09/06/10
Annual figures released this month by the Fundraising Standards Board show that complaints about street F2F fundraising during 2009 have remained more or less at their 2008 level.
FRSB member charities reported 312 complaints about street F2F in 2009 (out of a total of 12,945 complaints about all types of fundraising) compared with 227 in 2008 – a 37 per cent increase.
But as the FRSB recorded an increase of 40 per cent in its members completing their complaint returns, so the numbers of street F2F complaints would appear to represent a simple proportionate rise.
The number of complaints is just 0.018 per cent of all donors recruited via street F2F.
However, complaints about doorstep F2F do appear to have significantly increased, from 479 in 2008 to 2,106 in 2009. Again, this has to be seen in context.
FRSB members reported that they had doubled the volume of doorstep F2F compared with 2008 (about 22 million doors knocked, compared to 12 million the previous year).
However, even taking this into account, it would still appear that there has been a disproportionate increase in complaints about doorstep F2F.
PFRA is planning to devise and put in place mystery shopping programme of doorstep F2F fundraising during 2010/11 to complement our street mystery shopping.