The right to offend

Howard Lake | 16 October 2006 | Blogs

The new Fundraising Promise (formerly the Donor’s Charter) has been very well received by fundraisers and I would like to add my name to the list of people offering plaudits, particularly for a couple of its clauses.
First, I’m delighted that the clause committing charities to promise not to use ‘excessive emotional arguments’ or put people under ‘unfair pressure’ to make a gift has been removed, not because charities should use ‘excessive’ emotional pressure, but because charities must use some kind of emotional pressure and one person’s acceptable emotional image of a starving kid is another person’s ‘excessive’ argument and unfair pressure.
The problem with this clause was that it created a ‘strict liability’ offence – in other words, you’re guilty or you are not, with no grey area in between. Parking on double yellows lines is a strict liability offence because you either parked on them and thus committed an offence; or you did not park on them, and thus committed no offence. You can’t argue your way out of a strict liability offence.
So if charities had signed up to a document in which they promised not to use ‘excessive emotional arguments’, any complainants who claimed they had been put under excessive emotional pressure would have satisfied the grounds for a breach of the Fundraising Promise and the charity would have been bang to rights. Guv.
In its place we have a promise not to put prospective donors under ‘undue pressure’, which, as the PFRA’s Mick Aldridge points out, puts the burden of proof on the complainant to say why they think what a charity has done constitutes ‘unfair’ pressure. ‘Excessive’ could have been all things to all men and totally subjective; ‘unfair’ will be judged against established benchmarks and constitute a certain degree of objectivity.
Having said that however, I do look forward to a test case in which face-to-face fundraising as a medium is in the dock defending itself against a charge of putting donors under ‘unfair’ pressure.
But it’s another clause that has me most excited. In fact this clause is extremely daring, brave and, even, revolutionary in bucking the current ‘thou shallt not offend’ atmosphere that pervades almost every aspect of public debate.
So often, one party will try to bring an argument to a close with the statement: ‘I find that offensive.’ This carries the unspoken expectation that the ‘offender’ must backtrack profusely while apologising for any unintentional ‘offence’ caused. Which the ‘offender’ very often does.
There is a pathological fear of offending people these days, as if this is the worst kind of crime you can commit. Before Channel 4 screened the Pete and Dud biopic Not Only But Always a couple of years ago, the continuity announced said: ‘This film contains satirical material which some people may find offensive.’ Surely that’s the whole point of satire.
Well this attitude need not worry fundraising charities.
Charities signing up to the Fundraising Promise will put their names to a statement that says: ‘We take care not to use any images or words that cause unjustifiable offence or distress.’ (In this clause, ‘unjustifiable’ has replaced the earlier use of ‘unreasonable’.)
This implies that, provided the charity can justify it, it will be OK to use images or words that cause offence or distress. Providing, of course, the offence or distress is justifiable. This is great news. Charities and fundraisers have a responsibility, no a duty, to push their causes as far as they can and if some people will be offended or distressed at the message you send out or the way you send it, then so be it.
Your mission to feed starving children in Africa or carry out eye operations in India or bring sexual health education to SE Asia can’t possibly be allowed to be compromised by a few people in a comfortable, affluent society such as ours taking offence.
There are more important things at stake than whether the image on a dm envelope ‘offends’ some of the people who pick it up. Fortunately, the new Fundraising Promise will allow you to argue that if some people are offended or distressed, then the offence and distress caused to them was justified.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.