Fresh attack on phone fundraisers

Telephone fundraising has found itself in the dock again after a Daily Mirror investigation claimed one telemarketing firm – GoGen – was charging charities up to 60% commission on donations raised.
The Mirror article claims Oxfam paid £737,000 to GoGen for a telephone appeal to provide impoverished communities with clean water, which the paper said was 51% of the £1,452,000 the charity expected to raise over three years.
It also claims that Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity paid £600,000, or 60% of donations, to the company for a campaign last year. It says that the firm was paid £172,000, equivalent to 23% of donations, for a Save the Children campaign.
The report follows accusations made against motor neurone disease charity ALS that hundreds of thusands of pounds in donations to the “ice bucket challenge” were going to “fat cat” charity directors.
In response to the Mirror report, Oxfam has said that claims are misleading as the campaign was still running and it was not yet known how much income it would bring in total.
The total would depend in part how much new donors agreed to pay and how long they stayed with the charity.
Oxfam fundraising director Tim Hunter told Third Sector: “Some 70% of regular donors stay with us for more than four years and almost a third carry on giving for more than a decade. Overall, Oxfam spends just 9% of its income on fundraising.”
A spokeswoman for Great Ormond St said the charity wanted to clarify that the £600,000 figure included all the costs for the campaign including VAT, data, fulfilment and attrition.
The Gosh spokeswoman said: “Telephone fundraising is very important to the charity, helping us reach a diverse range of supporters and bringing in regular donations that give us the long-term security to plan ahead and use our money as effectively as possible for our lifesaving work.”
Last month a Channel 4 Dispatches programme claimed telephone fundraisers were using dodgy practices to target vulnerable people; the show triggered demands for an urgent review of charity telemarketing.