Street and door-to-door fundraising FAQs for local groups

18 August 2011

1. Who should I contact if I have a query about Friends of the Earth's street or door-to-door fundraising?

Please contact your Network Developer in the first instance. If necessary, they'll find out extra information from our fundraising teams for you.

2. What types of fundraisers does Friends of the Earth use?

Friends of the Earth uses both street fundraisers and door-to-door fundraisers. Street fundraisers stand in busy areas and approach passers-by to talk about our work and invite them to support us. Door-to-door fundraisers visit people at their doorstep.

At the moment, our in-house fundraising teams are based in London, Brighton, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and Bristol. We also work with specialist street and door-to-door agencies throughout the country.

3. Why does Friends of the Earth do street and door-to-door fundraising?

Street and door-to-door fundraising enables us to recruit long term supporters. It's particularly successful in reaching people who might otherwise not be aware of our work.

Approximately 30% of our current active regular supporters started supporting us after being inspired by one of our enthusiastic fundraisers.

4. How do you notify groups about street or door-to-door fundraisers in their area?

Our fundraising sites are usually confirmed every Friday for the following week or two weeks. We then email the Coordinators of all groups who cover these areas as soon as possible.

We also update the online location list so that Coordinators or any other group member can check the exact details.

5. If fundraisers are in my group's area and we're doing street campaigning or an event on the same day, how do we let them know and/or work alongside them?

Contact your Network Developer first (as far in advance as possible). They'll then work with our fundraising team to put your group in contact with the relevant street team coordinator. You can then make arrangements directly with them.

In many towns and cities, the places we can fundraise are fixed by the local council. So if your group has a stall or activity planned in a different location, this might restrict the fundraisers' ability to work alongside you.

6. Can the fundraisers hand out information about my local group and/or our campaigns?

Unfortunately, we can't do this. Our fundraisers are paid by the hour and to be cost-effective and make our campaigns successful, our fundraisers need to concentrate on fundraising during this time.

For this reason we regret that it is not possible for them to hand out leaflets or information material from local groups.

Our fundraisers carry a list and a map of local groups. These give the website addresses for all groups (eg. www.foe.co.uk/manchester).

They'll share this information with any member of the public who asks about joining a local group. So make sure you keep your website up to date (use these instructions).

Fundraisers also give out the general contact details for Friends of the Earth so that individuals can contact us to find out more about local groups, how to join their nearest one or how to start a new group.

Given the large number of local groups and local campaigns, as well as the last-minute nature of confirming fundraising sites, we don't have the capacity to inform our fundraisers about specific campaigns local groups might be working on.

7. Do the fundraisers inform members of the public about local groups?

Yes. All our fundraisers know how vital local groups are for Friends of the Earth and receive training about the role of local groups and their activities. See question 6 above for more information on what our fundraisers tell members of the public about local groups.

8. I was expecting a fundraising team in xx on xx but the fundraisers weren't there? Why is this?

There are occasionally times when after having sent the weekly sites to the relevant local groups and updated the location list, there are last minute changes. We aim to keep the sites as up to date as possible every week and amend the sites list accordingly.

Very occasionally sites are changed on a Saturday so staff aren't able to update the site list. So there might be very rare occasions when a team fundraises in a place different to our list.

9. How do I know if street or door-to-door fundraisers are legitimate?

Check the location list to see if that location is down as a site for the particular day. If not (or even if it is and you want to be doubly sure), contact your Network Developer.

They'll be able to find out from our fundraising team exactly where and when Friends of the Earth fundraisers were in that location and on that day. We'll check to see if that matches with your description.

You can also check their ID badge. All our fundraisers have to wear an official Friends of the Earth ID badge. It will have their name and photo, our name and logo, our phone number and the signature of the Head of our Direct Marketing team.

If the fundraisers are genuine, we'll always be able to confirm their movements. If it seems like the fundraisers were not genuine, we'll investigate this fully.