The Fundraising Regulator has received its first complaint from a member of the public, despite the fact that it has still yet to officially launch.
Gerald Oppenheim, director of policy at the Fundraising Regulator, confirmed to Civil Society News that the body received its first complaint from a member of the public a few months ago.
While Oppenheim would not confirm the name of the charity, he did say that it was a large fundraising charity. He would not confirm whether or not the charity was one of the 50 organisations approached for start-up funding by the regulator.
Oppenheim said that the regulator, despite not technically having taken over the regulation of fundraising from the Fundraising Standards Board at the time of receiving the complaint, took the complaint directly to the charity in question and was able to resolve the issue informally.
He also said that the regulator is “already starting to get approaches from both members of the public and charities by phone and through the website asking questions about what we are going to be doing”.
He said that this “shows that ahead of the launch, there is already growing awareness”.
As to what the official complaints process of the Fundraising Regulator will look like when the regulator does launch on 7 July, Oppenheim told Fundraising Magazine that it will likely follow a three-step process that will roughly mirror the current FRSB process.
He also said that the regulator had and would be signing numerous “Memorandums of Understanding with the Charity Commission, with the Commission in Northern Ireland and with OSCR in Scotland” as well as with other membership bodies within the sector.
According to Oppenheim, this will “allow all regulatory groups to make quick decisions about whose remit a complaint might fall under” in the future.
