Do the standards around door-to-door fundraising need an overhaul?
Disclaimer: The experience and views outlined in this post are my own.
My 75-year-old mother has Alzheimer’s. I recently discovered - by chance - when going through her bank statements that monthly payments were being made to three charities, amounting to £250.
Knowing this was financially unsustainable for her, I contacted the organisations to cancel the payments. When asked how she’d been solicited, I was told she’d been approached by door-to-door fundraisers.
I asked my mother about the direct debits, but she had no recollection of signing up for them. When I told her how much money was leaving her account each month, she got anxious and upset.
The experience raised several red flags for me, as:
My mother is a pensioner.
She has dementia.
She’s empathetic and generous by nature.
In short, she’s vulnerable.
I should say at this point, I have nothing against face-to-face fundraising per say. I appreciate it’s a valuable source of income for charities. This is evident from Chartered Institute of Fundraising figures, which showed a sharp rise in door-to-door sign ups, with 28,400 people committing in April 2022 compared with 14,500 in the same month in 2019.
My concern is that the regulations around soliciting donations from vulnerable people are not stringent enough.
What are the rules?
Section 1.3 of the Code of Fundraising Practice outlines the following standards on fundraising and vulnerability:
You must take into account the needs of any possible donor who may be in vulnerable circumstances or need extra care and support to make an informed decision.
You must not exploit the trust, lack of knowledge, apparent need for care and support, or vulnerable circumstances of any donor at any time.
You must not take a donation if you know, or have good reason to believe, that a person lacks the capacity to make a decision to donate, or is in vulnerable circumstances which means they may not be able to make an informed decision. Among other things, you should consider:
any physical or mental health conditions the person may have.
any disabilities the person may have.
any learning difficulties the person may have.
whether the person is facing times of stress or anxiety (for example, following the death of a loved one or redundancy).
whether a donation is likely to affect the person’s ability to sufficiently care for themselves or leave them in financial hardship.
how well the person can communicate and understand what they are being told.
whether the person is under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
the person’s age.
Is it ethical?
My concern about these rules is that indicators of vulnerability aren’t always obvious.
Take Dementia, for example. (For the unfamiliar, Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of medical conditions that affect memory, thinking, behaviour, and the ability to perform everyday activities). Many of these conditions are progressive, but the signs and symptoms can change from day to day, or (in the case of my mother, from hour to hour).
My question would be this. Can a fundraiser make a fair and informed assessment of someone’s capacity to make an ongoing financial commitment based on a 10-minute chat on the doorstep?
Voice of the Regulator
Last year, the Fundraising Regulator urged charities to be “increasingly careful about the risks of requesting donations from people with dementia” and to “factor in” the way the UK’s population is set to age, especially when dealing with potential donors who are older and in poor health.
The warning followed the release of the regulator’s 2021/22 annual complaint’s report, in which it said it had seen a 19% increase in complaints on the previous year.
The majority of the complaints related to ‘misleading information in campaigns’, ‘negative behaviour from fundraisers’, and ‘fundraisers posting charity bags through doors despite signs asking them not to’.
The regulator pointed out that concerns about fundraising from vulnerable people “threaded through” many of the complaints it received and said it would “continue to work closely with charities to support them in the areas of concern identified in the report and to ensure they are properly equipped with the tools to fundraise appropriately.”
Opinion
The 2016 Charities Act introduced regulatory measures to protect vulnerable donors, but I’d argue that additional steps need to be taken. For example, face-to-face fundraisers should receive comprehensive training on common physical and mental health issues donors may face, and the signs to look out for (the Chartered Institute of Fundraising has published guidance on this here). It would also be beneficial for fundraisers to ask homeowners to disclose physical or mental health conditions at the point of sign-up.
What do you think?
We’d love to get your opinion on the subject. Post your thoughts on our Facebook or Insta pages and we’ll include them in a follow-up post.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a fundraiser to update your vulnerable person’s policy, we’ve got a bank of talented candidates waiting in the wings. Call us on 020 3750 3111.