Saxton's Crusade

Precision Marketing

3 December 2007

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When one of the most powerful people in the UK not-for-profit sector accuses charity marketers of being lemmings, you know there is something up (PM, November 16).

But just who is Institute of Fundraising (IoF) chair Joe Saxton, and what makes him qualified to criticise the industry?

Voted the most influential person in fundraising for three years running, Saxton has spent over 20 years in organisations such as Oxfam, Brann and RNID before a move into not-for-profit market research. He also featured in a 2006 list of the ‘top ten stars of tomorrow’ in politics, and in the latest version of the Evening Standard’s list of London’s 1,000 most influential people.

However, Saxton does remain modest: “Quite how they picked me I don’t know, but my mum was dead chuffed.”

Whether or not he will admit it, Saxton must be doing something right, and with 45 of the top 50 UK charities on his client list at nfpSynergy, his opinion is highly valued. When advising charities, Saxton’s principal advice is to ensure that your organisation has a niche. He says: “The lack of a clear pigeonhole is a problem for some charities. They hope that by hurling enough emotional weaponry at people they will want to donate, but what donors really want to know is what is special about your cause.” Of course, that is easier said than done, bearing in mind there are more than 200,000 registered charities in the UK alone.

But he is far from negative about direct marketing in the fundraising sector, having been encouraged by the recent shift away from what he refers to as ‘fast food direct marketing’.

He says: “Charities used to get huge amounts of newly recruited donors, whirl them around for a couple of years, get the maximum amount of cash donations and not care that the attrition rates were high.”

Now he sees that charities are recruiting for the long term and nurturing donors. To build on this positive turn-around, the IoF is consulting on a code of practice for the direct marketing sector.

Saxton is hoping that the code will help stamp out some remaining bad practices. He says: “Charities need to be reined back from thinking that they can do whatever they want to do with whatever mechanism, and just because it raises money it’s okay.”

He points to improper use of direct mail as a practice that vexes the public, saying: “You can’t trade off the tangibles of extra money from the 3 per cent of people who respond, with the damaged reputation in the eyes of the 97 per cent who don’t.”

Saxton hopes the direct marketing code will set distinct boundaries across the sector and halt the growing criticism that big charities persist in sending ‘junk mail’.

But he doesn’t only address the big spenders. He has spent three years building CharityComms, which aims to promote the ‘professionalisation’ of fundraising communications across the board. Charity-Comms provides free monthly seminars for its members on a range of topics. The first was held in a venue which could accommodate 100 people, but proved so popular that a rerun had to be scheduled.

Shared knowledge is the name of the game at CharityComms and it is a principle which Saxton is keen to promote across his whole list of commitments. In his other role as chair of student campaigning group People & Planet he is guiding the next generation into a future in not-for-profit.

All sounds rather simple doesn’t it? But whether Saxton’s one-man crusade will be enough to transform a whole sector is another matter.

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