The Fundraising Standards Board found that fundraising agency Listen Ltd placed “undue pressure” on the public to donate during a campaign undertaken on behalf of Oxfam, but did not target the elderly, in an adjudication published today.
The investigation’s findings, published today by the FRSB, said that while it could find no evidence that either Oxfam or Listen “expressly targeted elderly supporters,” the regulator still found that “several clauses” of the Code of Fundraising practice had been breached.
The investigation stems from allegations made by the Mail on Sunday on 7 June 2015, which claimed that Oxfam, through its partner Listen Ltd, was deliberately targeting elderly supporters as part of its “two-step” campaign. This led the FRSB to open an investigation that month, which closed in November 2015.
While the FRSB could not find any evidence of this targeting – and described the Mail's headline as “misleading” and “untrue” – it still found that the campaign was “inflexible,” in that it required Listen fundraisers to “always ask for funds three times per call” and also in “refusing to take people off its contact list” unless they used one of three specific phrases.
The FRSB also found that a fundraiser from the Street Academy – a face-to-face fundraising agency – was also in breach of the Code of Fundraising Practice, having failed to “deliver the required solicitation statement indicating that she was paid and employed by a third party” to a donor. Nor did the fundraiser in question “make clear how the supporter’s contact details would be used in the future”.
The FRSB found that Oxfam had “reasonable procedures” in place when it came to monitoring Listen’s activities in its name. Despite this, the FRSB found that the charity didn’t carry out checks to “ensure ongoing compliance” by Listen Ltd to the Code of Fundraising Practice. The charity also failed to ensure that a “clear opt out message” was included in all SMS text responses to donations.
The FRSB has published a full list of the breaches made by Oxfam, Listen Ltd and the Street Academy on its website.
Andrew Hind, chair of the FRSB, said: “It is important to be clear that we found no evidence to substantiate The Mail on Sunday`s assertion that Oxfam was targeting elderly supporters in this campaign.
"However, having identified several breaches of the Code, we are concerned that this campaign was non-compliant in several areas and that some fault lay with each of the three organisations involved.”
The FRSB also said that it welcomed the remedial action taken by all three parties concerned.
Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said: “We are pleased that the FRSB has cleared us of the most serious accusation made by the Mail on Sunday. We have always been clear that their headline claim that we targeted elderly or vulnerable people in our fundraising is, as the FRSB has found, not only misleading but completely untrue.
"Nevertheless, we recognise that the Mail on Sunday highlighted practices that did not meet the high standards we expect of those fundraising on our behalf and that were not picked up by our own monitoring systems.”
A Listen Ltd spokesman said: “We are pleased the FRSB dismissed the allegation that we had breached the ‘respectful principle’, and that it acknowledges that Listen “has a robust policy in place for managing conversations with vulnerable people.
“We moved quickly to address any evidence of practice that fell below our normal high standards and our proactivity has meant that all of the subsequent recommendations made by the FRSB have been in place for several months now.”
Peter Lewis, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising, said:
“We welcome the recommendations from the Fundraising Standards Board report. It is vital for public trust and confidence in charities that the IoF Code of Fundraising Practice is adhered to, and that swift action is taken when the Code is found to have been broken.
"We are glad that Oxfam, Listen and the Street Academy have all acknowledged the shortcomings highlighted and have already taken significant steps to meet the recommendations made in the report."
Addressing the point in the report that the Institute of Fundraising should review the Code of Fundraising Practice clause 8.3.1, Suzanne McCarthy, chair of the IoF Standards Committee, said: “The Standards Committee is absolutely clear that no member of the public must ever be put under undue pressure to donate. The issues raised in the report will be brought to the Committee’s attention for their consideration.”
