dale lane

Last month saw the launch of the Fundraising Standards Board – the new “self-regulatory” body for fundraising in the UK. It comes with a groovy logo (a blue tick with “FSB”) which charities can use to reassure people donating money that they are nice fluffy types.

From their website:

…we will handle public complaints about how our members … raise money as well as offering the public a “mark of reassurance” to look for when giving to charities in the future…

…membership is voluntary… and [involves agreeing to] a strict set of codes and a Fundraising Promise committing them to treat the public with respect, fairness, honesty and clarity in all their money raising activities…. [and] an independent, robust and transparent complaints process…

[This is] an independent body you can go to if you are unhappy about how a charity raises money.

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I’ve talked before about Millennium Volunteers, wondering what will happen to it and whether the new organisation V will keep it going as it is.

They are obviously wondering themselves, and have published the outcome of some research carried out last December into the Millennium Volunteers “brand”. The intention is to help inform decisions made about what to do with MV going forward. It makes for interesting reading.

On the one hand there was:

Strong preference from young people to refer to “Millennium Volunteers” rather than the acronym “MV”.

However, on the other hand, there were comments about changing “Millennium Volunteers”:

because “millennium” is seen as outdated and the use of the word “volunteering” puts young people off

For lots more statistics about the perceptions of MV, the benefits it brings, and thoughts on how the value of volunteer efforts can be measured, have a look at the summary of their findings which can be downloaded in PDF form from mvonline.gov.uk.

I guess the jury is still out on the future of MV.