A member of the Fundraising Regulator’s adjudication committee has told charity fundraisers that the watchdog is “agnostic in their approach” and have “no pre-existing views” when it comes to fundraising channels.
Peter Hills-Jones, who sits on the adjudication committee of the Fundraising Regulator and is director of compliance at the Institute of Fundraising, was speaking at the IoF’s Face-to-Face conference in London yesterday and said that in his experience, the Fundraising Regulator is “agnostic in their approach” to regulation and has “no pre-existing views as to what types and channels of fundraising are ‘good’, ‘bad’ or indifferent”.
“The regulator is simply there to evaluate the evidence, and if you’ve got the evidence and you’ve got that argument then you’re going to be in a very strong position should a complaint be made and investigated.”
Fundraising Regulator ‘not going to second guess’ charities if they have evidence
Hills-Jones also said that as long as charities can articulate and evidence how they’re being compliant with the Code of Fundraising Practice and with data protection laws, then the regulator “is not going to second guess you”.
“You know your business better than anyone else and if you can articulate why you’re doing compliance at the rate you are, the Fundraising Regulator is not going to second guess you. If you’ve got a clear policy and clear rationale and argument to stand behind that policy, then you’re rarely going to run into trouble [with the Fundraising Regulator]”.
Hills-Jones said that, despite the fact he had to stand aside from the regulator’s investigation of the Neet Feet case, he said that the charities involved were not able to “demonstrate or evidence” how they’d gone about working with the now defunct agency to be compliant with fundraising law.
See also in Fundraising Magazine
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