Are chuggers ethical?
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Version 0 of 1. The correct term used by the charity industry is face-to-face fundraiser. Chugger, a hybrid of mugger and charity, is pejorative. But the correct term takes up too much space, and besides I’m sure the poor souls have been called worse. So chugger it is. There are many gripes against this technique of waving clipboards and demanding financial details in the street as a way of securing long-term donations and engagement from us. Chuggers have been called a “plague”, accused of obstruction, of driving shoppers away from town centres and revealed to be employed by private firms subcontracted by charities. A charge against them is that they are “professional” fundraisers and not just enthusiastic young people in bibs. It might seem they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Not so. Responding to a one-off tin rattle in the street is of limited use and chuggers are an incredibly effective way of converting us into long-term donors who give charities financial stability and allow them to plan (and therefore to be successful). Local councils are trying to curb their activities using bylaws, but charities warn that if we remove them, ultimately it hurts the beneficiary. You’re in London, a place that despite its wealth is a tricky place to raise money. Taking the Community Foundation’s endowment fund as an example, the northeast has an endowment fund of £42m, the southeast £19m and London just £500,000. So there’s a school of thought that says: be more open with your wallet and we wouldn’t need chuggers. But there’s no doubt there are some offensive chuggers about. I’ve met some myself. The person you spoke to was affronted you wouldn’t fill out a direct-debit form for the charity he was working for and suggested your money was being wasted on admin by the Red Cross. That’s a red herring. Part of the reason a large charity, such as the Red Cross, has a higher admin bill could be because it spends £150,000 a year in membership fees to bodies that regulate charities. This includes voluntary membership of the Fundraising Standards Board, which regulates the behaviour of… chuggers! So a question for the chugger next time: is the charity they’re representing signed up and spending enough on this type of regulation? If not, consider walking on by. Green crush At 193,000 acres the Parque Patagonia reserve in the Estancia Valle Chacabuco in Aysen, Chile, is so new that the cartographers are still on the ground, mapping trails. Husband and wife conservationists Kris and Doug Tompkins (respectively CEO of outdoor brand Patagonia and former CEO of The North Face) bought the land for $10m in 2004 and have restored degraded grasslands to a wild landscape. Some 50,000 head of sheep have been sold off and agriculture and ranching jobs replaced with wilderness management. Two campgrounds have been installed in the style of the great American National Parks, the rest is dynamic wilderness taking in steppes and mountains. In 2017 it will be given to the Chilean government to link to two other wild sites, creating 610,000 acres of near-continuous wilderness. Greenspeak: catastrophe conferences Where corporations, lawyers, insurers and scientists convene to work out how best to guard business against nature. In 2011, natural catastrophes racked up US$270bn-worth of damages. If you have an ethical dilemma, email Lucy at lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk Who is making the world a better place? Don’t forget to nominate in the Observer Ethical Awards 2015. Nominations close 16 March |