The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association has released a new rule book for street fundraising, introducing a series of fines to punish indiscretions and misbehaviour by street fundraisers.
It is understood to be the first time financial penalties have been developed specifically for a fundraising activity.
Released today, the rule book goes beyond the Institute of Fundraising’s Face-to-Face Activity Code of Fundraising Practice and introduces new rules which will apply to PFRA members. It provides clarity and sanctions on the Institute’s code, and outlines administrative rules for organisational members. It also codifies conventions which PFRA members have been following for some time. PFRA members have six months to get used to the rule book before financial penalties will kick in for breaches.
The 18-page rule book, available on the PFRA website, outlines a vast array of offences and a point system for fines, from a 20-point fine for agencies poaching others’ staff, to 100 points for serious discretions which either undermine a site management agreement or cause “severe public distress or anxiety”. The third time an offence is repeated, the penalty for that offence is doubled.
The new rules in the book include a sanction against fundraisers standing near a cashpoint, fines for implying a donor can sign up without commitment and signing up an individual who is not able to give informed consent, through intoxication, illness or disability.
Each point will carry with it a £1 fine, which will only be billed once an organisation has accrued 1,000 points within a year. So, for example, if a street fundraising organisation has committed rule book breaches to the tune of 1,120 points, they will be charged £1,120. If, however, they have accrued 980 points, they will not receive a fine at all.
Head of communications at the PFRA Ian MacQuillin said this was essential to allow providers a chance to correct bad behaviour. “The rationale is you’ve got to give people some leeway. You’ve got to give them time to improve it. If someone’s broken the three-step rule they have time to address it.”
Organisations – whether commercial providers or charities doing street fundraising in-house – will be given a monthly update on their point tally, and will be billed for any fine at the end of the financial year. All have until April 2012 to get used to the system, until which time there will be points awarded for bad behaviour, but they will not attract any fines.
MacQuillin said that the new system was not a revenue-raising exercise for the PFRA. “We’d be pleased if we didn’t make any money whatsoever. If standards were so high that nobody got any monetary fines that would be great,” he said. “This is an incentive to do well and you have a penalty with teeth. These are money-making businesses: if you transgress, you’ll be hit where it hurts.”
Does not supplant Institute Codes
The PRFA is careful to point out that it intends the rule book to be supplementary to the Institute’s code on street fundraising. “It does not replace or supplant [the Code],” the rule book states.
But, its rule book does provide clarification on Institute codes bringing to them more precise meaning. The Institute’s reference to fundraisers not “bringing into disrepute” has been defined as “conduct unbecoming”, such as asking a prospect for a date, or “behaviour that harms the reputation of fundraising or the charity”, and attracts a 50 point fine.
In that it goes beyond the Institute’s Code, the PFRA accepts that it could occur that adjudications by the Fundraising Standards Board on a particular street fundraising complaint may not fully reflect the PFRA rule book’s definitions of the code, for instance, on precisely what constitutes a fundraiser obstructing a member of the public.
The FRSB and the Institute both welcome the rule book, and will be feeding into a review after the end of the six-month trial period.
The Institute’s director of policy and campaigns, Louise Richards, said that the Institute’s own code “provides the highest of standards for all of face-to-face” but that the rule book enhances and sits alongside the code, although it will only apply to PFRA members.
Alistair McLean, chief executive of the Fundraising Standards Board, meanwhile said, “It is essential that practitioners demonstrate high and consistent fundraising standards across the sector and it is an important step forward in building public trust.”
