# UrbanLeaf can live with the word "chugger"

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/08/29/urbanleaf-can-live-word-quotchuggerquot/
- Published: 2005-08-29T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

“Chugger”, the pejorative term for a face-to-face street fundraiser, is now in the
Oxford Dictionary of English, but street fundraising company UrbanLeaf is relaxed
about the term.
Clive Hanks of UrbanLeaf admits that the face-to-face fundraising
industry does not like the word “chugger”. It is of course disrespectful and based
on popular misperceptions of the medium, how it operates and what it achieves.

But the word is here to stay, and there’s little that the industry can do about 
it at this stage. Clive thinks fundraisers will just have to live with it and demonstrate
through their professionalism how unwarranted it is.

“It would be great if the job face-to-face fundraisers do was seen as what it is;
positive, effective and worthwhile. And it would be great if the fundraisers themselves
were seen as dedicated, well-trained and compassionate people, rather than a nuisance
out for their own financial gain.

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“But I don’t think we should take ourselves too seriously and if thats what people
call us, that’s what they call us. Face-to-face fundraisers come in for all sorts
of abuse from all sorts of people every day, they always have and always rise above
it. Being called a chugger is frustrating but no more than that really.”

Clive argues that there has been a steady improvement in professionlism as the industry
has matured and also as it has become more regulated.

UrbanLeaf, whose clients include Scope, World Vision and UNICEF, says that it achieves
very few public complaints, “often zero for an entire campaign.” It attributes this
to the quality of the fundraisers it recruits.

Clive concludes: “so the whole “chugger” thing is probably something we’re stuck
with – but hopefully it’s not a term used by the people who actually stop and see
what face-to-face is really about.”

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