In May 2015 Olive Cooke threw herself off the Clifton Suspension Bridge. She was 92 years old and a well-known poppy seller for the Royal British Legion. She was also a victim of aggressive charity marketing. In October 2014, just over six month before her death, the Bristol Post had written about the deluge junk mail she received from charities. At the time she got 267 begging letters from charities in a single month, and that was before the Christmas peak.

There was, as far as we know, no connection between Cooke being targeted by charities and her suicide. People quickly put two and two together but Cooke's family has always rejected any suggestion that her suicide was linked to charity marketing. Regardless, Cooke's death lifted the lid on what had been a taboo: charities are the worst junk mail offenders.

The Daily Mail campaign and Etherington Review

Much I detest the Daily Mail, nothing would have changed if hadn't been for a series of investigations into charity marketing by the newspaper. In August 2015, they started publishing their findings. In particular the story of Samuel Rae, a retired army colonel who had dementia, sparked outrage. Not only was he relentlessly targeted by dozens of charities, some charities, such as the PDSA, sold his details to list brokers who subsequently sold his data to scammers. Rae lost £35k to the scumbags.

The public anger about charity marketing prompted the government to ask Stuart Etherington of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) to review the charity industry's self-regulation. At the same time the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee launched its own enquiry and, if that isn't enough, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) also started looking at the fundraising practices. Christopher Graham, the Information Commission himself, told the House of Commons committee in October 2015 that they had found that the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) was sitting on 50,000 complaints about charity marketing. None of the complaints had been passed to the ICO. Mr Graham also noted that the Institute of Fundraising (IoF) — a separate self-regulatory body — appeared to be resisting the reality that the direct marketing guidance did apply to the charity sector.

The Etherington Review concluded that the charity industry's self-regulatory framework needed a drastic overhaul, and the House of Commons committee agreed. The FRSB and IoF were membership organisations and could therefore only regulate its members. They had spectacularly failed to do so. In the two years before the scandal came to light the FRSB had told off just one of its members for poor fundraising practices, while the IoF was reluctant to tighten its code of practice. As noted by the Information Commissioner, the IoF's code suggested it was perfectly fine to phone people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), even though it was a clear breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. Self-regulation was further complicated by the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA), which was a self-regulatory body for "face-to-face" fundraising (better known as "chugging").

Etherington recommended replacing the FRSB with a new body: the Fundraising Regulator. The new regulator would be independent; regulate all charity fundraising (i.e. it wouldn't be another membership organisation) and it would be responsible for the industry's code of practice. This made the IoF and PFRA largely redundant; they could merge and become a membership organisation without any real power. And, the new regulator would also need to set up an opt-out scheme for charity marketing: the Fundraising Preference Service.

Do we need an opt-out service for charity marketing?

The Etherington Review recommended the Fundraising Preference Service because it was too difficult to opt out:

At the moment there is no way to 'opt-out' (sic) of being approached by fundraisers other than contacting the organisation concerned directly and relying on their good will to unsubscribe an individual. A mechanism should exist whereby a person can quickly and easily exempt themselves from being contacted.

The statement is not quite true. There were already two opt-out services for unsolicited marketing: the TPS and MPS. Part of the problem was that charity marketers routinely ignored the TPS but that nut had been cracked — even the IoF now accepted that the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations don't contain exemptions for charities. And for dead-tree marketing we already had the MPS, which surely would stop unsolicited begging letters?

Of course, the MPS was the problem. Much of what I wrote about the FRSB and IoF is true for the DMA. It is a self-regulatory body whose code of practice only applies to its members. Non-members don't have to check if their targets are registered with the MPS. That is completely different from how the TPS works — the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations requires telemarketers to check if a phone numbers is registered with the TPS, regardless of whether or not the marketer is a member of the DMA.

The GDPR has made it easier to stop unsolicited mailings from individual senders. However, that doesn't really help people who are targeted by dozens of charity marketers, as you would need to contact each individual sender. And that is why Etherington felt the need for a new opt-out service. The only alternative option would have been to require charity marketers to use the MPS suppression file (this could be made a requirement in the fundraising code of practice). However, that might have been too much of a burden for smaller charities, as they would need to spend quite a bit of money buying the opt-out data. A separate opt-out scheme, funded by a small levy on fundraising activities, was less painful.

The Information Commissioner was not in favour of the FPS. He told the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in October that it would duplicate the function of the TPS. Unfortunately, he didn't say anything about how people could realistically opt out of charity junk mail:

I am not in favour of the fundraising preference service idea, which I think is simply a confusion. The Telephone Preference Service is something I can enforce under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. I am worried that the fundraising preference service is something that I would not have any status to enforce, and it just might lead to greater confusion when we need clarity.

