Is it easy to say I am proud to be a fundraiser? For me, yes it is! However, after the media reports that charities have hounded the vulnerable for donations many fundraisers have felt uncomfortable admitting they work in the sector.
Where bad practices are highlighted they must be stopped and put right. But, my concern is that all charities have been tarred with the same brush. At times it has felt that barely a week has gone by without a headline about “charity begging letters” or “charity muggers”. I have been dismayed and at times just downright annoyed at the broad brush portrayal of charities and fundraisers.
I have been a fundraiser in small local charities for 25 years. I started out working in admin for a fundraising consultant at a major NHS Hospital Trust. At that time fundraising wasn’t seen as a career, but I discovered that I was good at raising money for important causes and realised the difference the money I raised made to the patients on the wards.
For the last 10 years I have been fundraising for a local hospice in Wrexham. We do not have massive budgets so most of our fundraising involves engaging with people who live in our local community. If our donors are upset about something we soon know about it because they will tell us directly – very often that can be while I am walking the dog or in the supermarket!
For us, it is all about keeping our donors informed and happy, building an emotional link with them as to why we need our local hospice. Many of our donors and volunteers call into our office for a chat and a cup of tea and bring their donations in personally. I suppose it comes down to common decency, I would never treat our donors or potential donors any differently to how I would want one of my own family to be treated and that is with respect and dignity. We have not had a single donor contact us with regards to any of the issues raised in the media last summer.
I am proud of my work but am concerned that the negative stories about some fundraising has meant that we are all guilty by association. And if this means that fundraisers start to question whether they want to work in fundraising, then that is a terrible thing. Journalists and politicians should visit fundraisers working in communities up and down the country to find out what we really do, and why it is so important. It is not just about telephone calls and direct mail, but good old fashioned community fundraising. We still hold ballroom dances, tea parties and bucket collections, as well as a local newsletter with a donation request.
Is fundraising all about the money we raise? Of course it is! But this is because without the money we raise charities cannot provide services, support their beneficiaries or make a difference to people’s lives. But fundraisers can do this in an appropriate way. Sometimes we do get it wrong but these rare occasions are a genuine mistake and not a conscious and deliberate act.
I fundraise because the hospice needs to raise 80% of its running costs to keep our beds open year after year. We can only do this with the help and support of our local communities. if we did not fundraise – who would look after people at the end of their life if there was no hospice to care for them? That is not a question I care to consider.
I know the difference the work of the hospice makes to local families. One of our day care patients very recently told me “The hospice is not somewhere for me to die, it’s a place that is helping me live till I die, it makes me feel worthwhile, useful and not a burden. That is something very special”.
So ask me again. Am I proud to be a fundraiser.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by the Institute of Fundraising, sponsor of the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network’s fundraising hub.
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