Introduction

The UK government has long been concerned with the quality of the UK fundraising practice. In 2002, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit report ‘Private Action, Public Benefit’ recommended a thorough revision of local authority controls over the public nuisance aspects of fundraising and the introduction of the best practice scheme to regulate the balance. In response to the Strategy Unit’s recommendations, an independent commission was then set up by the Institute of Fundraising to reflect on the issues and scope the development of an appropriate self-regulatory regime. The Buse Commission reported in 2003, and its findings were reviewed and further refined by a steering group chaired by the Charities Aid Foundation in 2004. The Fund Raising Standards Board (FRSB) was finally established in 2007 as the body responsible for the self-regulation of fundraising in the UK.

Membership of the FRSB is voluntary, and its members agree to adhere to the highest standards of professional practice by signing up to the ‘Fundraising Promise’,Footnote 1 agreeing to follow the Institute of Fundraising’s Codes of Practice, having a robust complaints procedure and accepting the authority of the FRSB to make final decisions relating to fundraising complaints (Charity Commission 2007).

Members of the public who have cause to complain about the fundraising practice of an FRSB member should in the first instance complain to the relevant charity. If they are unable to reach satisfactory agreement, the complaint may then be escalated to the FRSB who will then intervene and attempt to resolve the matter. If they are unable to do so, then the complainant has the option to take the matter to the FRSB Board. They will look at the complaint again to determine whether it has breached one of the codes or the Fundraising Promise and decide whether to uphold or reject it. If the complaint is upheld, then the FRSB can tell its member to take action to make sure that the same thing does not happen again. In cases of serious breach, there is provision for the member to be thrown out of the scheme. To date, only seven full adjudications have been heard. In cases where the charity is not an FRSB member, the complainant may still utilise other structures for resolving their concerns, notably by pursuing it with the Advertising Standards Authority, the relevant local government authorities or the police, depending on the nature of the issue.

The FRSB now has 1,349 members (Nov 2011) accounting for around 40% of all the UK voluntary fundraising income. The overall coverage of the sector is less impressive since there are estimated to be around 24,000 fundraising charities in the UK (Home Office Charities Unit 2005—note 15), and thus fewer than 5% of this total are currently members. The low take-up remains a matter of concern since the Charities Act (2006) granted a reserve power to the Minister to directly regulate the fundraising activities of charitable institutions (section 69). That power remains in abeyance provided that the self-regulation of fundraising scheme achieves its stated objectives and improves the quality of the UK fundraising practice.

What remains unclear, however, is the nature of the ‘problem’ that the UK government was originally trying to fix and the extent to which we should really be concerned about the quality of the UK fundraising practice. In this article we address that gap by examining the volume and nature of the complaints received by members of the FRSB in the calendar years 2009 and 2010. Through our review of the literature we will also explore the potential significance of these complaints for the sector exploring the wider role that they can play in helping build donor satisfaction, loyalty and value. While policy makers might measure the success of the FRSB scheme in terms of a reduction in the level of public complaints there are many reasons why this should be regarded as an overly simplistic view.

There is now a considerable multi-disciplinary literature on the broad topics of the drivers of philanthropy and why people give (see for example Burnett and Wood 1988; Bendapudi et al. 1996; Bekkers and Weipking 2007) but there is a paucity of studies in relation to the management of nonprofit service quality issues and in particular, complaint handling (Sargeant and Woodliffe 2007). It is, therefore, our intention to draw on the wider customer service and service recovery literature to set our study in context. While there are certainly varied perspectives on the nature of the fundraising exchange and indeed whether it should be considered an exchange at all (see for example Drollinger 2010), there is now widespread acceptance that fundraising is nonetheless a service context, where the value and duration of relationships will be driven by perceptions of the quality of that service (Andreasen and Kotler 2007; Polonsky and Sargeant 2007). The above literature is, therefore, an appropriate one in which to explore the potential significance of complaints in respect of fundraising practice.

