Britain’s top charities have pledged support for proposed tough new rules aimed at preventing the use of aggressive fundraising techniques to target vulnerable and elderly donors after a series of scandals over the summer.

Leaders of 17 charities including Oxfam, the RSPCA, Save the Children, the RNLI, the NSPCC and Cancer Research UK have signed a letter to the Sunday Times backing regulatory measures to prevent the harassment and exploitation of donors, including powers to investigate charity fundraisers and fine them if they break the rules.

Several well-known charities were implicated in a series of reports over the past three months revealing their links to private fundraising firms that used high-pressure tactics to squeeze cash out of elderly donors, bombarded them with mail and sold personal information about supporters to unscrupulous firms that targeted them for scams.

The letter, coordinated by industry body the Institute of Fundraising, acknowledges that the sector has failed to meet the high standards demanded of it and promises that no one should ever feel pressured into giving.

Watchdog to investigate charities' 'boiler room' tactics Read more

It adds: “As some of the UK’s leading charities we are absolutely committed to fundraising in a way that respects the rights of individuals and meets the expectations the public has in us. Where we need to change the way we seek the support of the public we will do so.

“We will only ever behave in an open, honest and respectful way towards our donors and the public.”

The proposals will feed into a government-commissioned review of fundraising self-regulation expected to report on 21 September, which will identify changes in fundraising practice and regulation.

Voluntary sector leaders accept they face a “watershed moment” as telephone, direct mail and face-to-face techniques, which bring in hundreds of millions of pounds each year, come under unprecedented scrutiny from MPs and regulators.

Ministers had warned earlier in the summer that unless the sector swiftly cleaned up its act over the use of controversial methods used by private firms to raise cash from donors on its behalf, they would impose regulations.

Oxfam, the NSPCC, the RSPCA and Save the Children will be grilled by MPs on the public administration and constitutional affairs select committee on Tuesday. The committee chair, Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, has called some of the fundraising tactics used by charities “vile and disgusting”.

Separately, new laws to force charities to explicitly build protections for vulnerable donors into contracts with fundraising firms will be discussed by peers on 14 September when the charities bill receives its third reading in the House of Lords.

Despite private reservations among some in the sector that the fundraising business is not as uniformly bad as it has been painted, and that a crackdown could cost charities millions, there is broad acceptance among charity leaders that changes to fundraising rules and practices are justified.

I'm proud to be a charity fundraiser and I stand by our methods Read more

“We have to see this as an opportunity to look at ourselves and ask: ‘Are we as good as we say we are? Can we show the public we are deserving of the trust they put in us?’” said Karl Wilding, director of public policy at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

Although the sector has had an uneasy relationship with government for some years, both over cuts to funding and threats by some MPs to curtail charities’ campaigning activities, and some charities are suspicious of the Daily Mail, which published the stories, there is an acknowledgment that many charities failed to see the crisis coming.

“Charities find themselves caught between criticised as ‘too professional’ – acting too much like businesses – and scorned for being too amateurish. But even if fundraising is crucial to support the causes we care about, the criticisms of certain kinds of fundraising practice are robust. It’s not a rabid, rightwing conspiracy against the charity sector,” said Asheem Singh, director of public policy at the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations.

Although charities’ finances have been under huge pressure – they have lost billions in local authority and government grants over the past half decade at a time when demand for their services has grown – some argue they have turned a blind eye to sharp fundraising practices that have evolved in an increasingly competitive market for donations.

For Olive Cooke’s sake, charities must be less brutal | Lucy Siegle Read more

Until the story broke in May of Olive Cooke, a 92-year-old volunteer poppy seller for the Royal British Legion who killed herself after suffering long-term depression, the charity fundraising regulator’s formal complaints system had not picked up any signs of public disquiet over the way donors were targeted.

After Cooke’s death, it emerged that she had received thousands of phone calls and letters from charities asking her for money. The story prompted a media outcry, although Cooke’s family subsequently went on the record to say they did not hold charities responsible for her death. However, the publicity unleashed a wave of public discontent.

The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) received nearly 400 formal complaints – as many as it normally receives in the course of a year – in the month after the story, about the frequency and volume of direct mail, issues of consent, cold-calling and a general concern, according to one industry insider, over potential donors “being battered to give a donation”.

Subsequent Daily Mail stories – an exposé in June of cynical tactics employed by a call-centre company employed by several top charities to extract cash from elderly donors, and revelations on 31 August about how charities had sold personal details of 87-year-old Samuel Rae, who has dementia, which exposed him to rogue firms, put further pressure on the sector.

UK charities may face a £4.6bn black hole in income, report finds Read more

There are concerns that although just 10 unnamed charities, out of the 2,000 voluntarily signed up to the FRSB, account for 50% of the total complaints, many hundreds more charities that operate to high standards will be damaged by the furore.

There is no precise figure on how much fundraising interventions bring in each year, let alone the proportion raised by specific techniques. But the NCVO estimates at least £7bn a year is given by the public to the UK’s 180,000 charities. It is too early to say if the scandals will prompt a fall in donations but charities believe they urgently need to rebuild donor trust. “For some, that will mean a change of practice and style,” said Wilding.

Alistair McLean, chief executive of the FRSB, called it a “watershed moment” for the sector: “We will have to work hard to rebuild public trust and confidence.”