Most of the general public would prefer to direct any fundraising complaints to an independent third party, according to research commissioned by the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB).

While just 22 per cent of public respondents to an online survey conducted for the FRSB said they would be inclined to report what they perceived to be bad fundraising to the charity at fault, 54 per cent said they would prefer to report to a third party – like the FRSB. A quarter said they would rather not report the complaint at all.

FRSB chief executive Alistair McLean (pictured) said: “As a sector we must move away from the idea that complaints are a bad thing. Negative feelings can be so much more damaging if donors don’t express them to the charity.”

The research also found that 68 per cent of respondents said they were concerned about how their donations were spent, with the 45-plus age range particularly concerned (74 per cent of these rated this as an issue). More than half (59 per cent) said that they were concerned by whether charities were accountable to fundraising best-practice regulation.

On the back of these findings McLean added that it is “crucial that charities make a greater effort to communicate with supporters about these issues”.

“If we are to alleviate donors' concerns and build trust and confidence, we need to educate the public, conveying just how committed charities are to best practice, professionalism and accountability,” he said.

FRSB as an organisation fared well in its research, with six out of ten people saying they would trust the charity sector more if all charities were FRSB members and a third replying that they would be inclined to donate to a charity if they knew it was an FRSB member.

A spokeswoman for the organisation said that the research served multiple purposes, including member communications and recruitment. “For the FRSB, being the only public-facing body in this sector, it's a great benchmark of public perception,” she said.