FundRaising Standards Board

Membership

FRSB Membership Definitions & Criteria

Charities, not-for-profit and philanthropic organisations

Charity Definition

An organisation that raises money in order to achieve its charitable goals and has been set up for the benefit of the public, rather than an individual.

Charity Criteria

Registered Charities must provide a valid registration number and have an up to date Charity Commission record on application. We would normally require organisations awaiting results of an application to become a registered charity to wait for confirmation from the relevent registration body before applying.

Not-for-profit and philanthropic organisations (unregistered charities) must provide us with a copy of their governing documents, including a list of their board of directors or equivalent. They will also need to provide us with one additional item from the following list:

• Any registered details such as companies house registration
• Proof of charitable status such as from HMRC
• Proof of successful grant applications
• Proof of service level agreements
• 1 year’s accounts (where available)

For any organisation that has been operating for less than 12 months when they apply for FRSB scheme membership, we reserve the right to review their membership during the first 12 months. This may mean asking for further supporting documentation.

Supplier organisations, consultants and individual advisors

Supplier Definition

Your main business activity must be offering professional fundraising services to the charitable sector such as carrying out fundraising on behalf of a charity (with their agreement), offering fundraising consultancy services or fundraising specific products or services.

What a supplier is:

• A consultant or consultancy offering fundraising advice, support, training & development
• Agencies offering telemarketing or face to face fundraising services
• Direct marketing agencies
• Agencies running fundraising challenge events
• Online donation sites
• Payroll giving services
• Commercial clothing collectors
• Companies offering fundraising products ie charity ecards, online shopping cashback donations where the main business activity is to raise funds for charity.

What a supplier is not:

• A supplier of fundraising merchandise such as tins, badges, balloons etc

• Third party services – such as print, design, fulfilment, mobile technology suppliers (SMS services etc)
• Companies engaging in a promotional venture, during which a charitable donation is made (= a commercial participator) such as bank affinity credit cards, telecom providers.
• An individual raising funds of their own volition on behalf of a charitable organisation.

Supplier Criteria

Supplier organisations, individual consultants and fundraising practitioners need to have been established for at least 12 months before we can accept an applicaiton from them. We will require any registered details such as companies house registration on application. In addition they will need to provide two additional items from the following list:

• Proof of contracts from 2 charity clients
• References from 2 charity clients
• Copy of 1 years accounts

Additional Criteria

We will not accept applications from organisations or Individuals where we have reason to believe that:

• The applicant is or is likely to be in breach of fundraising law and regulations, the Fundraising Promise or the Institute of Fundraising Codes of Fundraising Practice
• Admission into membership would compromise the reputation of the FRSB self-regulatory scheme

We may take into account previous reports of bad practice prior to an application being made and organisations with a poor track record are unlikely to be allowed to join the scheme until they can show significant improvement in their fundraising practices.

We may require that you provide additional information during the course of processing your application.