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Does your charity know if your donors are registered with the Telephone Preference Service?

Posted by Redbourn Business Systems on Friday, August 14, 2015 Under: Telephone Preference Service

Avoid facing fines of up to £500,000 by ensuring your charity is meeting the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regulations.

Charities that call donors registered with the Telephone Preference Service could face fines of up to £500,000.

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the official opt out register on which people can record their preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have consent to do so.

Organisations which have an ongoing relationship with customers (or in the case of charities - a donor) may well have gathered consent during the early stages of the relationship and will therefore be entitled to call even if the number is registered on TPS, unless you have previously been advised by your donor that they object to you calling them for marketing purposes.

According to the Information Commissioner's Office, charities would be in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations unless the donor had specifically consented to such calls.

At a recent telephone fundraising summit hosted by the Fundraising Standards Board and IoF, the message presented by the ICO was, “Charities must follow the same rules as everyone else. You must ensure consent is specific, informed and freely given by the individual. Consent should be demonstrated by a positive indication of choice.” (Source: www.thirdsector.co.uk)

The ICO representatives said at the summit that it was “best practice” for fundraisers to adopt an opt-in system for their phone communications. This permission should be sought in writing to donors not by telephoning supporters.

Do you know if your donors are registered with the Telephone Preference Service?

Follow the steps below to ensure your database is up-to-date

  1. Run your data against the TPS suppression file
  2. Once you have identified your donors that are registered with TPS, write to them asking for their consent to continue to contact them
  3. Update your database

Claim your free, no obligation data audit today. Call Marketing on 01582 794229 or email Marketing.

 

In : Telephone Preference Service 


Tags: "telephone preference service" "tps" "marketing calls" "ico" 
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