How much do chuggers get per sign up for Charities?

ClarkeKent

Chuggers, not only do they blight and harass shoppers at the small market town I work at. I had the pleasure of knock on my door at home at 9pm by someone wanting me to sign up to Macmillian Cancer.

How much do each of these chuggers get per sign up?

Do they donate there own "hard earned" money to the charity they are tryig to sign you up to?

When is this awful industry going to disappear?

Spuggy200

About £20 per sign up. A friend mine was at uni and needed a job but hated the thought of pulling pints for his friends so got a 'job' doing door to door. He said he made 300pw doing it but all commission no base wage but had to walk for 5-10 miles per day and be spat at, told to eff off and worse. At the time I was working in a bank 9-5 and he was walking around in the snow and howling wind. I was earning less than him but tucked up in a nice cosy office, he ended up quitting and once left uni he now works in a nice cosy office.

pleasedelete

Sadly the recent move to self regulation of charities who pray on vulnerable people seems never to mention Chuggers. They pray on the vulnerable in our town- they hone in on the elderly and students- those who have limited fund themselves.

Aquamania

ClarkeKent wrote: »

Chuggers, not only do they blight and harass shoppers at the small market town I work at. I had the pleasure of knock on my door at home at 9pm by someone wanting me to sign up to Macmillian Cancer.

How much do each of these chuggers get per sign up?

Do they donate there own "hard earned" money to the charity they are tryig to sign you up to?

When is this awful industry going to disappear?

It will vary from charity to charity, but a rule of thumb I always believed was typical commission was based on the typical amount a person is being asked to pay per year
(i.e. the first years donation goes to the chugger, and the charity then gets the benefit of future years assuming inertia of the donors who usually don't cancel - also the charity may press the donor for more money month by month once they are signed up)

5 years ago the Daily Mail reported the BBC uncovered payments to chuggers were typically in the region of £50-£120+ per sign up of a new donor.
e.g. The British Heart Foundation said it paid the equivalent of £136 per signature.
Cancer Research UK said it paid an average of £112 to recruit each donor

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306567/Fees-high-street-chuggers-eat-millions-donated-charities.html

paddyrg

Chuggers individually may not get commission, but the agency they're signed to absolutely does, and is in the range £40-140. I think I saw something saying BHF foundation paid at that to end, but suspect it included other services at that price.

The worst thing you can do for a charity is to sign up £3/month via a chugger and cancel after a year, your donation will cost the charity money.

Do I have 30 seconds for children with cancer? Yes I do. Do I have 10 minutes for a pitch followed by signing over a direct debit to a private company making serious commission with cancerous children just being the vehicle by which they profit? **** off!

ClarkeKent

paddyrg wrote: »

Do I have 30 seconds for children with cancer? Yes I do. Do I have 10 minutes for a pitch followed by signing over a direct debit to a private company making serious commission with cancerous children just being the vehicle by which they profit? **** off!

Absolutely, I would say the independent charities with buckets you see in town asking for Children with Cancer. Are 9/10 scams (donate 5% of proceeds after costs etc). Classic tug at your heart strings way to draw people in.

I used to work with a student who collected for a independent charity at Morrisons etc. She, this 18 year old girl, got HALF of the donations she collected! She later had her suspicions it was a bit bogus, but you get the picture.

I believe the charity industry will be ruined in 10-15 years because of this aggressive sign up tactics- high street, home visits etc. But all those accumated direct debits that never get cancelled will have made it all worth it for them. People will just switch off from it int he end, as all this just slowly erodes against the good charities do.

I used to donate to main stream charities quite often, never now and most probably never will again.

martindow

ClarkeKent wrote: »

Absolutely, I would say the independent charities with buckets you see in town asking for Children with Cancer. Are 9/10 scams (donate 5% of proceeds after costs etc). Classic tug at your heart strings way to draw people in.

Although no doubt there are scams of this kind or even completely fraudulent collections I don't know about 9 out of 10. In many places the council license and co-ordinate street collections to avoid more than one collecting any particular day. These are totally legitimate volunteers collecting for charities such as Christian Aid or British Legion.

Here's an example

http://www.reading.gov.uk/article/3243/Street--House-to-House-Collections

No doubt licensed collectors are going to be quick to inform the council or the police of anyone else collecting on the street.

patman99

Colchester Borough Council have had enough of these chuggers and have banned them from all the streets in the Town centre except for the High Street and Culver Street. They can only collect on these two streets on Monday and Tuesday every week.

As for the pay-outs, a caller to the 'Dave Monk show' on BBC Essex revealed that on average, for every signature they get, the chugger gets £35 and their employer gets £35. That means that if you sign up for £3 per month, the first 23.5 months just covers the costs incurred in getting the signature.

However, the charity will not just rely on your donation each month. They will add your name to a list of active donners. They then sell this list to other charities as well as using it themselves to push you to part with more money.