Should charities use chuggers?

Fifer

chugalug wrote:

I never said someone could make a nuisance of themselves and you had to be polite back!! I was just trying to put a different view forward. After all the use of the word ' discussion' in the title implies that all views are welcome!!!!!! Apparently not.

What you did say was

chugalug wrote:

Sometimes though we do forget these are people doing a job, earning a living even if they are a nuisance.

which seemed close to me. Of course you are entitled to post your views (as you have above), just as I am entitled to disagree and say so.

Murphy_The_Cat

chugalug wrote:

Anyway, I've had my say ................ I'm off to apply to the EU for funding for my minority group!!

Good luck with your funding application - but you don't need to go to the eu for funding, there are plenty of sources of tax payers cash in the UK you could try for first.:D

MTC

Fifer

MSE_Martin wrote:

Just a quick note. Let's try and keep these not personal. Even if you dislike chuggers, which seems to be the common view, its perfectly possible chugalugs daughter behaves in a way that wouldn't offend you and is simply tarred by the behaviour of others.

If we can keep it to the general - i think it may make a more comfortable discussion for all.

Martin

Apologies if anyone interpreted my posts as being directed at any individual. I do dislike chugging and most chuggers I've encountered have been of the very 'in your face' persuasion but I'm happy to accept that there will be exceptions and I am only commenting on those I have experienced.

Murphy_The_Cat

I'll add my few words to that of Fifers above.

I tried not to be offensive to any one person but it appears that I was not successful in this.

If I have upset someone then I am sorry for doing so, but my own experience of chuggers (while being limited) is also very negative.

MTC

Jimmyboy_3

They do my bloomin head in!
I work in a bank and i constantly see people failin Direct debits to these companys and ending up with these ridiculous fees as a result!
Its totally wrong to pester people shoppiong to give to charity, if people wanted to give then surely they would call in when passing by, if it is true about companys getting the first yr's cut then the chances are, most people cancel the payments within a year, meaning the charities dont even see the money!

Rant over!

laughing_cow

Sometimes I ignore them, but other times I stop and look at them in a slightly aghast manner and say "I sorry but I don't know you. Why on earth would I give my bank details to a complete stranger in the middle of the street? That's insane!" That usually shuts them up, and a couple of them have even agreed with me. At least it's made one or two of them think properly about it.

tsingting

So, many of you are tired of being stopped in the street and being asked to give to charity. Yet for many charities, finding new people to give to them is becoming increasingly harder. Why? because fewer people want to spend time talking to fundraisiers, replying to press ads, inserts and leaflets in their papers or responding to mail sent to our homes. Yes our lives are very busy, and we are all becoming more and more strapped for cash. Street fundraising however, is a way of getting to talk to people directly, people who normally have no time to even think about giving to charity.

And why do charities keep doing it, because of course it works! There are some fantastic people out there who do talk to charity fundraisers. Who don't feel hassled and will give just a few moments out of their precious day to listen to a story about someone or something far less fortunate than themselves and then go on to make a donation to charity. Yes, it might be hard taking five minutes out of your precious time to think about something more important than shopping/rushing to a meeting/going down the pub etc., but perhaps, especially in today's less caring society, it's time well spent.

I'm only sorry to see that so few of the people who have been involved in the discussion on this noticeboard feel this way.

So my vote goes to this hard work - both for the fundraiser on the street and the charity desperately trying to raise funds in an ever increasingly difficult world.

And Martin, I was disappointed that you called this charity chugging, the mere terminology - short for charity mugging - puts a negative bias on to this poll!

MSE_Martin

tsingting - i have to say i didnt know thats what chugging stands for - i believe its become common parlance in its own right.

Please remember this isn't about charity fundraising in general - but specifically commercialised street fundraising for charities.

greyster

I get annoyed so much about being asked on the street. I call it the gauntlet based on the gladiator game that used to be on TV where the contender had to smash his or her way past 4 gladiators with padded poles.

I used to be asked going down the street by 4 charity guys about my age ... about 25m apart ... and then asked again by the same 4 walking back up.

