Alan Gosschalk, director of fundraising at Scope, has said that “clearly people feel pressurised” by some aspects of telephone and direct mail fundraising in an appearance last night on the One Show.
When asked how he felt about the recent criticism of charities by One Show journalist Lucy Siegle, Gosschalk (pictured) said: “Clearly there are people who are feeling pressurized and that’s not a good environment to encourage long term support. As a sector we’re taking this very seriously”.
Gosschalk, who also sits on the steering committee of the Understanding Charities Group, told Siegle that there are “some gaps in understanding” amongst the public about the way in which charities fundraise.
“Clearly there are some gaps in understanding amongst the public that we need to try and address,” he said. “So that people aren’t surprised when we are contacting them in certain ways”.
Gosschalk also told Siegle that there was a “misconception” that charities share supporter’s contact details and other data.
“I think there’s probably a misconception that when people receive a number of mailings it’s because they’ve given to a charity and that charity has passed on their data. But, I think it’s mostly that the data is on commercial lists and the charities may have rented that list.”
Gosschalk said that Scope doesn't share any of its supporter's data.
Inside Scope’s fundraising team
During the piece, Lucy Siegle said that she had been “respectfully cold calling charities for weeks” in an attempt to gain access to a national charity’s fundraising team and that it was “very nice” to be allowed to speak to fundraisers.
Karen Barnes, head of individual giving at Scope, said that the Olive Cooke case and the subsequent furore, serves as an important reminder to the fundraising sector about its priorities.
“I think it was just reminding us that the donor is central to everything we do and we need to listen to what donors are saying and we need to understand a bit more how to engage with them.
“We need to make it easier for them to let us know how much they want to be contacted and in what way. I think that is really important. And we need to carry on the dialogue with supporters, to make sure that we’re always getting that right.”
When asked by Siegle if Scope fundraisers wanted people to donate money to the charity “because they feel guilty”, Barnes said that was wrong.
“No. We want people to sign up because they feel inspired about the work that we do and they want to be a part of that.”
At the end of the piece, Siegle praised Scope for allowing her to “see how they do aspects of their fundraising” and said “what I’m getting here is a genuine commitment to finding a solution”.
One Show viewers respond
A spokeswoman for the One Show had told Civil Society News that, despite the positive tone of the piece, the viewers of the show had responded in an overwhelmingly negative way.
“Those that felt strongly enough to email in were universally hostile,” she said. “Most felt that we should have been tougher in our questioning:
"‘Why don’t we say how much they spend on their plush offices?’ ‘Why don’t we ask their head of fundraising how much he earns?’ ‘Why don’t we say what their chief exec gets, as it’s outrageous they waste our donations on extraordinarily high salaries?’”
The spokeswoman also said that one viewer claimed to have “donated to Scope via text, only to then be pestered by calls asking them to set up a direct debit, which they didn’t want to do”.
