Nearly 70 per cent of charities do not record whether contacts are registered to the Telephone Preference Service, according to research published this week by Fundraising Magazine.

According to data released this month in Fundraising Magazine, 69.2 per cent of 379 respondents to its Charity CRM Software Survey, said their current system is not used to record whether a donor is registered to the TPS or not.

Of those who did record that information, almost half had that information for only 30 per cent of their database. Only three per cent of those surveyed said that 80 per cent or higher of its contacts had that information recorded.

Charities have recently faced a crackdown on telephone fundraising, with the ICO insisting on a strict enforcement regime.

Well over half of the respondents also said that that the proposed Fundraising Preference Service would impact their CRM programme, with 15 per cent of those said that it would impact their CRM ‘a tremendous amount’.

Respondents said that they would like “better recording of donor data protection preferences” and “links to FPS to allow us to globally mark the phone numbers as TPS-compliant with new fundraising regulations and the Data Protection Act” in future CRM systems.

Personal data security was also an issue, with over 50 per cent of respondents claiming that “more robust security options to a more detailed level” would be welcome features.

Georgia Bridgwood, head of marketing and supporter development at mental health charity MQ, said: "It’s important to do some due diligence and ensure that your [CRM] provider has taken all the necessary steps to make sure your data is secure.

“Since charities take people’s bank details, it’s only a matter of time before one or more are targeted by hackers. Depressing but true.”

The full results of the eight annual Charity CRM Software Survey appears in this month’s issue of Fundraising Magazine.