Sorry people but it’s time to wake up. The days of Harold Bishop busting out his tuba to earn a little coin for the Salvos are over. Who is going to volunteer to do this job full time? Charities need money, lots of it, and these agencies deliver.
The reality is that this is the most efficient way of recruiting regular givers.
It’s terribly assumptive to insinuate charities are getting duped by marketing companies. I don’t think they feel that way, in fact they have all made well informed decisions to employ professional fundraisers to bring is some serious cash. Maybe Daniel Flitton needs to apologise to the guys down at Oxfam whose intelligence he’s publicly undermined.
It’s mentioned that people don’t know how much of their money goes to the charity. Well why not let them know? That 95% is ONLY THE FIRST YEAR, the average supporter stays on for 4 years so it turns out somewhere around 20%. And there are frequently bequests and pledges increases to boot. Not bad hey?
So jump on board and cut these guys some slack, they raise money for charity after all!
Hi my name is Matthew Brine and I am the Director of The Events People.
ReplyDeleteYou could say I have a slight bias on this subject but after 10 years of passionate dedication to the raising of vital funds for awesome NFP’s I feel I have the right to get on my soap box in response to this rather misleading article.
I started my fundraising adventure back in 1999 as a street fundraiser on the mean streets of London and I fell in love with the idea that we can make a difference in our short time on this planet. In the past 10 years I am clear my efforts have made a difference after raising millions of dollars and pounds for many vital NFP’s.
I have worked with 100’s of the so unfairly named “chuggers” and the one common characteristic present in these passionate young people is their desire to make a difference to the people of this planet. They do not do it for money or for their ego, they do it make a positive contribution. And YES they are paid as they to, have to pay the bills, just like you...
Face-to-face fundraising remains the most profitable way for charities to raise money and increase their donor databases. Regular giving supporters become the lifeblood of the charity, increasing awareness, income, advocacy, the number of volunteers and most importantly secures the future of the organisation.
I find articles of this nature very disrespectful to fundraising staff, highly skilled individuals who take their responsibility to their charities very seriously and thus would not continually invest in activities that weren’t beneficial to the cause. Please, please, please give these people the respect they deserve!
Finally for those people who disagree with what we do, all we ask is that say “no thank you” and we will in return, BEAM you a smile and a throw you a “have a nice day!”