The Fundraising Standards Board has ruled that a direct mail campaign and website for Save the Children’s Liberia Capital Appeal included misleading content.
In its latest adjudication, published today, the FRSB’s board upheld the complaint made against the charity over the 2013 appeal for breaching the Institute of Fundraising’s Code of Fundraising Practice.
The complainant contacted Save the Children by telephone in August last year to make a donation to the Liberia Appeal. But he became concerned the appeal contained misleading and inaccurate content after being told a new clinic would not be built in time to help Zinnah, the woman featured in the appeal's promotional material.
The appeal focused on Zinnah - a pregnant woman who had previously given birth on the side of the road. It asked for money to fund new clinics for expectant mothers in Liberia, and asked donors to “help us build a clinic within reach, and save her baby’s life”.
It was alleged that both the direct mail pack and the campaign website contained inaccurate information that had the potential to mislead recipients.
After months of email exchanges, Save the Children accepted the appeal contained inconsistencies, but did not agree the overall impression was misleading.
The charity then agreed to issue a mailing to supporters of the appeal clarifying that Zinnah had not given birth in a Save the Children clinic. The wording on the website was also amended to say “help us build clinics so women like Zinnah don’t suffer this frightening experience”.
Save the Children also launched an internal review of its processes and procedures to determine what had gone wrong and what it could improve.
But the complainant remained dissatisfied and was concerned the charity was not being transparent about the reasons why the appeal contained misleading content, and that it would not share the report from the internal review.
The complaint was referred to the FRSB in December last year. The FRSB’s board reviewed the evidence and in an adjudication in September upheld the complaint for breaching a section of the IoF’s Code, which states: “Fundraising communications ought not to mislead, or be clearly likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise”.
The board said there was no evidence that the breach was deliberate, but was most likely due to “insufficient attention to detail” within the campaign’s creation and approval process.
Save was commended by the board for taking steps to improve its procedures, including refresher training courses for staff on the IoF’s Code, tightening up its copywriting sign-off processes and recruiting someone to oversee risk and compliance.
Colin Lloyd, Chair of the Fundraising Standards Board, said: “The case has demonstrated to the FRSB Board not only the importance of code compliance but also the operation of an effective and robust complaint handling process for charities.
“Whilst we welcome the significant steps that the charity has taken not only to rectify matters, but to improve their ongoing process, we also recognise the key role and tenacity of the complainant in bringing the issue to the attention of the charity and in working with the FRSB.”
Save the Children responds
A spokeswoman for the charity said: "While not in any way deliberate, Save the Children recognises and accepts that the way in which parts of our Liberia Capital Appeal 2013 were communicated did not meet our own high standards.
"Save the Children has taken this complaint seriously. We wrote to all donors of the appeal, published a correction in our supporter magazine and committed to extensive dialogue to resolve the complaint, including offering the complainant a face to face meeting with one of our trustees, which he declined. We have also fully reviewed our compliance procedures and strengthened our compliance function to help ensure this does not happen again.”
