Mark Astarita, the outgoing chair of the Institute of Fundraising, has demanded an apology from local government minister Brandon Lewis over an “outrageous slur” against charity workers.
Speaking at the Charity Retail Association’s annual conference this morning, Astarita, director of fundraising at the British Red Cross, also said charities faced a “lynch mob” mentality in the media and Parliament over campaigning, salaries and fundraising tactics.
“Never before have we faced such hostility,” he said.
His comments come after Lewis said in a statement released last week that “aggressive fundraisers” risked turning high streets into “an unwelcome gauntlet of bolshie bucket-shakers and clipboard-waving connivers”.
“This is an outrageous slur on our sector, our volunteers and our staff,” said Astarita, who is standing down as chair of the IoF next week after a three-year term. “Red Cross volunteers spent thousands of hours shaking buckets on the high street for Red Cross Week this year. They aren’t revolutionaries or Bolsheviks and they deserve an apology.
“Ministers should know better. This is a government minister saying this about ordinary folk who go out and ask. We should be asking what’s gone wrong. This time it is street fundraisers, but they will come after you next. They tried it with rate relief in Wales and they will try it again.”
Civil society was “increasingly under threat”, he said. He highlighted research by the Charities Aid Foundation, which found 6 per cent of people do 66 per cent of the giving. “Over 30 years of professional fundraising have we grown the pie, are more people giving? I’m not so sure. At the Red Cross I’ve doubled our income from £5m a year to £7m a month. I’ve taken market share, but I’m not sure that I’ve grown the market,” he said.
Astarita used his speech to reiterate his concerns that charities are taking a “Poundland approach to fundraising” by asking for small donations to attract donors and driving down the price of giving to £3 a month.
More charities are looking at fundraising and retail to raise money after income from the government fell £1.3bn in 2011/12, according to NCVO research.
“We have to look at what sort of sector we want to be in 20 year’s time," Astaria said. "Will we still be able to engage people in our causes and will they give more? We need a transformational change in giving habits or our sector may shrink.
"I’m planning to grow our fundraising by 23 per cent over the next five years but for the first time I feel less certain that I’ll be able to pull it off. It feels like things are slowing down.”
He called for a debate among sector leaders and politicians about the sector and how it will be resourced in the next 20 to 30 years.
