So the Fundraising Standards Board has just published its first annual report, and a very glossy looking piece of work it is too! But once past the pictures of happy people (presumably donors happy in the knowledge that their money has been raised from them by the best of standards), we get to the heart of the matter – what are the public complaining about?

Interestingly, FRSB member organisations, of which there are about 860, reported a total of 8,434 complaints which sounds a lot, but only 4 of these (or 0.047%) were referred to stage 2 and only 1 to stage 3. Now I understand that some of this data will be incomplete, but I suggest that it just goes to illustrate that when a member of the public contacts a charity they are usually dealt with pretty effectively.

More interesting figures to come out of the FRSB’s data includes a comparison of the types of fundraising in percentage terms of complaints. If we take these figures at face value, then direct mail is more than twice as irritating to the public as face-to-face, as the FRSB commentary states: ‘Despite early sector speculation that the volume of complaints would predominately be about face to face fundraising, the results of the annual return suggest otherwise.’ They do nothing of the sort. If you take into consideration the volume of direct mail fundraising activity in comparison to the volume of face-to-face activity you will find the picture is somewhat different, and I would expect telephone fundraising to generate more complaints by volume than direct mail by the very nature of the direct approach.

One can of course make data look as different as we want it to be. For example, if we were to compare the volume of complaints to charities about direct mail to the volume of pieces sent in a year (according to the DMIS) the complaint level is 0.0000071% of mailing pieces sent. See what I mean?

The FRSB has to work for the sector, or at least in the eyes of the Government nannies, or we may be saddled with direct legislation that we neither want nor need.

We have to be careful about how the data we produce for public consumption is portrayed. Despite attempts to convince us that there are serious issues with public trust and confidence, I for one, remain of the opinion that if we continue to treat donors with respect, respond appropriately and continue to build rapport with our supporters, then fundraising is in pretty good shape.

Kevin Kibble

Posted by Whitewater Team at 09:40 AM | Permalink

The past few weeks a few of us Whitewater folk have been muttering these words under our breath. You may well ask yourself; is it to do with the mass scope of appeals and fundraising activity we have lined up for the summer months? Nope. Or is it to do with bracing ourselves for another British summer? The answer my friends is again - no.

It all started a few weeks ago, while a few of us were down in Poole, having a meeting with our RNLI clients... but someone was missing. That someone was a fine young gentleman named Sam Bond. Or as some of you might get to know him, Atlas!

Yes, Sam, or should I say 'Atlas' has become a Gladiator – and has already started filming with the rest of the Gladiator team for Sky. And everyone here at Whitewater wants to wish him lots and lots of success. So, all together now "ARE YOU READY?"

Imogen Bielby

Posted by Whitewater Team at 08:31 PM | Permalink

I’m reading a fab book at the mo – Joe Trippi’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, from 2004. Among other things, he writes passionately about how the American people became disillusioned with their political system, and it strikes me there’s a clear parallel with our industry.

In the US, party or presidential candidates became overly reliant on sabotaging their opponents through negative TV advertising – even if the advert had little basis in truth, the shocking images stuck and invariably the most vitriolic campaigns won out on polling day. This lead to an escalating ‘arms race’ of negative followed by negative with the cumulative effect that many voters eventually had to turn away, as evidenced by falling voting numbers. Less engagement in politics led to the ads having to work harder and harder, be even more negative and manipulative to have an impact, and so this spiral continued. In Trippi’s words -

‘Its like shining a bright light in someone’s eye – the pupil closes the brighter the light gets, letting in less light, so you shine the light brighter to get more light in and the pupil shuts out more light, until pretty soon, the person just has to look away.’

We’re no strangers to this in the UK. I can still remember the Labour campaign that ran the words ‘Get out and vote. Or they get in’ under an image of William Hague with Margaret Thatcher’s hair-do. Both frightening and effective! And we’re suffering from serious political disengagement here too.

Perhaps there’s a danger of something similar happening in fundraising too. It’s a fact that it’s often the hardest hitting, the most urgent communications that deliver the greatest response. And as new supporter recruitment gets harder the temptation is for us to get harder, to turn the dial up on the need, the urgency and the guilt. But there’s a very real danger that this negative cycle will only drive away our audiences even further, that the short-term gains will damage our long-term future.

When we break this cycle, treat our audience with respect and give them an inspirational way to connect with the cause, we can achieve great results. So as well as maintaining the sense of urgency that’s so important to response, we can also connect with people beyond the transaction, cultivating a more engaged, more inspired donor and a longer supporter relationship as a result. If we don’t there’s a possibility that consumers will treat us the same as more and more of us are treating politics. They’ll turn away, disengage, close their eyes.

Trippi proved that it is possible to break this negative cycle, and that when you do the results can be extraordinary. Inspirational. Click below if you want to read more.

The Revolution will Not be Televised, Joe Trippi

Mark Cook

Posted by Whitewater Team at 08:43 AM | Permalink