Door-to-door fundraising has bounced back with a vengeance after a slump in donor recruitment in 2009/10, but overall recruitment via face-to-face fundraising remains slightly lower than the record highs of three years ago.

The number of donors recruited by either street or doorstep fundraisers increased by over 105,000 year-on-year in 2010/11, but remains still 10,000 new donors a year lower than the peak of 2008/09 when 740,670 new donors signed up to direct debits via face-to-face fundraisers. Last year’s 730,269 new donors, however, is the second-highest annual number of face-to-face recruits on record.

Doorstep recruitment has been particularly effective, bringing in just under 560,000 regular donors to charities in the last year. The figure represents a steady increase – save for a drop in 2009/10 – in doorstep face-to-face fundraising since 2008/09; an increase attributed both to the strong performance of the recruitment mechanism and the investment big players, such as the British Red Cross, have made in door-to-door. Even relatively new face-to-face providers in the last year have reported demand outstripping supply in the door-to-door field.

The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, which compiles the annual recruitment figures, suggests the significant overall slump in the intervening year (2009/2010) is “in large part” due to the impact the collapse of the Dialogue Direct agency had on street fundraising recruitment. While there had been minor increases in the number of street-recruited donors signing up outside of London and in Scotland (where recruitment rose by a third), the number of donors signing up to charities on the streets of London continued a steady, if somewhat less steep, decline – dropping by more than 12 per cent year-on-year.

But PFRA acting chair Mike Naidu suggested that there is more at play than simply the long fall-out from a large agency’s self-combustion, blaming the regulatory uncertainty surrounding street fundraising.

“Perhaps this isn’t surprising. With the uncertainty surrounding street face-to-face caused by delays to the implementation of Part 3 of the Charities Act 2006, many charities seem to be moving their recruitment budgets to doorstep face-to-face, which is not affected by the legislation,” he said.

In the organisation’s annual report, it pledged it will continue to lobby government hard to have the part of the Act brought into practice.

Scottish face-to-face fundraisers, however, face a rosier situation than their London counterparts. Fundraisers in that country saw a 35 per cent increase on door recruitments and only slightly less on the street.