They simply didnt understand that "No" means "No" .... even saying that I got a big SLC loan to deal with isnt enough either. Funny really because half of them are students themselves.

Charities have zillions of methods to get money ... I will rather give my money to a good conartist, not so homeless, homeless person. At least they dont bug you outside his/her small 2m squared area that his/her is sitting on in the street ... and you always got the option to walk down the other side of the street.

CONTENDERS READY !!!!!!
COMMISSION BASED GLADIATORS ARE YOU READY !!!!!?

Doc_Bones

This is a particular bugbear of mine. I once had a lengthy discussion in the street with a supervisor after he overheard me tell one of his collectors that i didn't agree with commercial fundraising and asked me if "i wanted to talk about that attitude". He then spent about 20 minutes trying to justify what they did, before getting the hump and going off in a strop saying that i was being rude and offensive when i was only calmly pointing out a few facts to him!

As i understand it (and i have looked into it) there are at least four major companies in the UK undertaking this sort of work. First question, if there is no money in it for the company, how and why are there 4 companies doing it? so when they tell you its not about them making money but the charity, think again.

On average these companies charge the charity between £75 and £100 for each individual that they sign up in the street. The desired amount that people are signed up for is £15 a month but they can be signed up for as little as £6. The minimum agreement time that an individual is signed up for varies between 3 and 12 months after which time they are free to cancel the direct debit and stop giving. Time to do the maths:

At best, the chugger signs a person up for 12 months at £15 a month = £180. they then charge the charity £75 for that sign up and the charity get £105 that year from that person. Sounds good?

What happens more often than not though is that people (possibly feeling hassled or badgered into something) agree to the minimum £6 a month for a 3 month sign up = £18. they then cancel the direct debit but the company still gets its £75-£100 payment, leaving the charity somewhere between £57 and £88 worse off! The problem is that the company get their money regardless of how long they sign someone up for or for how much.

Now, you may think that you are hassled in the street, but think of the charities. They get bombarded with approaches from these companies whose clever sales and marketing people sell them the best case scenario of £180 a year for an outlay of only £75. What charity would turn this down? it makes great financial sense so they sign up, probably to some sort of minimum contract time and by the time they realise that it is not making them the money that they thought it would, the chugging company have made their cash and moved on to the next charity.

Ask yourself this: how often do you see chuggers collecting for the same charity for any considerable length of time? Are they often collecting for charites you perhaps haven't heard of? Why is this you may wonder? it is simply because charities who sign up with them, don't stay with them because they don't earn any substantial money from them and more often than not it costs them money. That is why there is a high turnover.

The supervisor who i got into the discussion with told me that in his opinion, it was better for a charity to make a small amount of money and pay his employers for their service than for the charity to make no money at all, i disagree. I think that for any company to make money out of a charity, regardless of the amount of money that the charity recieves, is just plain wrong. It wouldn't matter to me if the charity recieved £50 for every £10 that the company made out of them, it is still £10 going into private pockets that could and should be going into the charity.

There are far more efficient ways to give to charity. Contact them yourselves and ask to set up a direct debit, that way 100% of your donation goes to them. Speak to your employer, there are often ways you can give direct from you net salary (perhaps Martin knows more about this).

Finally, on the thorny subject of the people who do this for a job. This person i told that "i didn't agree with commercial fundraising" to argued that it was better than him working in McDonalds. i have been told the exact same line by a number of these individuals and i wonder now if it is a stock answer they are told to give by the company that employs them. I personally would hate anyone to have to work in McDonalds for all sorts of reasons but the truth is that there are many many other ethically sound jobs out there that people, especially young people like students, can be doing instead of working as chuggers. Perhaps they too are hoodwinked by the clever sales pitch or perhaps they are not privy to the exact way that the companies work.

I don't like simply saying "no thank you" or "not interested" because i don't mean either of those things and so i tend to say simply that i don't agree with what they are doing. if they want to discuss it and i have the time, i talk to them instead of them talking to me and try to show them how damaging what they are doing is. As with their task, i don't get that many takers but i like to do what i can and at least it isn't costing anyone anything.

Aplogies if this has been a long post, just felt there was lots to be said. thanks for listening (reading!)