Code of Fundraising Practice basics
Being involved in any charity fundraising role or nonprofit organisation would imply an almost automatic level of honesty, decency and good conduct. But, like many things involving money and the human race, there are unfortunately those few bad eggs that give everyone else a bad name. Over the years, the fundraising profession and the third sector over all have taken the brunt of bad press coverage, resulting in reputation ranging from general poor conduct and fund mismanagement to outrageous scandal. In response, the three governing bodies of UK charities and fundraising set out to restructure and renew the way fundraising is done with a goal to create clarity and accountability in the sector. We take a look at the resulting ‘bible of fundraising’ aka The Code of Fundraising Practice and how it’s shaping the role of professional fundraisers, along with the charitable causes they support.
What is the code of fundraising practice?
Basically, the code of fundraising practice is the ultimate guide for doing fundraising properly. It was devised as a way to streamline and consolidate best practice for voluntary and professional fundraising as well as regain public trust.
The fundraising code of practice applies to any charity or third party fundraisers, regardless of whether they’re registered with the fundraising regulator.
The framework of the entire code circulates around four key values:
Respectful – Fundraisers should always be respectful in every communication with the public
Honest – Honesty should be paramount with no misleading information given
Legal – All fundraising activities must be legal
Open – All fundraisers should be open and transparent about their role and process
It essentially deals with two main areas; Guidelines for expected behaviours for fundraisers and; Guidelines on behaviours that the public should expect from fundraisers.
Read about the 13 qualities of a successful fundraiser
The code is divided into three sections
Standards which apply to all fundraising (Behaviour when fundraising, responsibilities of charities, handling data and handling money)
Standards which apply to working with others (Volunteers, children, commercial partnerships with charities)
Standards which apply to specific fundraising methods (Collecting money, digital, advertising, events, lotteries, payroll giving, legacies,
Who are the main players in governing the charity sector?
Before we get down to the nitty gritty, it’s important to understand the main organisations that are the glue that hold UK charities to account.
Since there are currently 170,383 charities operating in England and Wales and UK charitable giving amounts to around £11 Billion a year, it’s clearly important to make sure that there is absolute transparency and clarity around the charity sector.
In the UK, there are 3 bodies that work towards the governing and regulation of charities, fundraisers and fundraising agencies. They all have separate roles but work together to cover all areas of within the third sector.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales
The Charity Commission are an independent, non-ministerial government department, accountable to Parliament. They hold the central register of all charities in England and Wales and take overall responsibility for regulating them using enforcement action where there is misconduct and malpractice. They also ensure charities meet legal requirements, provide information about registered charity to the public and give guidance to charities for their smooth operation.
The Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF)
The CIOF is the professional membership body for UK fundraising. CIOF’s mission is to support fundraisers through education and development. They connect fundraisers across all sectors with a goal of serving causes and communities with best practice and compliance. They also seek to champion and promote fundraising as a career choice
The Fundraising Regulator
The Fundraising Regulator is the independent regulator of charitable fundraising in England, Wales and N. Ireland. They monitor and update the code of fundraising practice where applicable, along with responding to concerns and complaints about fundraisers. They also manage the Fundraising Preference Service, which enables members of the public to opt out of hearing from a charity that they no longer wish to hear from.
The Fundraising Regulator is funded by a voluntary charge to charities that spend £100k per year or more on fundraising. Any other charity that spends below that amount, but still wishes to show credibility through their commitment to fundraising standards may register as a member by paying an annual fee. They can then use the FR logo to demonstrate credibility and trust.
What’s the history of the code of fundraising practice?
The original UK code of practice was published in 2005 by the Institute of Fundraising.
Later, in July 2016 it was decided that the responsibility for the code should be passed over to The Fundraising Regulator which had just formed in replacement of the old Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB). This decision was made in a cross-party review of fundraising regulation, chaired by charity executive Sir Stuart Etherington.
In 2019, the Code of Fundraising Practice was updated by the Fundraising Regulator again, this time with a view to make things even easier for charities, fundraisers and third party organisations to understand.
