Channel 4 responds to a recent blog post by NTT Fundraising over its Dispatches investigation into telephone fundraising.
Channel 4 Dispatches ‘How to Stop Your Nuisance Calls’ was an important piece of public service journalism which looked at the issue of the practices of companies who make fundraising calls on behalf of Britain’s leading charities. For charities, these calls are an important way of raising money but there has been a steep rise in complaints about them from the public which was the reason we investigated. Dispatches sent two undercover reporters, one to each of two companies making such calls, to try to establish why these complaints are being made. One of these companies was NTT Fundraising whose directors have chosen to criticise Dispatches in a blog on Civil Society News.
Among NTT’s complaints in the blog and an accompanying article are that the evidence gathered by our undercover reporter did not amount to much and that we were ‘only able to present a few minutes of negative footage’ and that we did not offer them sufficient opportunity to respond to that footage. They also made the very serious allegation that our reporter had ‘set up’ their employees and that only junior staff were quoted. The following is a list of some of the key allegations made in the film, which we consider were significant and related in many cases to members of staff in positions of responsibility. Details of them were sent to NTT in advance of the programme.
- That a ‘trainer’, and therefore a person in a position of responsibility, told our undercover reporter and another trainee it is ‘fine’ to lie on the phone to potential donors
- That fundraisers were put under pressure in a series of meetings with a manager to meet targets and sworn at to meet those targets: e.g.: ‘What the fuck’s going on?’. That they were offered financial targets despite the relevant charity – GOSH – stating on their website that fundraisers are not given personal targets.
- A team leader saying that telephone numbers are shared between charities within NTT which is ‘a bit cheeky’.
- A team leader telling our reporter that a woman who had a terminally ill child and did not want to discuss GOSH donations as a result should be marked as a ‘soft refusal’. The team leader added that this might feel ‘bad and unethical’ but it was the correct course of action at NTT.
We note that NTT were satisfied with the performance of the undercover reporter as a fundraiser. We were equally satisfied with his conduct as a reporter and utterly refute the very serious allegation that he ‘set up’ junior members of staff. This would be a serious breach of his trade and of Ofcom regulations.
We note that there is no evidence offered to support this allegation despite the research done by NTT into the period he spent with them. Indeed he did, as the directors point out, spend a short time working for NTT but despite this was able to record the significant number of concerning incidents above within this period.
Finally, we note the response of NTT’s client GOSH to the programme’s content: “We are incredibly disappointed and as soon as we became aware of the report we stopped all fundraising calls with NTT. With NTT’s full cooperation we have launched a thorough investigation, and we will be working closely with the Institute of Fundraising on best practice fundraising training.’