Donor Satisfaction and Loyalty

Johnson and Fornell (1991) define customer satisfaction as a customer’s overall evaluation of the performance of an offering to date. It is now well established that satisfaction has a strong positive effect on loyalty intentions in a wide variety of product and service contexts (Fornell et al. 1996; Mittal and Kamakura 2001). Satisfaction is viewed as the consequence of a comparison between expectations and overall evaluations of delivered service quality (Gustafsson et al. 2005). In other words, people compare what they expected to get with what was actually delivered. They experience satisfaction only when their expectations are either met or surpassed. This evaluation matters since higher levels of satisfaction are associated with higher levels of subsequent loyalty (Morgan and Hunt 1994; Bendapudi and Berry 1997).

In aggregate, these studies suggest that, in the context of fundraising, donor satisfaction with the quality of the service they are provided with (as donors) should drive subsequent loyalty. In the first study to explicitly address satisfaction in this context, Sargeant (2001) identified a positive correlation with loyalty, with donors indicating that they were ‘very satisfied’ with the quality of service provided being twice as likely to offer a second or subsequent gift relative to those who identified themselves as merely satisfied. More recent studies by Sargeant and Woodliffe (2007) and Sargeant and Hudson (2008) have confirmed this relationship, while, in the latter case, simultaneously identifying a link between satisfaction and commitment to the organisation. A study by Bennett and Barkensjo (2005) also provides support that there is a significant and positive relationship between satisfaction with the quality of relationship marketing activity (in this case, relationship fundraising) and the donor’s future intentions and behaviour, particularly, with regard to the likely duration of the relationship and the levels of donation offered.

Therefore, given its significance, the question arises as to how might nonprofits seek to increase levels of donor satisfaction and what role if any might the encouragement of complaints play in this process?

Managing Customer/Donor Complaints

The growth levels recorded in the size and significance of the service sector have led to a good deal of research into customer complaining, service failure, recovery and dynamics over the last 40 years (See for example, Hirschman 1970; Homburg and Fürst 2005; Singh 1988; Smith and Bolton 2002). Marketing scholars, in particular, have looked at conceptualising and modelling service dynamics in a range of different contexts (Harrison-Walker 2001; Holloway and Beatty 2003; Michel 2001). Successive studies have examined both the genesis of complaints (Godwin et al. 1999; Voorhees et al. 2006) and their consequences (Bennett 1997; Nyer 2000).

In respect of the former, Andreasen and Best (1977) show that, in almost 20% of purchases, customers indicate dissatisfaction of some sort. Day and Ash (1979) identify that, in the commercial sector, the most commonly cited issue is the quality of the materials, while Day and Landon (1977) conclude that reasons to complain will vary by category of product. Importantly, services seem more prone to complaint than products according to Garver (2003) with the nature of complaints typically reflecting the distinctive nature of the service context (i.e. intangibility, heterogeneity, perishability, and the inseparability of production and consumption). Of these, intangibility has been claimed to be the most important differentiating characteristic of a service from a product, since different customers can develop very different perceptions of the quality of what has actually been delivered (Rushton and Carson 1985). This has important implications for fundraising, as giving only rarely results in the ‘purchase’ of a tangible product.

While levels of dissatisfaction in the service context are high (Andreasen and Best (1977)), it is interesting to note that comparatively few customers elect to complain (Barlow and Moller 1996; George et al. 2007; Goodman and Newman 2003). For every complaining customer, it is estimated that there are there are as many as 20 others with the same problem who remain silent (Plymire 1991). Similarly, TARP (1986) estimates that 30–60% of complaints go unarticulated, depending on the nature of the product/service. The most common reasons for the silence are that complaining is seen as being too much trouble, because of the feeling that making a complaint would not change anything, or a difficulty in identifying how and to whom a complaint might be made (Naumann and Giel 1995).

