MacQuillin slams sector's 'seven years of failure' to defend face-to-face

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MacQuillin slams sector's 'seven years of failure' to defend face-to-face 13

Fundraising | Niki May Young | 16 Sep 2010

The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association’s head of communications, Ian MacQuillin has slammed the sector for seven years of failure to defend face-to-face.

In a heated address through a Guardian podcast on fundraising he slammed journalists for their “ridiculously naïve preconceptions that charities should not spend money on fundraising” and equally blamed charities for not accepting responsibility to “actively and combatively where necessary explain to journalists why charities use face-to-face”.

In response to the BBC Newsnight documentary on 26 August which focused on the costs of face-to-face, MacQuillin (pictured) said: “It took at least three researchers more than a month to come to the same conclusion, that fundraising agencies are paid and what they are paid is about the same as a donor gives to the charity in the first year, as a similar investigation by Radio 4’s MoneyBox programme in 2003.

"The BBC could have saved themselves a decent chunk of the licence fee revenue simply by searching their own website.”

But MacQuillin expressed frustration that in both shows, the sector failed to defend face-to-face, despite the creation of the ImpACT Coalition following the 2003 broadcast.

“Seven years on, nothing’s changed. The media come with the intention of soundly bashing us with the wrong end of the stick and no-one from the charity sector has the gumption to wrestle it from them and hit back,” he said.

“A great opportunity to influence public perception has been squandered,” he added.

MacQuillin pointed to the need for a sector representative to step up and take responsibility for defending face-to-face:

“Organisations such as the PFRA can only do so much in explaining how face-to-face works. Ultimately, it’s up to the charities that use face-to-face to defend it. Somebody in the charity sector has to accept responsibility to actively and combatively where necessary explain to journalists why charities use face-to-face and not be afraid to challenge their ridiculously naïve preconceptions that charities should not spend money on fundraising.”

Directory: The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA)
Who's Who: Ian MacQuillin

Place a comment

Elisabeth Michau
head of fundraising
18 Sep 2010

The information does exist and is in the public domain, if you visit fundratios 2009 http://www.cifc.co.uk/Fundratios09.html you'll see that committed giving (F2F being the main source these days) fares better than any other form of individual giving in terms of ROI (that's excluding house to house cash collection of course...).
All you need to do is add this link to the PFRA website.

[Reply]

Anne Cooper
Corporate Trust Manager
Anchor House
18 Sep 2010

Not sure what all the fuss is about. 'Chugging' is a means by which young entrepreneurial young people can get the first foot in the rung of the ladder of working for a charity. I have no problems talking to keen eager young people on the trust selling good causes - they get paid peanuts and presumably work for commission. If they sign up people to support a charity then well done. It gives students and young people out of work a start, it sells charities up front - a few chuggers will go on and have a career in marketing and sales having proved the hard way they can sell. I prefer them to being bombarded with car adverts or ads of tedioous celebrities selling perfume. Give these kids a break. standing out on the street all day in the elements dealing with the public 1:1 - i wouldn;tdo it except on flag days etc and I've been in the sector for 16 yrs. Apparently when they do sign somebody it is worth all the effort.

[Reply]

Ian MacQuillin
Head of communications
PFRA
17 Sep 2010

Frustrated of Fundraising - This is exactly what I told a Newsnight researcher during a 50-minute conversation. I went to great lengths to explain that all methods of recruiting new donors have a cost and that there is a period of time before the cost of recruitment is covered by the amount the donor has given. This is so for DM, new media, DRTV, press and poster advertising and every other form of donor recruitment.

I told the researcher that the costs for F2F were lower than for some other forms of donor recruitment. None of this was reported.

PFRA is open and transparent about the costs of F2F because we want the public to understand how it works. That's why we put information such as indicative costs-per-acquisition (CPA) on our website. Unfortunately, I think one of the reasons the media keep picking up on this is that we are too transparent - i.e. we are more transparent than anyone else. They see that an F2F donor costs £80-£150 to recruit and blow their tops but nowhere can they compare this CPA to DM or web-recruited donors to put it in context, because no-one produces these benchmarks.

