The end is nigh for street fundraising – or is it?

Every year, someone predicts the demise of street face-to-face fundraising (F2F). Consider this statement from a leading consultant: "With hundreds of thousands of new donors being signed up … this will lead to a saturated market within a few years when the cost of signing up numbers will increase to a point where it is no longer effective." The trouble with future gazing is that the future doesn't always do what you thought or hoped it would. The comment above was made in 2000, a year before the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) was formed; two years before chuggers were called chuggers. Yet F2F is still thriving. It has survived media attacks, the biggest fundraising agencies going out of business at fairly regular intervals, and the recession. In the financial year 2011/12, PFRA members secured almost 240,000 new direct debit donations on the street, the best year for street fundraising since 2003/04 (excluding prospecting and SMS donations). For most of the past decade, street fundraising has delivered in the region of 200,000 to 220,000 new direct debit donors each year. The increase in F2F fundraising has been on the doorstep. Ten years ago, doorstep and street fundraising were delivering almost equal numbers of donors. But now doorstep fundraising is responsible for more than 70% of sign-ups (though we ought not discount the 480,000 donors recruited through F2F on private sites, such as festivals and shopping centres). Taking into account figures on average gifts and attrition provided by our own donor attrition and retention survey , we calculated that street and doorstep F2F has recruited about 18% of donors who are currently giving to charities each month. These donors contribute around £130m to charity annually, with about £45m of that figure coming through street fundraising. And this is probably an under-estimation as it does not include any increases in monthly gifts or any donations aside from their regular giving. Street fundraising took a knock in 2009 when the UK arm of Dialog Direct went into administration. Similar agency closures in 2003 and 2004 did not affect donor recruitment so dramatically. Perhaps the difference in 2009 was due to the uncertainty surrounding the review of the Charities Act 2006 . Charities may have been transferring budget from street to doorstep fundraising as this would have been deregulated had the act been implemented in full. Yet demand for street fundraising continued to outstrip supply: charities wanted to run more street campaigns and recruit more donors than the agencies could deliver. So what's behind the resurgence in street fundraising this year? Fundraising has definitely increased. We categorise our 133 sites in Greater London as A, B or C depending on the amount of fundraising they can accommodate (grade A sites, such as Oxford Street, being the busiest, while grade C sites are more likely to be found in outer-London and be used by fewer fundraisers on fewer days). In the last year, grade C sites were used more than in the previous two years. We've also seen the return of roving teams, whereby fundraisers go "on tour" visiting provincial towns that would otherwise rarely see fundraisers. But perhaps a key factor is that more charities are taking direct control over the supply and demand issue by running their own in-house teams (where they either employ their own fundraisers directly or a recruitment agency supplies a team to work exclusively with that charity). Over the last two financial years, in-house recruitment has grown by 27% (2010-11) and 40% (2011/12), compared to increases in agency fundraising of 6% and 21%. In the last financial year, a quarter of new donors were recruited on the street by charities running in-house teams, compared to 20% in 2010/11 and 15% in 2009/11. While F2F still delivers donors, charities will continue to use it. But there will always be the usual round of death-knell predictions. Ian MacQuillin is the head of communications at the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the voluntary sector network , click here .