The charity sector should have seen the fundraising crisis coming before the death of Olive Cooke, the communications director of Oxfam told an audience of trustees last week.
Jack Lundie was speaking at Trustee Exchange, Civil Society Media’s conference for trustees and other governance specialists, about how to handle a media crisis. He was speaking about how Oxfam had responded to criticism in national newspapers.
In particular he discussed how Oxfam had responded to the Mail on Sunday, which sent an undercover reporter in a call centre which fundraised for Oxfam, and accused the charity of targeting 98-year-olds – an allegation Oxfam still denies.
Lundie said that charities had been involved in activities which were legal, but had nonetheless led to supporters becoming unhappy. He said that this became a story in the newspapers with the death of 92-year-old Bristol poppy seller Olive Cooke, who at the time of her death was receiving regular phone calls and direct mail from at least a hundred charities.
“Olive Cooke was the signpost that we failed to see coming,” Lundie said. “We should have seen this coming a lot further off.”
He said that charity staff could all have realised what was happening. He said that charities had engaged in many tactics which their own staff did not enjoy being on the receiving end of, and that the sector should have realised this was not acceptable.
“The Mail story highlighted that we were engaging in marketing processes that were completely legal, but we’ve all had enough of them,” he said. “The Mail did us a favour, if we’re honest.”
He said that Oxfam, liked other charities, had failed to assess whether agencies were training staff in the way the charity wanted.
“There were things going on that we were not sufficiently engaged in monitoring,” he said.
No long-term drop in trust
Lundie said the charity had taken a decision to hold up its hands and apologise following the Mail on Sunday story, and had immediately suspended work with relevant agencies.
But he said that the charity did not appear to have suffered a long term drop in trust from supporters. He said this was because “our supporters want to believe in Oxfam” and had looked for and accepted evidence that the charity had changed its ways.
“There is a watermark, and trust returned to that watermark,” he said.
Lundie said that the crisis had brought increased regulation and cost, and he was concerned that the burden of that would fall disproportionately on smaller charities.
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