25/01/12
The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association – the self-regulatory membership organisation for street and doorstep face-to-face fundraising (F2F) – has appointed Paul Stallard as its first paid chair of the board of directors. Paul takes up his appointment today [Wednesday 25 January 2012] when he takes the reins of his first board meeting.
Paul – who will be paid an annual stipend – brings a wealth of commercial marketing, business development, management and regulatory expertise and experience to the organisation. He has held several senior marketing and business development posts in the financial services sector from the 1980s onwards. In 1983 he launched Liquid Gold from the Leeds Permanent Building Society, reputedly the first financial services brand in the UK. He went on to work for a number of major financial services companies including Midland Bank plc, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Dealwise Limited, TD Waterhouse, Hargreaves Lansdown and Deutsche Bank AG.
He has worked at board level for more than 15 years and is now a director of his own financial services consultancy Hurndall-Stallard Associates Limited. He has an MBA and is a graduate and fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Bankers.
Paul also has considerable fundraising experience having worked in a voluntary capacity for four national charities on their fundraising and management.
Paul explains why it is important that the PFRA appoint a chair from outside the fundraising sector. “We must all constantly remind ourselves of the many and varied needs of people who benefit from charitable work. We are seeking to build relationships with the local and central government during a time that the regulatory framework for fundraising is in flux. We must therefore be able to present a level of independence that shows we are not merely representing the interests of our members in raising funds for beneficiaries, but that we are genuinely prepared to build self-regulation that balances the duty of charities to ask for such support with the rights of people not to receive undue pressure to give.”
He says of his new role with the PFRA: “The customer is and remains right at the heart of the outcomes I seek to achieve. The financial services sector has faced considerable regulatory challenges since 1986 and I see parallels between the work I have done in this sector and the regulatory challenges facing the PFRA and how those ultimately will benefit beneficiaries. What attracted me to this position with the PFRA is that face-to-face fundraising is a most efficient and effective means of enabling charities to serve their beneficiaries – in other words their customers.
“Organisations should constantly focus upon and check that they are delivering satisfaction to their customers. F2F is a crucial source of income and new donors for charities. I will play an active part in negotiating with councils to ensure that charities have a fair opportunity to raise funds on behalf of their beneficiaries.
“But charities and agencies conducting F2F must play their part too. To ensure that F2F ultimately continues to serve people who are in need, organisations conducting F2F must always provide the highest level of service to their donors, and this means acting responsibly by complying with the Institute of Fundraising’s code of practice and our own site agreements with councils.”
Paul’s duties include chairing alternate-monthly board meetings, the AGM and other PFRA events and meetings, speaking engagements, and building relationships with our stakeholders and partners.
The position of PFRA chair has been vacant since PFRA’s previous chair Timothy Hornsby resigned in 2008 after five years at the helm. Since then, PFRA’s vice chair Michael Naidu, who is assistant director of fundraising at Mencap, has been handling the chair’s responsibility as acting chair.
Paul Stallard says: “Michael has done an excellent job steering the PFRA through challenging times and I would like to thank him on behalf of the board, staff and membership for the work he done on this, which has regularly gone beyond the call of duty.”