The Committee of Advertising Practice has issued guidance to companies who collect charity bags door-to-door, in light of a complaint made to the Advertising Standards Authority last year.
The CAP published its guidance for charitable bag collection organisations today, which said that companies “should communicate their name and company status on both sides” of their collection bags, as well as the name of the charity they are collecting the bag on behalf of.
In the guidance, the CAP said that the name of the charity “must not be given greater prominence than the name of the company undertaking the collection. In practice, this means that the company name must be of equal or greater prominence compared to the charity name”.
The guidance has been issued to “private companies or individuals who act as commercial participants in the house-to-house collection of goods, with a proportion of the proceeds given to the charity”.
The guidance also provides a number of examples, which the CAP has stressed “are only intended to show how you could present the company and charity name” in line with the guidance.
The CAP have said that organisations have until 2 June to comply with the new guidance, and that it is working closely with "local licensing departments who grant licences to charity collection companies and who are issuing the guidance to businesses in their areas" to ensure compliance.
In Fundraising Magazine
Shahriar Coupal, director of committees at the CAP, said: “No-one should feel duped into thinking they are donating directly to a charity if that’s not the case. Appeals to consumers’ generosity can benefit a range of good causes but it’s only fair that these companies are truthful and transparent about the commercial nature of the service they provide.
"Our guidance sets out clearly how commercial collection companies can stick to the rules which will help build consumer trust and, ultimately, benefit charities.”
Guidance stems from ASA ruling on door-to-door collection
The CAP said that its guidance on door-to-door collection was brought about after the Advertising Standards Authority “received a complaint about a charitable collection bag issued by a commercial participant.
The complainant challenged whether the bag made sufficiently clear the commercial nature of the business, given the prominence of the charity’s name on the bag.”
The ASA made its ruling on 30 March 2016, and upheld the complaint made against Recycle Proline Ltd, a bag collection organisation working on behalf of Cancer Research and Genetics UK, a registered charity.
In its ruling, the ASA said that Recycle Proline Ltd must “ensure that their ads made clear to consumers that they were a commercial company and that recipients were not donating directly to a charity”.
A spokesman from the ASA/CAP, said that this document “is the first bit of bespoke guidance” for the charitable sector issued by the advertising watchdog.
Institute of Fundraising welcomes guidance
Mike Smith, head of media and public affairs at the Institute of Fundraising, said that the fundraising membership body and its compliance directorate welcomed the guidance.
“We certainly welcome the intention behind these guidelines, and we are sure that the ASA and the Fundraising Regulator will want to work closely on this to ensure the approach on this is joined up.
"As part of the wider picture, it’s also important that there’s greater enforcement of existing rules to prevent and tackle unlicensed collections which can undermine legitimate collections.”
The Fundraising Regulator has been approached for a comment.
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