[Reply]

Frustrated Of Fundraising
17 Sep 2010
Response to [Ian MacQuillin]

So what we do need then is a guideline cost-per-acquistion for each type of fundraising, so that not only could we use this to inform the debate and quell the repeating storm, but also as a really useful guide for charities who are not sure where to start with their fundraising programmes. Costs of course differ dependant on needs, but it would be a good start.
But who is best placed to do that? It could fall across many remits...PFRA, FRSB, IoF, NPC... or we could try talking to each other and sorting it out. I'll ask the Pope to say a prayer!

[Reply]

Frustrated Of Fundraising
17 Sep 2010

All we needed surely was a calm and considered response about the real costs of fundraising - ie that each and every type involves costs, and that ROI differs for each. For some charities F2F works and for some it doesn't. Each charity is different, and assuming it does its ROI sums it will chose the applicable fundraising tools. Then you tie it all back to the outcome for the beneficiary and Bob's your uncle, people will understand. Infighting and/or hiding really doesn't help.
Also not sure why this is a story again two weeks after the Newsnight piece. Good to have news other than the papal visit though...

[Reply]

Geoff Sloan
administrator
safer london foundation
17 Sep 2010

Maybe I’m being naïve but isn’t it true that Joe/Joanne Blogs really doesn’t like being ‘chugged’? Isn’t that the problem? I know I don’t, and I work in the sector and donate by direct debit to several charities. That F2F cost of the first year’s worth of donation for every donor won really puts me off this channel as a potential charity client and as a potential donor.

Sure, changing public perception isn’t easy but where are the figures showing the long term benefit from donors brought in by chugging? If it can be demonstrated that chugging really delivers financial benefit to the charity – in terms of loyal, long (or even medium) term donors – and hence to the charity's beneficiaries (with or without floppy ears) then maybe we’ll learn to love chuggers as they brandish their clipboards and launch into their routines. Maybe.

[Reply]

G23
17 Sep 2010

Their silence speaks volumes. Presumably the income generated by face to face fundraising isn't enough to justify the bad publicity?

[Reply]

Rarry Revan
Ranter
Rantingrules
16 Sep 2010

Enough with the white, midlle aged middle class sector heavyweights already (morning Joe).

Get a beneficiary out there, maybe a cancer survivor who said without face to face I wouldn't be alive. Or an african doctor who learnt their trade because of donors who were signed up on the doorstep.

Best of all, get a puppy (with floppy ears) out there who had a broken leg which has been made aalll better thanks to those lovely chuggers who stand in the wind and rain, accepting abuse and sometimes violence, asking the public to support a goood cause. Aaaahhhh...

Works every time for Dogs Trust.

Tickles.

Rarry

[Reply]

Adrian Salmon
Annual Fund Manager
University of Leeds
17 Sep 2010
Response to [Rarry Revan]

But of course that needs us charities to do something! Which is pretty much Ian's point.. :-)

[Reply]

John Thompson
Director
Changing Business
16 Sep 2010

I wonder how long it will be before some charity that doesn’t use face-to-face makes millions out of “Don’t Chugg with me!” pin-badges and T-shirts?

On a more serious note, surely you need to bring out the sector’s institutional big guns when there’s a big battle to be fought, instead of leaving it to individual directors of fundraising to take the flack?

[Reply]

Ian MacQuillin
Head of communications
PFRA
16 Sep 2010

No Joe, Ian isn't saying that at all.

We have done the part of our job - the part that requires us to work towards the sustainability of F2F, which we do by promoting transparent information about it - very well. What I am saying is that we can only defend F2F up to a point. After that point is reached (as it was reached with the Newsnight researchers who had all they wanted from us and no more) it was and will be in future the responsibility of charities to take up the defence and championing of F2F.

Peter - PFRA is extremely grateful for the media work you have done on behalf of F2F.

BTW, Joe, thanks for your considered and in no way gratuitously-provocative comments on this issue.

[Reply]

Peter Maple`
Course Director MSc Fundraising and Marketing
London South Bank University
16 Sep 2010

I tend to agree with Ian that, as a sector, we've been backward in coming forwards to defend what continues to be a very cost effective fundraising method. However as one who has on numerous occassions defended face to face I do resent the tar brush! As an academic with access to research and good practice I've been in a very good position to comment impartially. However it has felt lonely at times.

[Reply]

Joe Saxton
Driver of Ideas
nfpSynergy
16 Sep 2010

Is Ian really just saying that he and the PFRA haven't done their job very well? If it isn't the PFRA's job to defend Face to Face whose job is it?

[Reply]

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