A small number of studies have examined the overall propensity to complain which is defined as the percentage of consumers taking any action (public or private) after experiencing dissatisfaction. Public action includes raising a complaint with the supplier, contacting a consumer advocacy organisation and hiring a lawyer. Private action is refusing to buy again or negative word of mouth. Overall propensity varies greatly by industry, ranging from 0% for national newspaper services (Andreassen 2001) to 96% for credit cards in Hogarth et al. (2001). Studies have also found links between complaint propensity and the value of a product/service (e.g. Huang 1994) and the severity of the problem (Hogarth et al. 2001). Propensity to complain will also increase if the problem is perceived to be clear cut rather than a matter of individual judgement (Anon 1976).

In respect of public action, TARP (1979) revealed that fewer than 10% of dissatisfied consumers sought assistance from any third party agency. Usually complaints to third parties would only arise after repeated attempts at resolution. Fisher et al. (1999) show that consumers on average had contacted their dry cleaning companies 5.7 times, their auto dealers 6.7 times and their home construction companies 18.1 times before contacting a consumer rights body such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Oster (1980) reports that BBB complaint activity is the highest for products that are purchased infrequently, are higher priced, have volatile price levels and demonstrate low income elasticities. She also found that bigger firms with larger local advertising levels tended to generate fewer BBB complaints. In respect of the aggregate number of complaints received by the BBB surprisingly, very few data are available. Only a handful of studies have examined the incidence of complaint. In the auto sector, for example, one complaint is typically received for every 2,131 cars sold, while in the home-building sector, one complaint is made for every 148 new homes built (Garrett 2004). Data in respect of the number of complaints made directly to business organisations themselves are scant (Chavan et al. 2007), making it impossible to draw any firm conclusions about the performance of fundraising relative to other service contexts. Our data focus on complaints made by individuals to charities, rather than to the third party agency, the FRSB.

In respect of the consequences of consumer complaints, the literature suggests a number of positive outcomes that can accrue to the receiving organisation. In particular, studies have also examined the link between post complaint behaviour, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Bennett (1997), for example, found that customers who exhibit bursts of anger during complaining experience feelings such as relief and general psychological well-being. This impacts positively on their subsequent behaviour. Similarly, Nyer (2000) finds customers who are encouraged to complain report higher levels of satisfaction, while Homburg and Fürst (2005) find links between the perceived quality of complaint management and customer satisfaction and loyalty (see also Fornell and Wernerfeldt 1987; Johnson et al. 2001). This is emphasised by TARP (1986) which identified that in the case of service problems with potential costs of $100 or more, 54% of customers would maintain brand loyalty if the issues were resolved to their satisfaction and that this figure rises to 70% with less expensive services. Indeed, it has even been demonstrated that a successful service recovery can result in higher levels of satisfaction than would have been the case if a problem had not been encountered in the first place (Durvasula et al. 2000). McCollough and Bharadwaj (1992) refer to this as the service recovery paradox and their observations have since been confirmed on numerous occasions (see, e.g. Tax et al. 1998; Hansen and Danaher 1999; Maxham and Netemayer 2002). It is worth noting, however, that deficient complaint handling has the opposite effect, magnifying the impact of the original complaint on dissatisfaction and the likelihood of defection (Bitner et al. 1990; Maxham and Netemayer 2002).

Other benefits of effective complaint handling have been reported in the literature including the lowering of negative word of mouth (Bolfing 1989; Blodgett et al. 1993) and the generation of constructive ideas that can subsequently be used to enhance the quality of the service offering (Söderlund 1998; Slater and Narver 1995), thus prompting Naylor (2003) to describe complaining customers as a firm’s biggest asset. In services, Hart et al. (1990) regard mistakes are inevitable and advise that firms should therefore focus on satisfaction with their handling, the development of a customer-focused attitude and cultivating the skills necessary for ultimate service recovery. A variety of the benefits described above will accrue if they do.

