Only 19 complaints escalated to stage 2 of FRSB process

Howard Lake | 8 June 2010 | News

• Tagged with:
• Fundraising Standards Board
• Law / policy

The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) has published details of the fundraising complaints received by FRSB members during 2009.
Although fundraising complaints have increased by 67% year-on-year, only 19 of these complaints (one less than in 2008) were escalated to Stage 2, requiring the formal intervention and proposed resolution by the FRSB. All complainants were satisfied with the FRSB’s response, so no complaints were elevated to Stage 3 for final adjudication by the board.
Overall, 2.7 billion contacts made by charities with supporters via phone, mail, email, face-to-face and other channels generated 12,945 complaints. In 2008 the figures were 7,766 complaints arising from 434,546,711 donor contacts made by FRSB member charities.
This increase is put in some context by the FRSB which points out that 2009 say a 31% growth in its membership numbers (with 272 new members), and a 42.3% increase in responses from member charities, together with improved monitoring and reporting.
FRSB members are required to monitor all fundraising complaints each calendar year and to submit a complaints return to the FRSB during the first quarter of the following year. The complaints report and analysis are published today within the FRSB’s annual report ‘A Confident Future for Fundraising’.
Direct mail, telephone and door-to-door fundraising were the methods that attracted the highest number of complaints. In terms of the first two, the FRSB commented that “it is the frequency of mailings and tone of the telephone calls respectively that are of most concern to the public”.
Although FRSB members report a growth in the volume of fundraising, complaints were not evenly distributed. For example, telephone fundraising has seen a 48% increase in volume, but an 83.5% increase in complaints, whereas digital fundraising (email and online) have seen a considerable rise in reported volume (626% and 825% respectively) from a relatively low base, but very little increase in complaints (11% and 7%).
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the volume of their fundraising activity, the top 50 charities by voluntary income account for 84% of all complaints and 98% of fundraising volume reported by FRSB members.

Complaints: A three year picture

*In 2007, members were required to record and report complaint figures only.

**2008 data has been revised from 26,349 complaints and 489,996,849 volume to the above figures after 2 members’ inaccurate returns were corrected and annual returns from suppliers were removed to ensure no duplication. These revisions have been made to enable the FRSB to present a more consistent and clearer picture of fundraising complaints year on year.

***This number only denotes the number of people who sign up and complete a direct debit form. It does not take into account the number of people that are approached by a street fundraiser and decline to donate.

Alistair McLean, Chief Executive of the Fundraising Standards Board, said: “We believe that member charities continue to fundraise at a very high standard across all disciplines and, on the whole, complaints remain reassuringly low. What is more, the FRSB is seeing evidence of a growing understanding of best practice in complaint handling. We are increasingly supporting members at the forefront of the complaints process, advising them how best to tackle complaints to ensure a swift resolution and continued donor relationships.
“As a result, the large majority of complaints were quickly resolved with only 19 requiring the formal intervention of the FRSB. This suggests that members are handling public concerns well and sensitively…”
“What is evident from three years’ cumulative data is that complaints remain low relative to activity. And yet, there are a few core areas of fundraising that consistently attract a higher rate of complaints than others. It is clear that no two years in fundraising are the same, particularly during and post a global recession. The techniques used vary considerably as fundraisers innovate and adapt to the changing demands of donors.”
Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society, welcomed the report, saying: “I commend all the members of the Fundraising Standards Board for their public commitment to keeping a high standard of fundraising practice. Fundraising is often the public face of charities and we have a strong tradition of charitable giving in the UK. Charities rely on generous public support to carry out their charitable work and the Fundraising Standards Board enables the public to donate to charities that are a member with confidence.”
www.frsb.org.uk

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.