The Fundraising Standards Board has found that the Dogs Trust breached the Code of Fundraising Practice after agency TPP made a call on the charity’s behalf to a potential donor registered on the Telephone Preference Service.
The potential donor took his complaint to stage three of the FRSB’s adjudication process, which involves consideration by the FRSB board.
The complainant’s details had been obtained from a third party data supplier which had carried out two lifestyle marketing surveys in 2011 and 2015, the FRSB said, and he had been told in an automated message that the Dogs Trust might contact him. But the FRSB said in a report published today that this did not constitute consent.
“Any permission given was not sufficient to override TPS regulations because the complainant had not been asked to provide informed or specific consent to future fundraising calls from those organisations,” the report said.
“As such, the regulator found NTT Fundraising and the data supplier in breach of the Institute of Fundraising’s Code of Fundraising Practice, which says “Organisations MUST NOT make direct marketing calls to Telephone Preference Service-registered numbers unless the person who registered the number has notified the organisation that they are happy to receive calls for the time being”.
The FRSB also found Dogs Trust had breached the Code by “failing to have sufficient oversight of the marketing leads that were secured for its donor acquisition campaign”
The FRSB said it had referred the case to the Information Commissioner’s Office in case it had breached the Data Protection Act or Privacy or Electronic Communication Regulations (PECR).
Andrew Hind, chair of the FRSB, said: “It is essential that organisations secure appropriate levels of consent for any charity fundraising calls, particularly when it comes to contacting people registered with the Telephone Preference Service. Charities working with third parties must do all they can to ensure that those third parties comply with the Code and secure the necessary permissions for any fundraising calls that will be carried out in the charity’s name.”
A Dogs Trust spokeswoman said: “This is was an isolated case but one we take very seriously and measures have already been put in place to ensure we not only continue to meet donor expectations, but also comply with all best-practice guidance notes as they are published.
“The extremely low level of complaints that we receive demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of activity we undertake meets with our wonderful supporters’ expectations.”
An NTT spokeswoman said: “In investigating this complaint, we would like to thank the FRSB for their recognition that this was an isolated case, and their acknowledgment that NTT Fundraising is an industry leader in respect of compliance and data assuredness. Two of the alleged breaches were not upheld and the FRSB commended NTT on the handling of the complaint.
“The regulatory environment in which we work has shifted significantly since this occurred in July 2015; as such this individual case was regarded by the data sector to be within legal definitions as provided to them at that time. However, it did sit outside NTT Fundraising’s best practice guidelines and we stopped working with the data supplier for this reason.”
