Acevo has secured pro bono advice from the world’s biggest PR agency to help the sector mount a robust defence against negative media coverage of issues like fundraising costs or CEOs’ salaries.

A representative from Ogilvy & Mather will help the ImpACT Coalition, now part of Acevo, devise guidance on strategies that charities can use to rebut stories like the recent BBC Newsnight investigation into remuneration of face-to-face fundraisers.

Acevo’s chief executive Stephen Bubb (pictured) said the fact that so many charities refused to appear on the programme to defend a key fundraising mechanism was highly worrying, and needed to be addressed.

Acevo and the ImpACT Coalition are planning to hold a meeting for members in late October or early November to progress work on formulating a ‘media response unit’ that will equip charities to better explain the realities of running a modern charity, and defend themselves against uninformed criticism.  

“We have been talking to Ogilvy & Mather, the world’s biggest PR agency, about how to handle this,” said Bubb. “The global CEO is a mate of mine.”

He said the issue of defending charities’ practices was something that CEOs needed to be more closely involved in. He was encouraged by the response to the letter he sent to the top 50 fundraising charities after the Newsnight programme was aired, exhorting CEOs to take more responsibility for it.

“We have to get our act together on this because there are going to be more stories,” he said. “About things like spending x amount on admin costs or CEOs paid over £100,000. With all the political rhetoric about the growing role of charities, the press is going to be taking far more of an interest in what we do.

“The fact is that there is a very solid sensible defence to all these things, and just saying ‘bugger off, we’re not going to talk to you’ is not a good media strategy.”