That said, a number of researchers warn that it may not be feasible for a company to aggressively work towards extremely high levels of satisfaction and thus to eliminate complaints. Rather, it may be appropriate ‘to seek an optimum level of reasonably high customer satisfaction and a simultaneous low frequency of complaints’ (Haverila and Naumann 2010, p. 58). Consistent with Ittner and Larcker (1998), there is evidence of diminishing (accounting) performance benefit levels at high satisfaction levels. Organisations will therefore be better off maintaining an optimal level of service quality where some complaints may be tolerated, but where appropriate recovery systems are in place to offset the potential for any subsequent damage to customer loyalty and lifetime value (see Mukherjee et al. 2003; Garver 2003).

Since as we emphasised above, fundraising is a service context, our review of the literature suggests that nonprofits should pay particular attention to the issues of complaint generation and subsequent service recovery. Complaints in respect of fundraising, if properly handled, can result in the provision of a number of benefits to organisations and should be encouraged.

In the primary study that follows we will therefore contribute to knowledge by providing an analysis of what we believe may be the first dataset to be assembled of complaints in respect of fundraising practice. We will examine the nature and incidence of these complaints, scoping the nature of the ‘problem’ and exploring the implications for both nonprofit managers and those who seek to regulate the sector. As our literature review has shown, the volume of complaints must not be the primary issue for policy makers to consider, rather the sector’s success in resolving those matters.

Methodology

In the first quarter of each year, FRSB members are required to complete an Annual Complaints Return, submitting details of all fundraising complaints received from members of the public during the previous calendar year. The FRSB supplies detailed guidance in respect of how to categorise the nature of the complaints received, and it reviews the dataset for errors when returned by the participating charity. This data, when accumulated, provides helpful information about trends in complaints about fundraising and those aspects of it that generate the highest levels of concern. It should be noted, however, that the FRSB has no remit to oversee or monitor the systems of record keeping maintained by its members, it is merely party to the final record of complaints. The researchers were given access to these data for both 2009 and 2010.

The file contains the volume of complaints received by each member charity broken down by media so that the performance of each may be identified. Respondents are also asked to report the volume of activity they have undertaken in each medium usually specified in the form of the number of solicitations attempted. There are variations in this regard, however, since activities such as face-to-face street recruitment can only be reported as the number of sign-ups achieved. It is not possible to meaningfully count the number of solicitations in that context. Finally, the FRSB gathers more detailed information in respect of the nature of complaints in a small number of media that are regarded as being of greater concern to the public (direct mail and telemarketing).

As the membership of the FRSB has grown substantively over the period 2009–2010, it was not possible to conduct an analysis of the absolute number of complaints. One would expect that, as more charities join the scheme, the volume of complaints would continue to rise quite naturally. Such a measure is, therefore, not a fair reflection of the quality of the UK fundraising. In the analysis that follows, we have therefore analysed the percentage of each organisation’s solicitations (or ticket sales, etc.) that resulted in a complaint and calculated the mean score for this measure across our sample of organisations. This analysis has been repeated for each of the major forms of fundraising included in both the 2009 and the 2010 studies.

In those aspects of fundraising where the number of complaints had been monitored in both 2009 and 2010, it was possible to conduct a more detailed analysis of whether the level of complaints had changed over the period and whether there were any significant ‘size’ effects, where larger charities (by voluntary income) might perform differently from smaller charities. It was also possible to examine whether there were any significant ‘cause’ effects, with certain categories of charitable activity performing better than others. In the case of the latter analysis, it should be noted that it was only possible to conduct a meaningful analysis of eight different cause categories, as the sample size in others was too small to permit a robust analysis. What is striking from the analysis that follows is that few differences could actually be detected either by cause or by size of organisation.

Results

Table 1 provides a list of the forms of fundraising included in the FRSB’s annual return. It also provides information in respect of how the volume of each activity is measured. While most are measured in terms of solicitations, there are a number of exceptions, including face-to-face (as noted above) and lotteries/prize draws where volume is measured in terms of the overall number of ticket sales achieved. We have calculated the corresponding complaint rate as the % of each organisation’s activity that resulted in one complaint in both 2009 and 2010.

