The Institute of Fundraising is planning to replicate its ‘snitch on bad DM’ campaign in the arena of challenge events, by encouraging local residents to report fundraisers’ bad behaviour to the Fundraising Standards Board.

Some challenge events, such as the Three Peaks Challenge, are notorious for groups of fundraisers making weekends hell for local residents, as they turn up and leave the area at all hours of the night, trample and urinate over residents’ properties and generally trash the place.

The Institute is very concerned about the impact of this behaviour on the general perception of fundraising and charities, and has already tightened its code of practice in an attempt to stem such conduct.  The new code is out for consultation until 19 February.

But this summer the organisation intends to go a step further, and run a campaign urging residents to ‘shop’ anyone they see breaching the code.

It plans to contact landowners’ groups, parish councils, national park authorities and residents’ associations to advise them that if they do see fundraisers flouting the code, they should report them to the FRSB.

Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of the Institute, said he had met neighbours of the Three Peaks mountains who had been physically sick on Thursday nights because they were so stressed about the prospect of enduring another weekend of errant climbers descending on their doorsteps.

He said that some charities had “massively modified” their activities to ensure they comply with the code, and if rival organisations running the same challenge were blatantly breaching it, that is very demoralising.

The majority of organisations that breach the code are commercial suppliers, Boswell said.

He admitted the campaign might be controversial, but “no more controversial than the DM one”.

The Institute’s trustees will be asked to approve the campaign at their next meeting on 11 February.