Fourteen charities have failed to look at preference service suppression requests, regulator says

Fourteen charities are in breach of the fundraising code because they have failed to access requests to stop communication made through the Fundraising Preference Service, the regulator has found.

The Fundraising Regulator said today that although more than 2,200 charities had set themselves up on the FPS charity portal, a small group of organisations was breaching the Code of Fundraising Practice by failing to access and action logged requests.

Some of the requests to cease direct marketing communication date back almost four years.

The regulator said that as of 1 May, 29 requests to stop communication relating to 14 charities had not been accessed by the relevant organisation.

The number of charities failing to access FPS requests has come down since this time last year, when there were 20 such organisations.

The FPS was launched in July 2017 to enable people to ask specific charities to stop contacting them by phone, email, text message or post.

The regulator said that if a charity failed to take action to stop direct marketing communications within 21 days of receiving an FPS request, they would be in breach of the terms and conditions of the scheme.

It said that if the charity did not act within 28 days of receiving a request, it would be in breach of section 3.2.5 of the Code of Fundraising Practice and would be subject to regulatory action, which could include them being reported to the Charity Commission and/or the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

The full list of charities as named by the Fundraising Regulator is:

St Mary and St Abanoub Coptic Orthodox Church, West and North Yorkshire (registered charity number: 1123005)

International Children’s Care (UK) (1099151)

Indonesian Humanitarian and Social Aid Network (1110909)

Animal Aid and Advice (North London Group) (1036940)

Combat Cancer (1178293)

Meningitis Help (1090505)

Hope Africa (1103478)

The Children’s Food Trust (1118995)

Mrs Mary Olivia Saffery Turner for Ecclesiastical Purposes in Connection with The Church of England (291059)

Sudan Famine Relief Trust (1009200)

Dovetales International Trust (1016673)