Pell & Bales raises its billionth pound for charity
Howard Lake | 17 November 2011 | News
Telephone fundraising agency Pell & Bales has now raised £1 billion for charity. It passed the milestone in the first half of this month.
The agency, a pioneer of telephone fundraising in the UK, was established in December 1990. The first pound it raised was for the Labour Party’s election campaign ahead of the 1992 General Election. Simon Pell and Kevin Bales had imported the concept of telephone fundraising from its successful use by the Democrats in the USA.
The company is now working on 60 different campaigns for its charity clients from its headquarters in London and call centre in Brighton.
The company’s most successful individual fundraiser raised just under £3.5 million from 88,000 telephone calls over 17 years of employment.
Brian Searle, Managing Director of Pell & Bales, said: “This is a momentous landmark and everyone who has been involved with Pell & Bales is rightly very proud of this achievement. It’s a testament to the continuing success of the telephone as a fundraising channel, one that is able to engage supporters directly with the causes they are passionate about.”
Founder Simon Pell added: “When we first started we had no idea how successful it would be or for how long it would continue. We thought we would run out of people to fundraise from or call within a couple of years, but the channel continues to evolve. I am immensely proud of what the company has achieved and everyone who has contributed to it over the years.”
www.pellandbales.co.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.