chugger's remorse

thelawnet

Just signed up to a chugger on the street for British Red Cross. I knew they got commission, but I thought it would be about £30. Quite alarmed to find it's typically more like £120. This strikes me as quite unjustifiable, and I'm wondering what would be an appropriate next step.

TheSaint_2

Give yourself a slap

mjm3346

TheSaint wrote: »

Give yourself a slap

120 slaps

Savvy_Sue

Cancel it and set up a SO direct with the charity?

thelawnet

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Cancel it and set up a SO direct with the charity?

I think I will email them asking for their response on how much it costs, and how it is paid, because they don't seem to include the information on their website.

Thorner

I work for a charity who uses street fundraisers very effectively. The fundraisers are never, to my knowledge paid on commission. The charity does pay the agency a fee per donor and the agency pay the fundraiser an hourly wage, sometimes with a small bonus for reaching their targets. Although £120 sounds like a lot of money, if charities use directly mail, tv advertising or any kind of advertising it costs money and often the amount it costs per donor recruited is more than £120. Added to that, we don't know what the response is going to be when we spend the money on advertising, some external factor could mean that the ad doesn't work very well at all so paying a known fee per donor is more sensible.

I would love to think that if charities stopped spending money on advertising or other forms of fundraising the pubic would just give. Unfortunately this is not the case.

My charity and I am sure almost all others think really carefully about the most cost effecitve way of raising money and as much as we hate to have to spend this kind of money we know it is the best interests of our beneficaries in the end as the peoople we recruit onto a direct debit tend to give for many years.

Please don't cancel your direct debit to the red cross or you will just be costing them even more money.

Haarlem

Charities who use "chuggers" have no concern about the administration costs they incur, and to maximise the help they can give to their cause by reducing overheads.

"Chuggers" are a real nuisence on the high street, and if they approach me I tell them what I think about them and their employers. They always flount the terms of the licence a direct collector must abide by for collecting in the street. A reminder of this immediately makes them back off. I also note the charity, and never give to them in any form. They get enough money from the "mugs" they sign up.

I am sure the employers sell on the data they gather from the people they con. Read the small print you have from the "chugger" very carefully, You may have signed away your data ptotection rights.

I work for an organisation that supports small charities, and I know that the publicity the "chuggers" get on the cost to the charities they work for has a detrimental effect on the overall giving to all charities. Its a subject that comes up very often when recruiting new supporters to any charity. A recent survey showed that over 80% of the public are against "chuggers". Google "chuggers" and see the level of anti-feeling, which must affect charity giving.

diamond_dave

Let me say straight away that I have the GREATEST respect for the RNLI and the guys and girls who look after us around the coast -but I want to pass on these comments: a young friend recently got a summer job with RNLI getting people to sign up to a DD. No prob. so far even if they get paid.The problem is that she not only got paid but also got extra commission if she signed up over 3 a day.At the end of the 6 weeks or so she found that she had the highest number of sign-ups and received another £800. As she had done so well she was asked to go to The Soton boat show -ALL exes paid plus she had told them that she lived in Edinburgh(she doesnt but has friends there) they paid for a return fare. I've just heard that she is off to an all-expenses paid celebration at a swish hotel in Devon - just to round off the season!! I wonder what the lifeboat volunteers think of that.

vikingaero

Thorner wrote: »

I work for a charity who uses street fundraisers very effectively. The fundraisers are never, to my knowledge paid on commission. The charity does pay the agency a fee per donor and the agency pay the fundraiser an hourly wage, sometimes with a small bonus for reaching their targets. Although £120 sounds like a lot of money, if charities use directly mail, tv advertising or any kind of advertising it costs money and often the amount it costs per donor recruited is more than £120. Added to that, we don't know what the response is going to be when we spend the money on advertising, some external factor could mean that the ad doesn't work very well at all so paying a known fee per donor is more sensible.

I would love to think that if charities stopped spending money on advertising or other forms of fundraising the pubic would just give. Unfortunately this is not the case.

My charity and I am sure almost all others think really carefully about the most cost effecitve way of raising money and as much as we hate to have to spend this kind of money we know it is the best interests of our beneficaries in the end as the peoople we recruit onto a direct debit tend to give for many years.

Please don't cancel your direct debit to the red cross or you will just be costing them even more money.

For every person you sign up through chuggers, how many do you alienate with the chuggers aggressive tactics?

I make a mental note NOT to donate to any charity that uses chuggers. If that means the majority of charities then so be it.

BoGoF

I think the vast majority of people don't realise how much chuggers receive and would be horrified at the figures.

Personally I wouldn't give them the time of day

thelawnet

Thorner wrote: »

I work for a charity who uses street fundraisers very effectively. The fundraisers are never, to my knowledge paid on commission. The charity does pay the agency a fee per donor and the agency pay the fundraiser an hourly wage, sometimes with a small bonus for reaching their targets. Although £120 sounds like a lot of money, if charities use directly mail, tv advertising or any kind of advertising it costs money and often the amount it costs per donor recruited is more than £120. Added to that, we don't know what the response is going to be when we spend the money on advertising, some external factor could mean that the ad doesn't work very well at all so paying a known fee per donor is more sensible.

I would love to think that if charities stopped spending money on advertising or other forms of fundraising the pubic would just give. Unfortunately this is not the case.

My charity and I am sure almost all others think really carefully about the most cost effecitve way of raising money and as much as we hate to have to spend this kind of money we know it is the best interests of our beneficaries in the end as the peoople we recruit onto a direct debit tend to give for many years.

Please don't cancel your direct debit to the red cross or you will just be costing them even more money.

Well I sent them an email, they sent an autoresponse:

"Thank you for your e-mail, we will endeavour to respond to your enquiry within 48 hours."


Nothing so far.


This fundraising might be effective, but I didn't like the process at all - the fundraiser didn't bother to ask how much I wanted to give, she just said '£10/month', which is the minimum, presumably because that's what pays the commission, with no regard to the fact that after a year (I believe), the charity will have made nothing on it.... I could have afforded to give more, but she didn't seem to care, because I guess it doesn't affect her income.


If they don't respond to my email within a week I most certainly will be cancelling my direct debit.