Table 1 Incidence of complaints about fundraising
Full size table

Face-to-face fundraising on the street (where individuals are approached to sign up to a regular monthly contribution) receives the highest level of complaints of any fundraising medium, but it should be noted that the metric employed for this technique is distinctly harsher than that for other forms of fundraising. For the other forms that we list here, volume is typically measured as the number of solicitations. As this is not recorded in face-to-face, it is only possible to capture the number of sign-ups (a much smaller number). As a consequence, the percentage of complaints appears artificially higher, one complaint per 600 sign-ups. In reality, it is likely that a minimum of 20 people will be approached to achieve one sign-up, and so a comparable measure would be likely to be of the order of one complaint per 12,000 solicitations, a figure comparing favourably to that of other media. All one may say, however, with certainty is that the technique generated a similar level of complaints in both 2009 and 2010 and that there were no discernible variations in performance by either size or category of cause.

Doorstep face-to-face fundraising is a similar activity involving fundraising recruiters knocking on the doors of domestic dwellings and soliciting a regular monthly contribution direct from the bank account of the donor. Although this is one of the more complained about forms of fundraising, but it must be recognised that the level of complaints is still very small, it typically requiring well over 1,000 solicitations to generate one complaint. The performance of this media did not vary between 2009 and 2010, and there are no substantive variations by either cause or the size of the charity.

The percentage of a typical charity’s direct mail that generated complaints received rose significantly in 2010. No significant differences were discernible by either size of organisation or category of cause. In 2009, one complaint was typically received for every 12,500 solicitations. In 2010, this figure declined to one complaint received for every 2,500 solicitations. Further analysis of the data revealed that this was due to the particularly poor performance of six organisations reporting up to a 2% complaint rate. Excluding these organisations from the sample removed the significant difference between the 2 years. This demonstrates the susceptibility of the overall average to performance at a small number of charities at the boundary of professional practice.

The nature of complaints about direct mail is now recorded in more detail. Out of the 9,462 direct mail complaints recorded by FRSB members in 2010, details were provided for the nature of over two-thirds (6,556) of those complaints. The results of the analysis of this data for 2010 is presented at Fig. 1. Poor data, which included poorly addressed communications and communications to a deceased individual, was what concerned the public the most this year, marginally exceeding the frequency of appeals which had been the leading factor for complaint in 2009.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Break-down of complaints about direct mail

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While direct mail is mail addressed to a specific individual, unaddressed mail is merely delivered to the household. It is interesting to compare the performance of this medium relative to direct mail which required (in 2010) circa 100,000 delivered items to generate just one complaint. There were significantly fewer complaints about this medium in 2010 than in 2009. The improvement was largely due to an improvement in the quality of smaller campaigns. There are no discernible differences by either size of organisation or category of cause.

The incidence of complaints about charity email is relatively low, with typically only one complaint being generated per 10,000 emails. The reported figures from 2009 and 2010 are not significantly different, and there were no discernible differences by size of organisation or cause.

In measuring complaints about television advertising, charities are asked to report the volume of Opportunities to See (OTS) delivered by specific campaigns. The percentages in each table then reflect the average percentage of OTSs that result in a complaint. Again, the numbers here are very small. In 2009, 2000 OTSs were required to generate one complaint. In 2010, the figure was 25,000. The figures are significantly different, but again caution must be used as the difference is due to the abnormally poor performance of just three organisations' campaigns in 2009. No differences in performance could be discerned by the size of the organisation, but further analysis of the data revealed that animal charities and overseas aid charities performed marginally less well than the rest of the sector.

While very few charities engage in radio advertising to solicit donations, this is also one of the least complained about fundraising media. Volume in this case is measured as opportunities to hear, and it would typically take in excess of one million opportunities to hear to generate one complaint. No significant differences could be found by year, cause or size of organisation.

