Complaints about door-to-door fundraising have increased more than two-and-a-half times within two years as the volume of door-to-door fundraising rose by two-fifths, according to new fundraising complaints figures.
Door-to-door fundraising accounted for 5,555 complaints in 2012, up 93 per cent on 2011 levels. There were 43.6 million door-to-door fundraising engagements last year, up from 31.3 million in 2010. Still, while complaints about door-to-door fundraising have risen above even the fast incline in door-to-door fundraising activity, it takes 1,573 ‘asks’ to generate one complaint.
Nearly all (83 per cent) of charities which do doorstep fundraising report receiving complaints about it.
The figures, revealed in the Fundraising Standards Board’s annual report which is released today, also show a significant rise in telephone fundraising volume and complaint levels. Telephone fundraising generates the highest ask-to-complaint ratio, with an average of one complaint to every 890 asks.
Telephone fundraising complaints on the rise
Complaints about telephone fundraising increased by two-thirds between 2011 and 2012 on the back of a 15 per cent rise in the volume of that kind of fundraising. Some 6,379 complaints were made about telephone fundraising.
Addressed direct mail, however, retains its stranglehold on the top of the list in terms of fundraising complaints. It generated 12,474 complaints in 2012, with two-thirds of the charities which use it reporting complaints. However, unlike telephone and door-to-door fundraising, the volume of direct mail fundraising has decreased significantly over the past two years. There were more than 200 million pieces of direct mail sent in 2010, compared with just under 166 million in 2012.
Chair of the FRSB Colin Lloyd said that on the whole the complaints figures were reassuringly low. “But the sector must not be complacent,” he warned. “Looking across the full data set there are a number of fundraising activities and behaviour that the public is unhappy about.”
Alongside addressed direct mail, telephone fundraising and door-to-door, clothing collections and email fundraising – which in 2011 reported a threefold increase in complaints – make up the top five most complained-about fundraising methods in 2012. When issuing a call for complaints data earlier this year, the FRSB also announced it would be looking into the reason for complaints about door-to-door and email complaints. The number of fundraising emails sent increased by 60 per cent between 2010 and 2012.
The volume of street fundraising fell dramatically, from a high of nearly 42m engagements in 2011 to just under 30m in 2012 - a fall of nearly a third. Commensurately, complaints about face-to-face on the street fell from 1,098 in 2011 to 820 in 2012. Meanwhile private site fundraising decreased similarly dramatically in volume (448,901 engagements in 2011 to 346,908), but complaints rose in number from 242 to 435.
Total complaints up 9 per cent
Overall, fundraising activity in 2012 increased by 38 per cent on the previous year, with a 9 per cent increase in fundraising complaints. In total 33,744 complaints were made about fundraising last year.
The complaints data is based on reports from 1,068 FRSB members, and nearly seven out of ten members report getting no complaints at all, despite the substantial increase in fundraising activity.
The Institute of Fundraising echoed the FRSB’s stance on the report, in noting the low rate of response to fundraising volume, but similarly warning against complacency.
*This story was corrected after FRSB re-released figrues relating to doorstep volume.
