Kirsty Weakley was on the receiving end of a fundraising phone call last week and disappointingly for a journalist, was not hounded or pressured.

The news pages of both the national and charity sector press have been packed with examples of telephone fundraising companies that are at best not adhering to best practice recommendations and at worst aggressively targeting vulnerable people.

As the protestations from those involved that these were “isolated incidents” became ever-more desperate it became easier to believe that the whole industry is rotten to the core, but then one phoned me. As a charity sector journalist I am never off the clock (and I took the call at my desk at 11.30am on a weekday), and so I took notes during what turned out to be the most pleasant phone conversation that I had that morning.

What worked and why?

After a bumpy start - he actually dropped his phone on the floor as I answered - Ben (probably not his real name) apologised and introduced himself. Of course this could this could have been a clever ploy to induce sympathy but I doubt it.

He asked whether “now is a good time?”, giving me an instant and easy way to terminate the conversation by pretending I had an important meeting to get to, or telling the truth and admitting within earshot of my editor that my news story for the day was still technically unfinished.

Ben started by explaining that a bag of books that I had donated to an Oxfam shop last year had raised around £30 for the charity. I’m as guilty as the next person of dropping stuff at charity shop as a way of decluttering my house and then forgetting all about it so was really pleased to hear that they had done some good, and to know that my old books were being enjoyed by someone else.

This meant that right at the start of the conversation I knew how Oxfam had my number as I remembered writing it down on the gift aid form that I’d filled out in the shop.

Having asked why I’d chosen to donate to Oxfam (my answer that the books were heavy and it was the first charity shop that I happened upon was probably not the best response from his perspective) he went on to explain how the money raised was being used to support the 350,000 affected by the Nepal earthquake by building shelters that are raised off the ground to protect people during monsoon season. By focusing on one part of Oxfam’s work it was easy to visualise the sorts of things the charity does, especially as my reason for giving had been so flimsy.

Would he ever ask for money?

By this point I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to get round to asking for any money. My editor was giving me that ‘what on earth are you doing, we have news to do’ look, so when Ben explained that “regular donations are what really allow us to plan” I was a little relieved.

He suggested that I consider making a £5 regular donation and I felt a bit guilty about my response: “I already make a regular monthly donation to another international aid charity and am not in a position to start another one at the moment.” But I needed to refuse in order to find out if I was going to be hounded if I said no, and by this point the conversation had lasted so long that I needed to get some copy out of it.

Instead he said he understood and hoped I would continue to support the charity shop as that really does help too, before asking if £2 was something I’d be able to manage.  I repeated by politely declining.

He then suggested a regular text donation, which means that you are able to ‘skip’ a month, and having recently written a story about the growth in regular text giving I was curious and almost caved – but he’d now asked me three times for money and I wanted to know how many times he’d ask.

But that was it, he repeated how much good my donation had done, and that he hoped I’d continue to support the charity.

I was asked three times and each time the ask got smaller. I was not pressured or made to feel guilty about not giving more – and quite obviously I could spare £5 per month if I’d just discarded over £30 worth of books without thinking twice. He didn’t even ask who the other charity was to try and lure my donation away from them - now that would have been a good story.

By the end I felt guilty that instead of seriously considering setting up a regular donation I was trying to catch the fundraiser out. So sorry Ben, and if you or anyone else from Angel Charity Services in Plymouth would like to get in touch again I’ll quite happily set up a £5 regular text donation.