation. Within a month, he said, he had received something like five calls on behalf of the charity asking him to commit to a regular gift.
As it happens, a senior representative of the charity was in the NCVO audience. To laughter, she protested: “No – it would have been a maximum of three calls.” Campbell’s point was made for him.
Despite all the controversy since the summer over fundraising techniques used by some charities, and the commitment now to reform, there is still a sense that many in the voluntary sector do not quite get it. There remains a tendency to fall back on easy criticism of the Daily Mail, the newspaper that exposed some of the most questionable practices, and to see the issue as part of a broader, political attack on charities for being anti-government and paying their bosses inflated salaries.
Something of that feeling of denial was in the air later the same day at the annual conference of the charity chief executives’ body Acevo, where Peter Kellner, president of the YouGov opinion polling organisation, sought gently to highlight some home truths.
Kellner said that measured trust in charities had plunged immediately the fundraising controversy broke with the story of the death of Olive Cooke, the Bristol poppy seller whose family and friends reported how she had been asked continually for money by charities. Importantly, trust had not recovered (pdf). Fewer than one in two people (42%) now said they trusted the people who run charities, compared with 87% who trusted family doctors, 79% school teachers and 73% local police officers.
More concerning still, he added, was that levels of trust in charity leaders dropped to 34% among people aged 60 or over – the demographic group both most likely to donate and the fastest growing.
“You do have a problem,” Kellner told the conference. “It’s probably not catastrophic in terms of reaching donors in the short run and there is scope for recovery. But it needs work. You can’t allow another Olive Cooke-type story to appear in the media.”
Peter Lewis, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising, reminded the conference of the success of the Giving Scotland campaign in restoring faith in charities north of the border after a series of scandals in 2003. “That really did build up trust and confidence in charities among the Scottish public,” he said.
As well as considering such concerted action, Lewis said, charities should also make much more of a point of thanking their donors. Cancer Research UK was “the only charity that systematically thanks its donors in its campaigns”.
Some of the leaders of smaller voluntary organisations at the Acevo conference expressed anger that the actions of a few big charities had brought the whole sector into disrepute. Laura Parker, chief executive of Children and Families Across Borders, called on the larger charities involved to be more honest about their failings.
“I do think that the big guys – and they are mostly guys, I am afraid to say – have let down the rest of us,” Parker said. “I have felt very badly let down by the 1.7% of charities who together take over 70% of the income in our sector.”
Meanwhile David Babbs, chief executive of the online campaign group 38 Degrees, reminded the conference that fundraising wasn’t the only issue that caused public resentment. “It’s hard to see how anyone running a charity should be on £200,000,” he said. “I don’t think you have got answers to that that the public recognise.”
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