The committee agreed with that argument and concluded it was not persuaded of the case for a new fundraising preference service. That was partly because of the argument put forward by the Information Commissioner, and partly because charities didn't like the new opt-out service either:

We are not persuaded of the case for a new fundraising preference service. It would duplicate the function of the existing Telephone Preference Service (TPS), and add limitations to the activity of charities that do not exist for any other sector. If a new preference service is to be introduced, the new fundraising regulator should urgently seek to discuss with the Information Commissioner how the new preference service can work alongside TPS, without creating conflict and confusion in the minds of the public.

The worry about limitations to the activity of charities that do not exist for any other sector presumably refers to the fact that marketers in other sectors can simply ignore the MPS. If private companies can send junk mail without checking if people have opted out, then why shouldn't charities be able to do the same?

The implementation of the FPS

The Etherington Review recommended that the FPS would allow individuals to opt out of all unsolicited charity marketing:

The Review therefore recommends that the Fundraising Regulator should be tasked with the establishment and maintenance of a 'Fundraising Preference Service' (FPS). This will allow individuals to add their name to a 'suppression list', so fundraisers have clear indication they do not wish to be contacted. Fundraisers should have a responsibility to check against the FPS before sending out a campaign. The FPS would provide the public with a 'reset button' for all fundraising communications, completely preventing the receipt of unsolicited contact by charities and other fundraising organisations.

The data file of individuals who have registered would be accessible to charities and fundraising organisations that should screen their donor listings against the suppression list. This should be done by all fundraising organisations to uphold donor confidence, and should be reflected in the Code of Fundraising Standards.

When the opt-out scheme launched, in July 2017, the "reset button" wasn't implemented. Instead, people can opt out of receiving specific types of marketing from individual charities. An independent review of the FPS from October 2020 explains the decision. The Fundraising Regulator was worried the big red button would wipe out the contact with charities you did want to hear from as well as those who didn't, which would have actually done a lot more damage to charity fundraising and not have solved the problem.

It seems FPS users disagreed, as the review also stated that 98% of users felt there should be an option to stop all charity marketing (78% strongly agreed and 20% somewhat agreed). However, the review also notes that users were more nuanced when interviewed. Regardless, the "big red button" wasn't implemented and the Fundraising Regulator has no plans of doing so.

Low registration levels

The independent review of the FPS is quite open about how the service is perceived by charities and users. One of the main challenges the service faces are low registration numbers. As at July 2020, only 3% of opt-out requests came via the FPS — all other requests were made to charities directly. The number of registrations had dropped from over 1,400 in the first week (October 2017) to under 200 requests by December. The number of weekly opt-outs had decreased to just under 40 by June 2020.

The report suggests this a good thing: it might indicate that the charity industry has cleaned up its act. Still, the extremely low opt-out rates are a problem. In 2018/19, the Fundraising Regulator spent £376k on the opt-out service, which translated to £133 per user. Clearly, that is not value for money. The main argument for keeping the FPS is that it is a "safety net". The opt-out scheme was introduced for a reason; to prevent charity marketers can hound people like Olive Cooke and Samuel Rae.

The report also points out that awareness of the FPS is very low. In 2019, only 6% of the respondents were aware of the opt-out scheme. The Fundraising Regulator noted in the report that its budget for promoting the opt-out service is limited and that charities hadn't promoted [the FPS] as widely as they might have done. Interestingly, one charity had suggested that charities should advertise the FPS on all unsolicited direct marketing approaches. That is a sensible suggestion, but unfortunately it will go down like a lead balloon with the vast majority of charity marketers. It is extremely unlikely the suggestion will ever be implemented.

Meanwhile, the charity industry argues that the introduction of the GDPR has already limited unsolicited marketing. Of the charities that were surveyed, 54% feel there is therefore no longer a need for the FPS (15% agree, 39% strongly agree). Only 25% reckon the FPS is still useful.

The future of the FPS

The report's main recommendation was to change the FPS to a minimal opt-out service aimed at protecting people in vulnerable circumstances. The service itself hasn't fundamentally changed but the Fundraising Regulator has reduced the hosting cost — they now pay Amazon significantly less money (the common perception that Amazon offers affordable hosting is a myth, but that is a rant for another day). The Fundraising Regulator's annual report for the financial year 2020/21 shows that 2,275 people used the service in that year and that the operating cost had been reduced to £148k. That works out at a cost of £65 per registrant.

It is unclear whether or not the FPS itself will change. The Fundraising Regulator's latest strategic plan, covering the period from 2022 to 2027, has very little to say about the opt-out scheme. The list with objectives doesn't mention the service at all and there is nothing in the report about raising awareness of the service. The only hint about what might be in store is hidden away in the Financial planning and reporting chapter. It mentions that they have some money in the bank that is reserved for various things, including investment in an FPS replacement system.