First adjudication on charity fundraising complaint published by FRSB
25 Jan 2008
The Fundraising Standards Board has announced the result of its first full adjudication on a complaint about fundraising. The complaint, made against Cancer Research UK, was not upheld.
A member of the public had complained firstly to the charity and then to the FRSB about the frequency of mailings, particularly unaddressed mailings, and their enclosures. The FRSB Board considered that there was not sufficient evidence to support the complaint about the number of mailings received.
Adjudication reports will be posted on the FRSB website: www.frsb.org.uk
“This first complaint that has gone to stage three of our process has shown our system works well and is robust,” said Jon Scourse, Chief Executive of the FRSB. “We’ve also been handling some complaints which have been resolved at the second stage but the majority of complaints will be settled directly by the charity concerned. We will be able to report more broadly when our annual review is published in the spring.”
As hoped, investigating complaints has identified wider issues about charitable fundraising that the FRSB can look into further and provide valuable guidance to the sector. For example, there appears to be some confusion about dealing with Royal Mail over complaints with mail – whether it is about non-delivery or multiple drops of leaflets. “We have followed this up with Royal Mail, said Jon Scourse, “and they have clarified the position relating to complaints about cold door drops.”