ianmacquillin's blog

The Guardian ran a pretty decent and balanced video news item recently entitled: ‘Why do people hate chuggers?'. Two-hundred-and-seventy-four people responded in what was a genuinely informative (though often ill-informed, as usual) comment stream (sorry, as a former officer* of my school debating society, I can’t bring myself to use the word ‘debate’).

My partner Sarah says that being a fundraiser allows you to see the best and the worst of people. You see the best with their fantastic acts of philanthropy. But you also see the worst of people with the often petty and vicious complaints they make.

At first, I felt dreadfully sorry for the fundraiser (as reported in Third Sector a few days ago) who was so upset by abusive phone calls from members of the public that she quit not just her job but left the whole charity sector. It’s not the first time that I’ve heard about a member of the public being so obnoxious that they’ve reduced a fundraiser to tears. In fact, it happened to someone I know just a couple of days ago.

I was at my ninth sucsessive International Fundraising Congress in Holland last month where one of my fellow delegates went by the name of Phun Rae Tsing.

The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association is based in what could be described as the ‘Fire Brigade District’ of London. The London Fire Brigade HQ is in the street that runs parallel to us, there’s a huge training centre, spread over two large complexes, in the street beyond that and, of course, there’s an actual fire station just round the corner.

All of which I think is kind of appropriate considering the amount of firefighting I’ve been doing since I started at the PFRA in June.

Well, this is my very last day with TurnerPR, before I leave to join the PFRA. And as I only have one hour and 36 minutes left, I’d like to use a few of those in publicly paying tribute to Jenny Turner for taking me on in the first place, being a great boss and a trusted friend,

Picture the scene. It’s a glitzy, glamorous ball for all the charity’s major donor prospects. All the fundraising staff are there, glammed up in their DJs and little black dresses, pressing flesh and working the room. That includes my partner Sarah (this is several years and a few charities ago), who was head of this charity’s trusts team.

I saw a charity infomercial a few weeks back. A person looked out of the screen and said directly to the viewing audience that 50 per cent of the people watching would not give money to this charity. He added: “Don’t be in that half of the population.”

Christmas. Chestnuts roasting by an open fire. Sound of Music on BBC 2. And otherwise sensible and conservative people all over the country getting their kit off for a charity fundraising calendar.

A couple of weeks ago, Adam Rothwell, director of ‘donor advice website’ Intelligent Giving, accused Joe Saxton of “sexing up” nfpSynergy’s research. The delicious irony here is that, while he was making those comments, Adam knew full well that he’d shortly be dressing up his own research in fishnet stockings and a peep-hole bra.