Anti-chugging Twitter campaign gains steam

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 21 Aug 2009

A charity has backed a Guardian journalist’s Twitter campaign against face-to-face fundraising.

Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science column in the Guardian, begun a flurry of Twitter messages on Thursday when he tweeted that "Charity muggers mean your experience of walking down the street is defined by having to say 'no' all the time. This is really corrosive".

Goldacre went on to create #chuggerstop a hash tag group to encourage a “massive, collective censure” of face-to-face fundraisers, and BullyingUK joined the chorus of criticism tweeting: "Down with chugging. We will never use chugging to raise money".

Since the chuggerstop hash tag campaign began, hundreds of Twitter users have weighed in to express their disdain.

Mick Alridge, chief executive of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, questioned the motives of BullyingUK for "jumping on the bandwagon seeking to get some cheap publicity".

"It demeans them to get themselves involved with a minority interest on Twitter," he said.

"It’s neither here nor there if a charity decides not to use face-to-face fundraising… because the vast majority of charities do not,” he said, adding that it would be "foolish" for any charity to rule out the fundraising method as an option in the future.

Who's Who: Celina Ribeiro

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