Bloodychuggers.co.uk lambasts face-to-face fundraising
Howard Lake | 11 May 2006 | News
Chavscum.co.uk, which received considerable media coverage in 2005, have set up bloodychuggers.co.uk “to highlight the public menace of face to face fundraising and to hopefully get charities to stop using this form of revenue raising.”
The site offers a humorous but serious critique of face-to-face fundraising and its publishers have clearly done their research.
Its FAQ handles important questions such as:
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* Are chuggers paid or are they volunteers?
* Will all the money go to charity if I’m signed-up by a chugger?
* Do chuggers work on a commission basis?
* If chuggers don’t work on a commission basis, why are they so eager?
* Who’s making money, putting chuggers on our streets?
* Are Chuggers licensed by the local authority?
* Are Chuggers going to be regulated?
It includes a list of “30 Things to Say to a Chugger”, most of them amusingly daft. In this way it is reminiscent of the Anti-telemarketers Source and other consumer sites that criticised methods of fundraising, as featured on UK Fundraising during the 1990s.
In its “Hall of Shame” the site lists a number of charities that use face-to-face fundraising, or that “that flood our streets with chuggers”. Each links to the charity’s own site. “We at Bloody Chuggers support charitable giving and that is why if you click on any of the links below, you will be directed to the charities donation page.” The site adds: “If you decide to make a donation, please let them know about your opposition to face-to-face fundraising.”
The site is run by the husband and wife team, who also created the Chavscum website, “a user’s guide to Britain’s ASBO generation”.
The site does exhibit a sense of humour. It asks for donations via Paypal with a picture of a kitten and the request “Please donate to Bloody Chuggers or this cute little kitten may starve!” The publishers are, however, keen to point out “We don’t own a kitten, this is just a chugger style guilt trip for you!”
You can even buy the t-shirt of the site – white letters on black saying “Chugger off!”
There is a discussion forum but it is currently not open for comments.
Similarly their guestbook is not available, or rather it points inexplicably to the Walt Disney website.
The site is not quite as active as it was. The last news item on the front page is dated 8 May 2005.
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.