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OTS guidance exempts prospecting from fundraising statements
06.01.2009

The Office of the Third Sector has released revised guidance on fundraising statements that professional fundraisers and commercial participators must make when raising money for charity.

Key to the changes included in the latest incarnation of the guidance is the clarification that the practice of prospecting does not require that a fundraising statement be made to the prospect.

According to the guidance, commercial participators do not have to estimate how much they expect to give to charity when selling a product from which an amount or percentage of the price is donated to charitable causes.

The revised document follows a consultation process with the sector which began in March in response to changes to the Charities Act which came into effect this year.

The revisions have been cautiously received by solicitors Bates Wells and Braithwaite. In a statement, the lawyers said: ?There have been some very welcome clarifications but significant gaps remain.

?In particular, it is a real omission that there is no guidance or examples of how a statement should be worded where a charity structures a payment from a commercial participator via the charity?s trading subsidiary.

"Equally, we do not agree with the OTS? recommendation that charities and their trading subsidiaries (which were specifically exempted from the legislation) should make equivalent statements as part of their fundraising. We lobbied for this to be taken out and feel strongly this guidance is imposing an additional unnecessary layer of regulation.?

Celina Ribeiro, Professional Fundraising Magazine Jan 09

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