Advice & Regulation
Annual Complaints Return FAQs
What does the Annual Complaints Return look like?
This is a copy of the Annual Complaints Return for 2011. If you are eligible to complete a return for 2011 your designated complaints co-ordinator will have received either a link to the online form on our website via email or, if we don't have an email address for that contact, a hard copy in the post.
What is the deadline for completing the Annual Complaints Return?
The deadline for the 2011 Annual Complaints Return is 16th March 2011.
When do I become eligible to complete an Annual Complaints Return?
You become eligible to complete an Annual Complaints Return when you have been an FRSB member for longer than six months. So if your membership start date is before 1 July 2011 you will have been contacted and asked to complete a return.
Only our charity members are required to complete the online return.
Why do I have to fill in an Annual Complaints Return?
Your organisation agreed to complete an Annual Complaints Return each year when it first signed up to the Fundraising Standards Board. It demonstrates that your organisation is open and transparent about its fundraising. This can only help to build stronger donor relations.
It not only helps you to assess the effectiveness of your fundraising activities throughout the year, it also gives you an opportunity to put together an annual log which you can use internally for monitoring and quality assurance purposes.
Finally, data collected through annual returns allow us to more ably identify and analyse fundraising across the sector; in turn, this helps us to ensure that the advice we give to you as a member is both topical and accurate.
Who should be primarily responsible for completing the Annual Complaints Return in my organisation?
Ideally, your complaints co-ordinator should complete your organisation’s Annual Complaints Return. If you do not have a nominated complaints co-ordinator as such, it should be completed by the person who responds to and logs any complaints that your charity may have received during the last calendar year.
If this is not possible (eg the main complaint contact has left the organisation), it is recommended that someone responsible for fundraising (eg. Supporter Care Manager, Fundraising Director, Chief Executive) completes the return.
What type of complaints should we include in our Annual Complaints Return?
We want you to include every complaint you have received during the year about your organisation’s fundraising activities; regardless of whether not they’ve been resolved or whether or not you felt they were justified.
Non-fundraising related complaints (such as admin costs, complaints from beneficiaries etc) should not be included.
What does the FRSB consider to be a complaint?
Although the FRSB appreciates that it is ultimately up to each organisation to decide what it considers to be a complaint, we consider a complaint to be, as per British Standards (BS8600) “an expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not.”
We appreciate that there can often be a difference between negative feedback, notifications and complaints. For more clarification on how the FRSB distinguishes between different types of contact, please feel free to consult Section 3 of the FRSB Complaints Handling Manual.
What does the FRSB mean by “volume”?
When we ask for volume figures, we are asking you about the amount of fundraising activity you did in the last calendar year – for example, how many people took part in an event you ran or how many pieces of direct mail you sent out.
For more specific volume figure definitions for each fundraising type, please consult the Annual Complaints Return Glossary.
Why do we have to provide volume figures?
We ask you to supply us with volume figures because it helps us to put the complaint figures you also provide into context. For example, if you tell us that you have received 100 complaints about your direct mail activity during 2011 but have not provided the number of direct mail pieces you sent out during that year, we will have no way of knowing if there is potential cause for concern.
In contrast, if you tell us that you received 100 complaints but sent out 10,000,000 direct mail pieces, it tells us that only 0.00001% of recipients complained about your direct mail activity and therefore of no concern to us.
Even if you have received no complaints, recording volume figures will not only help you contextualise that 0 complaints figure, but it will also help us to gain a better understanding of the type and volume of fundraising activity FRSB members are carrying out on an annual basis.
We can then compare the total volume figures against the number of complaints received by all of our members.
Is it compulsory to record and report on positive feedback?
Reporting positive feedback in the return is optional. However, we would recommend that all members record positive feedback if and when possible. In doing so, you will get a more balanced view of how the public is responding to your organisation’s fundraising activities.
It’s important to remember that we are just as keen to hear about success stories as well as the number of complaints you have received.
What does the FRSB do with the data we provide in our return?
Individual member returns are kept completely confidential. The figures provided by all of our members are used to give the FRSB a comprehensive breakdown of fundraising activity and associated complaints across our membership base.
The overall totals are then included and analysed in the FRSB’s Annual Report.
What happens if we don’t complete an Annual Complaints Return?
Whilst there are no official sanctions in place for non-completion, it is a requirement of FRSB membership to complete an Annual Complaints Return every year once you have been members for longer than six months.
If you do not complete an Annual Complaints Return, this information will appear on your directory page on our website.
Is a printable version of the return available both to help us collect data and to keep for our internal records once we’ve submitted our figures online?
A PDF of the Annual Complaints Return is available for you to print off. You will also receive a confirmation email summarising the figures you have provided once you have submitted your completed your online return. This should be kept for your records.
What support can you provide if we are having difficulties with filling in the return?
You can contact the FRSB’s Compliance Manager, Pete Meacham, Monday to Friday by emailing petem@frsb.org.uk or by calling 020 7655 4694. If you are unable to get through to Pete, please call the FRSB office on 0845 4025442 or email info@frsb.org.uk.
We are always happy to help and talk you through the process if you are having any problems.
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