06/09/10
- Team leaders to be clearly identified
- Point of contact for council officials and members of the public
The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association – the self-regulatory organisation for face-to-face (F2F) fundraising – is to begin street trials to test whether identifying fundraising team leaders facilitates contact with council officials and town centre managers.
The 12-week trial, which will see more than 30 team leaders working for Gift Fundraising wearing specially-designed PFRA-branded armbands, begins on Monday 6 September.
Nick Henry, PFRA’s head of standards, says: “In our negotiations with local authorities regarding site management agreements (SMAs), some officials have suggested to us that it would be useful to be able to identify the person in charge of the team in cases of SMA breaches, such as fundraisers straying outside the site delineation. It’s a very sensible suggestion and will mean that team leaders can be identified by the public and traders too.”
The trial will monitor how many interactions the team leaders actually have with town centre managers, licensing officials and other people in authority, as well as members of the public. If successful, PFRA will recommend that other fundraising companies and in-house charity teams adopt the armbands, possibly before the end of the 12-week trial period.
As the largest professional fundraising organisation working on the street, PFRA has asked Gift Fundraising to conduct the trial. Russ Peterken, Gift's Fundraising’s operations manager, says: "I'm keen to see the trial get under way and really proud that, out of all the agencies out there, Gift was chosen to conduct it. I think it will help our relations with councils and town centre managers and encourage the wider face-to-face community to be more co-operative and responsible."