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Bad call - the Pell & Bales telephone fundraising scandal 1

Fundraising | Suzie Who | 19 Feb 2010

Poor old Pell and Bales. It has been a bad few months for them in the press.

Following revelations in September that one of their callers dealt inappropriately with a member of the public who was suffering from cancer, News of the World have now infiltrated their offices in the kind of clandestine manouver I thought they reserved for premiership footballers and minor royals.

However, although their title was shocking enough, the content of their 'expose' seemed incredibly weak to me.

Trained fundraisers call charity supporters to update them on the work they are supporting and ask them to consider giving more - not really what I was expecting when I read the headline.

I have often thought what a grim job it would be to be a telephone fundraiser.

It is alright for us 'professional' fundraising managers, sat snugly behind our desks, protected from irate donors by a switchboard or supporter services team.

But although we may seldom meet or speak to donors unless they give a five figure sum or more, many of our charities rely on call centres to do work we can't or won't do ourselves.

Knowing this, I was delighted to see charities jumping to the defence of Pell and Bales after News of the World launched its vitriolic attack on them

Telephone fundraising agencies are an easy target, just like street fundraisers - and we should defend them because they are critical to the success of our work

Of course we should promote high standards, but reading the News of the World article I am not convinced that there was much really wrong at Pell and Bales

I see that the FRSB have requested a meeting with P&B to 'discuss the allegations'.

Let's hope that they take this as an opportunity to offer support and guidance to these frontline fundraisers, whose work generating unrestricted income for major charities probably pays for their membership fees, amongst all the other unglamorous things we can not avoid paying for.

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