Although telephone fundraising often attracts negative publicity, its performance compares favourably with that of other fundraising media, typically resulting in only one complaint per 1500 calls. Here too, we could find no evidence of any significant differences by year, size of charity or category of cause. Additional data are also collected by the FRSB on the nature of these complaints, which totalled 2,840 in 2010. Further details were provided in respect of 56% of those complaints with the break-down as reported in Fig. 2. The tone of these calls is the most common reason for making a complaint, accounting for 42% of complaints. Similar to direct mail, poor data also remain a leading cause for concern while the content/frequency of calls and campaign fulfilment all receive lower and similar levels of complaints.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Break-down of complaints about telephone fundraising

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Lotteries and raffles seem to generate little cause for complaint. The FRSB defines a lottery as ‘any fundraising in which tokens have been distributed or sold resulting in the winning token or tokens being secretly predetermined or ultimately selected in a random drawing’ (FRSB Glossary—Section 15). They define raffles similarly, but limit the scope to ‘a lottery in which the prizes are goods rather than money’ (FRSB Glossary—Section 16). In 2010, only one complaint was received for every 17,000 lottery tickets sold. No discernible differences could be detected by year, size of charity or cause. Raffles perform almost identically to lotteries. In 2010, only one complaint was received per 12,500 tickets sold. It is interesting to note that the larger charities seem to attract significantly more complaints than the smaller charities. It should be noted, however, that, even with the larger charities, the percentage of complaints is small. No significant differences could be detected by cause.

The level of complaints received about prize draws each year is negligible. Only one complaint was received in 2010 for every 100,000 tickets sold. No significant differences could be detected by the size of the organisation, but a significant difference was detected in relation to cause. Disability and animal charities attracted a significantly higher percentage of complaints. It must be noted, however, that even in the case of these organisations, complaints are uncommon, occurring on an average, once for every 50,000 tickets sold.

Social activities are defined as any fundraising activity that has a specifically social focus. The category includes banquets, concerts and events. In this case, volume is measured by the number of tickets sold. In 2010, one complaint was received for every 5,000 tickets sold. No discernible differences could be detected by year, size of charity or category of cause.

Outdoor events are defined as any fundraising activity which involves physical exertion. This category therefore includes fun runs and challenge events such as the Three Peaks Challenge. Volume in this case is defined as the number of registered participants. One complaint was typically received for every 2,500 participants in such events. No significant differences could be discerned by category of cause, but there was evidence of a significant size effect. Larger charities appear to attract a higher complaint rate than smaller charities.

Conclusions

There are a number of important conclusions that one might draw for fundraising policy makers from the extant studies reported earlier in this article. First, the fact that fundraising generates a substantive number of complaints may not necessarily be against the public interest. Charities should be encouraged to actively stimulate dissatisfied members of the public to complain since, in so doing, they have the opportunity to gain feedback on their performance and where they can respond appropriately, to build donor loyalty and improve word of mouth as a consequence. We conclude that simply examining the aggregate number of complaints will not be a helpful mechanism in determining the need for further public policy intervention.

Second, it seems clear that there may be an optimal level of complaint beyond which charities would be ill-advised to seek to further improve. The costs of achieving a higher rate of satisfaction would far outweigh any benefits that may be delivered in terms of subsequent satisfaction and loyalty. The critical difficulty for both fundraisers and regulators lies in forming a view on what might constitute an acceptable level of complaints about fundraising. If only one complaint is induced in a medium for every 1,000 solicitations. does it then constitute an acceptable level of performance?

It appears to us from our primary data that there may in reality be little cause for concern over the quality of fundraising in the UK, at least in respect of the fundraising undertaken by members of the FRSB. Even those fundraising techniques attracting the highest level of complaint typically require 1,000 or more solicitations to attract a single complaint. While techniques such as doorstep face-to-face fundraising and outbound telemarketing are often felt to be unpopular forms of fundraising with the public, we find no evidence of an excessively high level of complaints about either media. Even in the case of direct mail, which also attracts a disproportionate amount of criticism, particularly from politicians and the sector press, we find that only one complaint is received for every 2,500 solicitations. While one has again to express the caveat that these figures relate only to members of the FRSB, they do not appear excessive, particularly given the very broad definition of ‘complaint’ adopted by the scheme. Individuals ‘complaining’ about their name being spelt incorrectly, or poorly addressed communications will be included in these figures. While such lapses are obviously regrettable, it is difficult to imagine a high level of public anxiety being created as a consequence of these minor errors.

