UK charities could be forced to limit requests for donations under new guidelines devised after death of 92-year-old woman
By Deeksha Sharma
LONDON, June 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - British charities could be forced to limit requests for donations under guidelines devised following an investigation sparked by the suicide of a 92-year-old woman believed overwhelmed by fundraising letters.
The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB), which runs Britain's self-regulatory scheme for fundraising, said it had received almost 400 complaints about the frequency of requests for money since Olive Cooke's widely reported death last month.
The pensioner's suicide sparked an FRSB investigation after friends claimed she was "exhausted" by receiving up to 267 letters a month and numerous phone calls seeking money although her family later dismissed this as a cause in her death.
Alistair McLean, FRSB chief executive, said an interim investigation report concluded people should be able to opt out of receiving charity requests and charities should have to seek permission before passing contact details to third parties.
The Institute of Fundraising (IoF), which represents some 5,500 individual fundraisers and 420 fundraising charities in Britain, met on Wednesday to discuss the revised guidelines.
"Essentially, we want the public to be given more control over the way they are approached by charities and for further safeguards to be put in place when it comes to fundraising requests of the elderly and vulnerable," McLean said in the report.
"The collective experience of being approached by many charities simultaneously compounds things further."
McLean said most of the complaints received by the FRSB related to the frequency of requests, consent issues, sharing of contact details with external agencies, and the targeting of elderly and vulnerable people.
Traditional methods of fundraising involve requests by mail as well as telephone calls but online fundraising has also expanded significantly in recent years.
The revised guidelines would ensure charities were limited in the frequency of requests for donations every year and a reference in the current code that "reasonable persuasion" could be used by fundraisers looked set to be removed.
The Institute of Fundraising's Standards Committee is responsible for setting the standards for charity fundraising in Britain.
(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith )
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