A ‘charity chugger’ who had the job for just four days before quitting revealed he made £200 from the gig without raising a penny for good causes.
The former fundraiser, who wished to stay anonymous, worked shifts on Slough high street and outside the town’s railway station.
He added that he and his colleagues ‘quickly started to see people as a number, as a sale’ as they can earn bonuses or commissions on the donations from unaware members of the public.
‘It’s essentially a sales job,’ he told , ‘and you can quite quickly lose sight of the fact that it’s for charity. You see people as a means to an end.’
The chugger – a derogatory term for the fundraisers blending the terms charity and mugger – expressed his sympathy for members of the public looking back, saying that he also found the work ‘sleazy’.
Chuggers are not employed directly by the charities they promote. Rather, they work for third-party fundraising companies and often earn either a commission or a performance bonus based on the donations they draw in.
In this case, the chugger worked for One Sixty Fundraising, who gave out bonuses to their top performers.
‘I remember finding it quite sleazy,’ the fundraiser of four days recalled. ‘I remember going out with one of the top earners, and his sales technique was flattery.’
The top seller encouraged his new colleagues to grab potential donors by complimenting them on their appearance or asking their favourite sports team rather than by talking about the charity they were looking to promote.
It will surprise nobody that this is sadly because most people career past people who interrupt their days blatantly begging for cash.
Techniques including pretending someone had dropped something and following people down the street were outlawed in 2012, but there is nothing illegal about fundraisers starting a conversation in the way described above.
‘You go out with this naïve perception of – one, people are going to stop and two, people are going to listen when they stop. And you very quickly get quite demoralised,’ our former chugger said.
The anonymous fundraiser found his experience of the job so ‘horrific’ that he quit in favour of bar work after just four days.
‘It’s incredibly demoralising essentially just costing these charities money rather than actually helping,’ he said.
‘I remember having an afternoon where my mindset was so low and I was so dejected that I just remember thinking I can’t do this anymore because of an afternoon of rejection after rejection after rejection, and having this bloke coming up to me saying, “you need to try and be more salesmanlike”.
‘I just remember sitting there just waiting for the hours to tick down.’
The lack of success was in no way helped by an ability to only accept donations as £20 monthly direct debits.
He recalled one occasion in Slough when a local shouted at him: ‘I can’t afford to feed my kids, let alone give you £20!’
‘I only ended up doing it for four days because it was so horrific that I quit,’ he added.
There were also plenty of instances where members of the public were perfectly willing to offer cash, or transfer a one-off sum, but the fundraisers were unable to accept.
‘I actually didn’t feel overly comfortable asking for £20 a month because it’s a lot of money.
‘I kind of knew the interactions that were likely to come and then they obviously did. Lots of people that I got speaking to just scoffed and said, “come on now, £20 a month? That’s ridiculous.”
‘It was quite horrific. And it’s nothing to do with the fact that we’re doing it for a charity, it’s just a very demoralising experience.’
As a result, the ex-chugger reported that ‘the turnover [of staff] is massive.’
Therefore, there will be plenty of former fundraisers who cost charities hundreds of pounds without returning a single penny to show for it.
In 2018, the Daily Mail revealed fundraising firms, including One Sixty Fundraising, were paid up-front fees of as much as £1.3million for targeting donors in the hope they will sign for up to five years.
This means at least the first 12 months of an individual’s donations are swallowed up in fundraising costs.
Baroness Ros Altmann, former pensions minister, said at the time: ‘It’s astonishing that kind-hearted donations are effectively not going to charity for at least the first year.
‘You think you are doing something marvellous in signing up and helping the charity but instead your money is effectively being paid to cover these sales people and nothing may be going to charity for a duration.
‘I don’t believe these high-pressure sales tactics have a place in charitable giving to start with.
‘The charities need to be up front about how much these private firms are getting.’
One Sixty Fundraising have been contacted for comment.