The Big Issue has featured a story investigating companies that provide telemarketing and direct dialogue recruitment services to charities. Reporter Gibby Zobel focused in particular on the work of Personal Telephone Fundraising, "the largest telephone fundraising agency in the UK."
Forty three per cent of computer owners say they will shop online this season, according to a survey by Dell and Louis and Harris Associates. And with over 7 million UK adult Internet users, which charities have set out their trading stalls online?
Canada's CharityVillage has reviewed the effectiveness of some charities' Web sites and has presented a list of good examples. They are each awarded stars for content, interactivity, navigation, aesthetics, and donor/new nember appeal.
Last year BBC TV and Radio, together with its listeners and viewers all over the UK, raised £20.9 million for the BBC Children in Need appeal. Of that, £26,659.31 was raised via secure online credit card donations at the charity's Web site.
Direct debit has been a convenient method of regular giving for some years now. It could soon get even easier, according to telemarketing company Pell & Bales. "Paperless direct debit should deliver at least a 20% improvement in your results," said Karl Holweger, CEO at Pell & Bales.
A range of charities have woken up to the opportunities for free publicity offered by the growing number of Internet-related publications. This month's .net magazine kicks off with a calendar of events coming up. A good number of the site's listed belong to non-profit organisations, and several are advertising their fundraising or campaigning week.
The Guardian Online can provide a useful source of free publicity to a charity's Web site. In almost every week's Netwatch section there is a listing of a charity's Web site. UK Fundraising itself was featured there back in the summer of 1995.
UK Fundraising reported last month on an online celebrity book auction being held by a consortium of three Canadian educational charities. Celebrities were asked to donate books that had inspired them or were important to them. The event raised $3713.
The 1999 BT Swimathon is aiming to raise £2 million for the NSPCC and Children 1st in Scotland. Now in it's 13th year, the event runs from 15th-21st March 1999 and potential participants can register/donate on-line. Significantly, the Web site will help participants stay in touch with the success of the event by publishing the results.
Actor Nigel Havers presented the Disasters Emergency Committee's television appeal on Thursday 12 November to highlight the needs of the people of Nicaragua and Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Donors were encouraged to give via the telephone and via local bank branches, but there was no option for donors to give via the Internet.
