Quite possibly, you have seen people on the street who you thought were fundraisers and who looked just like fundraisers. However, they might not have asked you for a donation there and then but instead asked you to sign a petition or join a campaign. This practice is known in the fundraising profession as ‘prospecting’ or ‘two-step fundraising’, because the people whose names they collect will often receive a phone call a couple of weeks later asking them to make a regular donation.
Like street F2F, prospecting does not need a council licence. But while the street fundraising will need a licence when the Charities Act 2006 comes into force, prospecting will continue to operate without needing a licence.
Because prospecting is covered by the Institute of Fundraising Face-to-Face Activity Code of Fundraising Practice, the PFRA regulates prospecting activity in the same way it regulates street fundraising.
PFRA members who are conducting prospecting go through the usual site allocation processes so a member of the public should not encounter teams of fundraisers and prospectors in the same place at the same time.