New guidance to clarify rules for professional fundraisers
Howard Lake | 25 February 2008 | News
The Cabinet Office has published draft ./guidance for fundraisers working for agencies who are paid to raise money on behalf of charities. New legislation requires them to tell potential donors how much of each donation will go to charity and what proportion goes towards the fundraiser’s wages.
This will affect street, telephone and door-to-door collectors. Shops that donate a portion of the sale price of particular items to charity will also have to state exactly how much this is.
The new legislation, a part of the Charities Act 2006, is designed to help the public make informed decisions about making donations or buying a product from which a charity will benefit. The Cabinet Office says it will also help protect the high levels of public trust in charities.
The new ./guidance lays out more clearly exactly what the solicitation statements should contain and it contains template statements to help fundraisers with the wording.
Mick Aldridge, chief executive of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association said the ./guidance would be “an enormous benefit for charities and their agents seeking to understand the fulfil their legal obligations to ensure members of the public are properly informed when making their donating choices.”
The Office of the Third Sector is looking for comments and suggestions to make sure the ./guidance is “as helpful and relevant for users” as possible before the final version is published. Comments and suggestions need to be submitted by 31 May 2008.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/080221_fundraisers.aspx
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.