# Street prospecting now part of PFRA's remit

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/01/19/street-prospecting-now-part-pfra039s-remit/
- Published: 2011-01-19T13:04:04+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The practice of street ‘prospecting’ is now incorporated within the Public Fundraising
Regulatory Association’s (PFRA) self-regulatory regime.

Prospecting is the collection on the street of the contact details of potential 
donors, who can then be asked to give at a later date

Prospecting is covered by the Institute of Fundraising’s Face-to-Face Activity Code
of Fundraising Practice, after it was incorporated into the code in its December
2009 revision. This brought prospecting within the regulatory remit of the PFRA.

## Advertisement

 [⌊Posthub advert. You create the campaign. We'll handle the postal journey. Get started at post-hub.co.uk.⌉](https://fundraising.co.uk/ads/posthub-20261007-300x250/)

Until this month, prospecting fell outside the PFRA’s normal levy procedures because
no donors were recruited on the street. PFRA’s charity members pay a levy to the
PFRA of 75p for each new donor they recruit through street or doorstep face-to-face
activity. This funds the PFRA in fulfilling its regulatory functions, such as running
a mystery shopping programme, dealing with complaints about F2F fundraising and 
negotiating access with local authorities.

As of 10 January, however, prospecting became fully incorporated into PFRA’s site
allocation processes throughout the UK and charities will now need to ‘bid’ for 
prospecting sites in the same way that they bid for street fundraising sites.

PFRA members have agreed to pay a fixed levy of £6.75 per site per day for each 
site that is used for prospecting.

The fee is based on how many donors a team of fundraisers would have been likely
to sign up had it been operating in that site, rather than the number of contacts
made or the number of donors recruited during follow-up contacts. As with the per
donor levy, charities will pay the prospecting levy, not agencies.

Michael Naidu, PFRA’s acting chair, welcomed the integration of prospecting. He 
said: “To potential donors on the street, and of course to local authority licensing
officers and town centre managers, prospectors are indistinguishable from street
fundraisers. As this is undoubtedly a form of fundraising – because the street contact
is followed up with a telephone call or other communication asking them to become
regular donors – it is important that prospecting is fully integrated into the mainstream
of self-regulation of F2F fundraising”.

www.pfra.org.uk

 * **[PFRA and Manchester sign street fundraising regulation agreement](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/02/18/pfra-and-manchester-sign-street-fundraising-regulation-agreement/)**(
   18 February 2011)
 * **[Call for other fundraising methods to follow PFRA's donor attrition research](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/03/21/call-other-fundraising-methods-follow-pfra039s-donor-attrition-research/)**(
   21 March 2011)
 * **[PFRA joins Twitter](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/03/30/pfra-joins-twitter/)**(
   30 March 2011)