# Cold calling: inside a fundraising call centre

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2015/09/09/cold-calling-inside-a-fundraising-call-centre/
- Published: 2015-09-09T12:50:07+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**This morning’s Four Thought on BBC Radio 4 featured a grim account of working 
in a fundraising agency’s call centre in “leafy north London”.**

Ian McDowell described his experiences in a smelly, ill-equipped and badly managed
call centre. He didn’t mention any names – of the agency, their charity clients 
or the staff he encountered – but he was scathing of what he encountered. Indeed,
it was so bad that he only lasted three days, and was relieved at not being asked
to return.

Some of his criticisms will be familiar to those who have read the [Daily Mail’s allegations](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/2015/07/12/the-daily-mail-criticises-fundraising-methods-for-five-days-running/)
about some telephone fundraising agencies earlier this year, and how, it is claimed,
some charities have handled donor data.

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McDowell asks:

> “How much of this do the charities, who spend millions of pounds every year on
> these dubious methods, really know, or want to know, about this sometimes sordid
> business? And why on earth should their supporters put up with it?”

You can listen again to [Cold Calling](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b068xjtl)
via the BBC iPlayer.

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