The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association has introduced a rulebook with teeth for door-to-door fundraising; rule breaches will attract fines and the PFRA will monitor compliance.
The rulebook, which follows much of the best practice and regulatory guidelines set out in the face-to-face rulebook which the PFRA released earlier this year, in particular outlines how and when fundraisers should be knocking on people’s doors to solicit donations. Penalties of between 20 and 100 points will be used for breaches of the rule book.
A maximum 100 points will be docked for a fundraiser not approaching a property via its main entrance but by alternate means such as a back door or side entrance and a penalty of 50 points will apply if fundraisers knock on doors outside the standard operating hours outlined in the rulebook of between 9am and 9pm. A 50-point fine will also be imposed if fundraisers don’t take care not to alarm residents if calling during the hours of darkness. Other fines are the same to the street fundraising rulebook and outline behaviours such as ensuring donors know that they are signing up for a committed gift.
Each penalty point will equate to a £1 fine, however the monetary fines will only come into effect once the charity or team has accrued 1,000 penalty points so as to allow for minor breaches and for bad practice to be corrected without fine.
The rulebook comes into force today, with the launch of a six-month trial. While penalty points will be accrued in this period, they will be wiped at the end of the trial to allow charities to get used to the system, and only points collected after this time will receive financial penalty.
New quality control system
The PFRA has also today announced the introduction of a quality control system, which will sit alongside mystery shopping of street fundraising activity. The PFRA told civilsociety.co.uk that mystery shopping based on the street rulebook has resulted in penalty points to fundraising organisations, but that no details of which organisation and how much they have been fined will be released particularly during the trial period. No organisation will be fined for these points as the slate will be wiped clean at the end of the trial period in April.
The door quality programme will see the PFRA monitor training programmes, organise to shadow door-to-door fundraising teams in action over several hours and develop a feedback section on the PFRA website for door-to-door customers to comment on their experience.
Ian MacQuillin, head of communications at the PFRA, said that the monitoring “won’t be spot checks”, but rather will give PFRA compliance staff a feel for the ethos of the teams operating on the ground.
The new door-to-door rulebook and penalty regime will be reviewed next year, following a six month trial which begins today.
View the entire PFRA door-to-door rulebook here.
