According to the Edinburgh Evening News, Tom Campbell, the head of an organization that promotes tourism in the historic Scottish city, believes that street solicitors working on behalf of charities are a bigger problem than beggars.
In reporting that news, the paper said in an editorial that it supported Mr. Campbell’s views. “At last someone in authority has taken a stand against the blight on our streets that is the ‘chugger,’” the editors wrote. Charities, it added, “have countless ways to tap into the benevolent hearts of caring people in Edinburgh and beyond. Press-ganging them in the open streets should not be one of them.”
According to the editorial, Mr. Campbell has joined the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce in calling for a crackdown on “chuggers” or charity muggers, as street solicitors are derisively called throughout Great Britain.
But in a followup story, charities including Save the Children and the World Wildlife Fund, which use street solicitors in Edinburgh, defended the fund-raising practice. They said that street fund raising, in which solicitors ask pedestrians to make monthly gifts that are automatically deducted from their bank or credit-card account, is cost effective. They also said their solictors are polite and follow strict guidelines.
However, that argument carried little weight with most of the nearly 50 readers who posted comments in response to the article.
“How any charity can defend chugging is beyond me,” one person wrote.
“Whenever one of these ‘chuggers’ comes anywhere near me, I just keep on walking … and so do most people,” another commented.
A third person simply urged: “Deport them.”
Perhaps bowing to such sentiment, two charities, Oxfam and Friends of the Earth Scotland, have stopped using street solicitors in Edinburgh, the article noted.
Why do you think street solicitors have provoked so much negative publicity in the Britain compared to the relatively mild reaction to them in the United States?
0 Responses to Scottish Officials Seek Ban on Street Fund Raising
bill__huddleston - March 12, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Perhaps because they don’t exist in the USA in the same way that they do in Scotland. The main type of fundraisers I see on street corners (excepting the Salvation Army kettles at Christmas time) are the firefighters who have their boots out and able to be filled with loose change. I don’t think that in this age of idenity theft any sane person is going to give their checking account or credit card information to an unknown solicitor who accosts them on the street.Regards,Bill Huddlestonwww.cfcfundraising.com
wildwomanfundraising - March 17, 2010 at 5:42 pm
I had never heard the term charity muggers or chuggers, but it can be annoying to be consistently accosted on the streetcorners.As a professional fundraiser, I feel that my work qualifies as a donation, because most of us are not paid nearly enough for the amount of work that we do and the expectations placed on us to do even more. So I have rarely given to these people.I feel for them, because they need to ask to get the donations they need. However, there has to be a better way to fundraise, that won’t give people such angry reactions. Even if people are “polite” as you say, and “follow strict guidelines,” it is horrible when you are walking down the street to have them try to catch your eye and have to look away multiple times if you’ve got to go up and down the street for some reason. And then to feel like a bad person because you are refusing them help over and over. These charities would do better to do presentations in people’s workplaces, so that they could get automatic workplace deductions from their paychecks, in a secure setting, rather than just ask anyone who happens along.Sincerely,Mazarine Treyzhttp://wildwomanfundraising.com