The fundraising medium with the highest overall level of complaint was street based face-to-face fundraising, with one complaint being generated for every 600 successful sign-ups. However, this headline figure is misleading since it is based on sign-ups rather than solicitations, which is the case for the majority of the other media examined. As a consequence the percentage of complaints appears much higher. Since in reality it is likely that at least 20 people will be approached to achieve one sign-up, a comparable measure would be likely to be of the order of one complaint per 12,000 solicitations, a figure comparing very favourably to that of other media. Thus, while the medium often attracts negative comment in the press we find no evidence of the high degree of dissatisfaction that some journalists would have us believe is the case.

It was interesting to note that many of the most complained about fundraising media are also the most effective, delivering a higher return on investment than would normally be achieved through the least complained about media such as prize draws or radio advertising. Techniques such as doorstep face-to-face fundraising are employed to recruit individuals into regular (monthly) support of an organisation and the lifetime values of these supporters can be 400–700% higher than donors recruited into cash giving (i.e. sending occasional cheques or buying raffle tickets) (Sargeant and Jay 2010). It is perhaps a fair exchange that substantially larger sums be raised for good causes at the ‘cost’ of a small percentage point increase in the incidence of complaint.

We were able to find very few differences in performance by year, size of organisation or category of cause. The percentage of direct mail resulting in a complaint was significantly higher in 2010, while the percentage of ‘OTS’ direct response television ads that generated a complaint was significantly lower. It would also appear that larger charities generate a higher percentage of complaints with their raffle and outdoor activity than do smaller organisations. In all cases, while the differences in performance are statistically significant, the differences in performance we refer to are small.

The quality of fundraising is thus fairly uniform across the membership of the FRSB and indeed uniform across the spectrum of fundraising media we examined. While there are three notable exceptions, most media would appear to generate one complaint for every 1–10,000 solicitations. So is there a ‘problem’ with the quality of our professional practice in any of these media? The data suggest not, but we won’t know for sure until all those organisations actively involved in fundraising from the public volunteer to join the scheme, abide by its standards and open their complaint data to scrutiny.

Limitations and Opportunities for Further Research

The most notable limitation of this study is that it focuses solely on the membership of the FRSB. Since participation in the scheme is voluntary it is likely that only those organisations who genuinely care about enhancing the standard of the UK fundraising will join. This is widely recognised as a problem with the ‘club’ nature of voluntary regulatory programs (see, e.g. Potoski and Prakash 2009). As a consequence, poor quality fundraising practice is proportionately less likely to be represented in the membership of the scheme.

We also need to express the caveat that we rely here on self-reported data from the charities. There is the literature on complaint management which suggests that service employees can often be motivated to under-report the volume of complaints they are exposed to (see, e.g. Johnston and Clark 2008). In addition, as the FRSB is one step removed from the complaints process itself, the data reported above are self-reported by the charities that have joined the scheme and may therefore be subject to a variety of data entry errors.

It should also be noted that our data reveal nothing of the experience of the donors or members of the public who submit these complaints. Further research would be helpful to identify the percentage of individuals who were satisfied with the handling of their issue and the subsequent impact this satisfaction might have had on their behaviour. It would also be helpful to examine the processes in place within charities to handle these complaints and the extent to which the content of these is adequately fed back into the service improvement process. While these are issues that have been subject to research in the commercial sector, none have as yet been studied in the context of fundraising. Adding to knowledge in this way would also aid policy makers faced with placing their own interpretation on whether a certain level of complaints may be considered to be in the public interest or not, and thus whether any further intervention may be necessary.