chugger's remorse

thelawnet

Well they replied refusing (unlike many other charities) to say how much they pay. They did say the commission (although they didn't use that word) is structured so that " 50% of the payment made from our annual fundraising budget is held back until the new supporter has given for three months."

They said "[FONT=&quot]over the last five years we have averaged a return of around £4.50 for every £1 that we have invested. [/FONT] "

But that is from all fundraising activities, and no details were given on specifically chugging.

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.

The difference between TV advertising and commission-based chugging, is if I respond to a TV ad, the charity gets all of my donation - the marginal cost of me responding is zero.

But if I respond to a chugger, all my donation goes to the chugging company for about the first year

The chugger (and the charity) was claiming all the money goes direct to the charity's bank account, well yes, but if I give £100 to Charity and that Charity gives £100 to a Chugging Company, that's no different from me just paying £100 directly to the Chugging Company - I should probably cut out the middle man.

Bryncoch

I would never sign up with a chugger. I used to work for a charity in the finance department. The lowest chugging fee that I can recall was £50 plus VAT, so at the time £58.75. The charity I worked for didn't have much trading income so it couldn't offset the paid VAT against any that it collected. People effectively make charitable donations to HM Revenue & Customs.

KimYeovil

Those lawyers' letters to panto nurses do not come cheap. Don't be such a meanie and pay up.

codsallconker

I run a small charity that works with children who live and work in a garbage village in Cairo, Egypt. Everyone who is connected with the charity gives their time freely and when we go to Egypt to work with the children we fund ourselves. EVERY PENNY we raise gets spent on the children. It is such a shame that these 'chuggers' are giving charities a bad name - I am finding it difficult enough to raise money, I would never dream of taking a wage, it defeats the object of 'charity' in my book.