The revised code intended to make clear exactly what was expected for both sides of the fundraising coin; i.e. the fundraiser and the recipients – namely the general public.
The key principles behind changing the code were to
Consolidate the previous code with other rulebooks and legalities making them into one single entity
Have a better, clearer structure, dividing the code into three areas which enabled easy identification for different types of fundraising
Give obvious pointers for the differences of fundraising rules in England, Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland
Use easy to understand language, without industry or legal jargon. The new code was independently reviewed by the ‘Plain English’ campaign, who awarded the code it’s crystal mark standard
Is the code a legal document?
The code and the law that the code includes standards that reflect UK law, but it is not designed to be a legal handbook.
The fundraising regulator have revised the code to make it as clear and understandable as possible for everyone.
But fundraising law is complex and comes from many sources. Laws and regulations also change over time and new methods of fundraising are developed. Fundraisers are responsible for making sure they get the advice needed to meet the requirements they have to meet by law. If there is a difference between the code and the relevant legislation or regulations, fundraisers must follow the law rather than the code
How do they monitor that the fundraising code of practice is being carried out?
Essentially there are two methods for checking whether a fundraising agency or charity is adhering to fundraising code guidelines. These are:
The allocation of mystery shoppers hired by the charities themselves to make sure they’re being represented correctly. The mystery shoppers turn up to assess face to face fundraisers posing as a regular member of the public, and score the fundraiser on various criteria such as conduct, information given and uniform
Investigating complaints made by either those mystery shoppers or from members of the public
Click here to learn more about mystery shoppers
Other than their guardianship of the Code of Fundraising Practice, the Fundraising Regulator also investigates complaints about fundraisers, particularly when the fundraising agencies or charities are unable to resolve it themselves.
What happens if fundraisers don’t stick to the fundraising code of practice?
Once a complaint has been made to the Fundraising Regulator, they will always refer back to the organisation and ask them if they’ve done everything to rectify the issue.
Should there still be a dispute, the fundraising regulator goes through a complaints procedure including acknowledgement, assessment, investigation, draft decision, and final decision.
During investigation, The Fundraising Regulator considers all the evidence pointing toward whether a fundraiser has behaved compliantly in accordance with the code.
Should the final decision be in favour of the person making the complaint, there will be a series of recommendations to help bring the matter to a close. These might include:
Issuing an apology for the complainant
Providing further training and/or action for the fundraiser by way of learning from the breach of code
Recommendation of an independent audit of fundraising techniques by the organisation
In some cases, the FR will send correspondence to the Charity Commissions, HM Revenue and Customs or the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
Repeated failure or blatant misconduct result in the removal of the offending company from the Fundraising Regulators register, along with a name and shame published in it’s annual complaints report.
Unlike the Charity Commission, the FR has no statutory regulatory powers, which means it’s unable to take legal action against an organisation. It can only refer a complaint onwards to the Charity Commission.
If a case goes as far as that, the Charity or organisation could risk enforcements such as
Restriction of transactions that a charity may enter
Appointing additional trustees
‘Freezing’ a charity’s bank account
Suspending or removing trustees
Appointing an interim manager
Charity Link’s professional fundraisers represent some of the UKs best loved charities and do fantastic work across the whole country, either visiting potential donors at their homes or at branding stalls within private venues such as supermarkets, shows or train stations.
Our objective as a company is to help our team to be the very best fundraisers they can be, from our award winning training academy to our exemplary ongoing support in HR, or our excellent benefits scheme.
We strive to be better and do better at every turn and help our charity partners to achieve their goals. We’re very proud to say we consistently deliver professional fundraising that not only abides by The Fundraising Code of Practice but makes the charity fundraising job as pleasant as it can be.
If you’re interested to learn more about a career in professional fundraising and think you’ve got the right personality, we’d love to hear from you. Our friendly recruitment team are always on the look out for fresh talent to join our growing company.