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The FRSB is not a greyhound, but an unloved camel 1

Fundraising | Andrew Scadding | 19 Jan 2009

Welcome, Alistair McLean, new chief executive of FRSB.  I have been racking my brains to find common ground between greyhound racing and fundraising.  Nothing comes to mind except profound and very personal gratitude that it is not the custom to take old, underperforming fundraisers round the back of the kennels and shoot us.

Alistair McLean, the name speaks adventure and derring-do.  Will you need a sense of adventure?  I think you may!

Certainly Mr McLean you are coming to FRSB at an interesting time.  After a couple of years, it has half the members it needs, and a quarter of the members it wants.  OTS will not fund it indefinitely; cannot in the current economic climate.  Quick and decisive results are required, or – well, or what?  Or we’ll have to start all over again, because the demand for regulation is not going to go away.

But it won’t be easy, Mr McLean.  A series of catastrophic decisions are flocking home to roost.  First and worst was the stubborn determination of FRSB’s founding fathers to exclude fundraising charities from its top table, whilst expecting them to pick up the substantial tab.  An offer many charities have found all too easy to refuse, even in the teeth of bullying and threats.  The 50 largest  were persuaded to join, but at the cost of capping their subs at £5,000.  This failed on two counts: there was no rush of smaller charities joining in the wake of the big guys.  But the cap will depress future subscription income, as contributions from smaller charities concertina below it: it was a bad deal.  FRSB is not a greyhound, but an unloved camel with a dodgy constitution and a nobbled income.  Don’t waste your time or OTS’s £100,000 quid trying to flog it to us.

Mr McLean, success requires that you act boldly and decisively!  First, take the camel out and shoot it, or at least its constitution.  Replace it with a functioning, democratic membership system.  Encourage member charities to engage fully in the governance and policymaking of FRSB as we do in PFRA.

We can be persuaded to take full responsibility for funding it adequately, if we help define ‘adequate’.  Give FRSB an honest and respectable product to present, and give fundraising charities genuine self-regulation.  Good luck, Mr McLean!  Please give us the FRSB we need and deserve.

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