Quelle Surprise…

Here’s some news I for one am certainly filing under ‘Quelle Surprise’: The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) confirmed on Friday that around one-third of the 8,434 complaints it had received during the past year related to direct mail dispatched by charities.

I ask you: What is it with charities and their ill-targeted direct mail campaigns? Their repeated wastefulness is almost Pavlovian, in my opinion.

Phil Hope, MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire and the Minister responsible for overseeing the voluntary sector, was quoted by BBC News on Friday as saying ‘Public trust and confidence in charity fundraising is vital.’ I couldn’t agree more, Mr Hope. But unlike your surname, I don’t believe that charities’ propensity for self-regulation springs in any way eternal.

Regular readers of this blog will know that charities have been a major bete noir for yours truly in recent months. For good reason. The REaD Group has investigated charities and estimates that a staggering 88.5% of their mailings are still being sent out unscreened and unsuppressed every year, accounting for more than £11.5m of waste.

At the risk of channelling Donna Summer, enough is enough. The REaD Group has decided to offer an olive branch to charities. Watch this space over coming weeks for further details…