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VIEW National Office
MEMORANDUM
To:All VIEW Clubs
From:National Office
Date:May 2017
Re:FAQ - The Smith Family Face-to-Face Fundraising
Why are The Smith Family using Face-to-Faceas a fundraising channel?
As part of The Smith Family’s planto grow our reach and help more children and young people in need, weaim to significantly increase the number of dedicated supporters to fund The Smith Family’s important work. The result of a comprehensive review of fundraising activities identified Face-to-Face fundraising channelas an important opportunity for The Smith Family for program funding.
As we enter the first year of a new five-year strategy, our goal of ‘continuing growth’ hinges on ensuring that we continue to leverage this channel and the benefits it affords.
Why Face-to-Face fundraising?
Regular giving growth in Australia has been dominated by Face-to-Face fundraising since 2003. Face-to-Face has contributed the single largest volume of new regular givers and new income.
It enables us to have thousands of conversations with the public about the work we do. It has scale that no other form of fundraising can match and will not only recruit a large volume of new supporters, but also build strong awareness of The Smith Family and our work with Australian children in need.
Why regular giving?
Regular giving is the single largest form of new donorsand new income to Australian charities over the last decade. Regular gifts provide The Smith Family with the flexibility to direct the funds to where they are needed the most.
Regular gifts are ongoing – an amount is deducted every month from their credit card or bank account, allowing The Smith Family to more accurately predict funds available for their programs in the future.
In addition, Face-to-Face fundraising has the potential to play a role in providing new sponsors to contribute to targets as part of our sponsorship growth project.
What is Face-to-Face Fundraising?
Face-to-Faceis a fundraising technique to acquire new supporters by having conversations with them at their workplace, in residential areas or in shopping centers.
This fundraising technique is purely focused on recruiting regular giving donors and sponsors;one-off donations are not accepted, nor are cash donations collected.
It is an established and professional fundraising channel in Australia – operating here since the late 1990s.
Many reputable charities such as Red Cross, World Vision, Mission Australia, CanTeen, Fred Hollows, Care Australia, Plan International etc, have utilised Face-to-Face for years to complement their fundraising portfolios.
What are the other benefits?
Although Face-to-Face is primarily about recruiting regular givers and raising income, a positive by-product is the number of conversations (awareness raising) that will take place for The Smith Family every day.
How will the program work?
The Smith Familyis currently running Face-to-Face in VIC, ACT, NSW, WAand QLD; and will undertake interstate ‘road trips’ from timetotime to other States.
The Smith Family is working with several reputable agencies: Ways Fundraising, The Fundraising People, Global Interactive and Earth Impact. We use multiple agencies in order to mitigate our risk in the event that a supplier is no longer able to offer us Face-to-Face services. Fundraising takes place Monday to Saturday. Teams of fundraisers are assigned to fundraise in various locations in different states, at different times of the day.
The Smith Family will have foreknowledge of where each fundraising team will be located each day, at what times and for how long.
How many supporters will be recruited?
In the 2017/18 financial year the Face-to-Face program will recruit around 8,000 new regular givers and 4,000 new Child Sponsors. This reflects as small growth on recent years as the program has proven to be a reliable channel for recruiting new donors.
The funds raised from the regular giving program will be untied and directed towards our mentoring and learning support programs under the Learning for Life umbrella.
How can I confirm where Face-to-Face fundraising is taking place?
If you have any concerns about fundraising teams please contact The Smith Family Supporter Care line on 1800 633 622. Locations are sent to General Managers each week so they are aware of the areas in which our representatives will be.
Key reactions and “myths” about Face-to-Face
There are some myths about Face-to-Face that have given this fundraising technique a bad image and reputation. The fundraising sector takes this very seriously and has worked hard to improve the professionalism and brand perception. The PFRA (Public Fundraising Regulatory Association) was established in 2015 as a self-regulatory body for the Face-to-Face industry. The PFRA is established specifically to regulate this type of fundraising and ensure compliance with a Standard. This includes:
- Setting standards
- Checking that fundraisers comply with the Standard through a quality assurance program
- Enforcing the Standard through a penalty, sanctions and remediation regime
Both The Smith Family and all its Face-to-Face suppliers are members of the PFRA.
Face-to-Face Fundraising & VIEW Clubs
Agents have been employed to carry out this fundraising program, and they have been suitably briefed so that they understand the connection between VIEW and The Smith Family, in the event that they meet up with a VIEW member in a location such as onthestreet, residential area, shopping centre or train station. However, the agent may be new so from timetotime they may not be aware of VIEW Clubs.
If you do see a Smith Family Face-to-Face Fundraiser, we encourage you to stop and say hello and tell them briefly about yourself and the important work you do. The more they can understand what we do the more supporters we can acquire and more money we can raise for children in need!