No definitive way to deal with the GDPR, says Direct Marketing Association

John Mitchison of the DMA tells a seminar that charities will have to make their own decisions on complying with the General Data Protection Regulation

Charities and other organisations will not be given fully comprehensive guidance telling them what to do in every scenario under the General Data Protection Regulation, according to John Mitchison of the Direct Marketing Association.

Mitchison, who is head of preference services, compliance and legal at the DMA, told delegates at a Westminster Social Policy Forum seminar on charity fundraising yesterday that, in the absence of definitive answers, charities would have to make their own decisions about how best to do things in a compliant way.

But he added that the open nature of the legislation, which will impose higher data-protection standards on all organisations and is due to come into force in May 2018, could prove to be a positive for charities and other organisations.

“I think we’re lucky that the GDPR is a principles-based regulation and is not prescriptive” he said.

“So if you’re a glass-half-empty person, you might take this to mean you’re never going to have all the answers. There are just too many variations on what people do to have a prescriptive rule on what to do in every situation.

“If you’re more of a glass-half-full person, you’ll see this as giving you flexibility: you make the judgements yourself on how to do it and the way you do it is through the process of accountability.”

Mitchison said accountability was embedded in the GDPR in a way that meant it was not enough for organisations simply to comply – they also had to demonstrate that they were complying.

To do this, he said, organisations would need to put in place technical, organisational measures, as well as training programmes, policies and audits, to ensure they had got the evidence there to justify what they had done if anybody came asking.

He said: “Ultimately, you take into consideration the legislation but, because there’s going to be no definitive answers, you have to make a business-risk choice about how you’re going to go. If you can ensure you’ve got an accountability process in place, the chances are you’re going to be doing all right.”

But if organisations viewed the GDPR as a burden to be dealt with until they could carry on treating data in the same way as they had before, they were really not making the best of the situation, said Mitchison.

And he warned that the GDPR was a big deal for everyone within organisations that handled any sort of data, not just those in marketing or fundraising.

But he added: “It might be a big change, but I don’t think it’s the apocalyptic disaster that a number of GDPR consultants who have conveniently appeared out of the woodwork would have us believe.”

Rowenna Fielding, data protection lead at the consultancy Protecture, warned that charities should want to comply with the legislation even if they felt they could get away with a lower standard of behaviour. She pointed out that charities would not consider using child slavery, even if it were legal or poorly regulated, because they would feel they had a moral obligation not to – similarly, she argued, that moral standard should be applied to how data was treated.

“Character is who we are when nobody’s watching, and for 10 years the Information Commissioner’s Office has not really been watching,” Fielding said. “It’s been under-resourced and understaffed, and it has had too much work to do.

“But we’re supposed to be the good guys, the ethical ones that people look up to to do things right.”

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Fewer direct debit cancellations than ever, report reveals

Figures based on more than 9.5 million transactions find that the cancellation rate was 2.6 per cent in 2016, the lowest since Rapidata began compiling figures in 2003

Fewer people cancelled their direct debits to charity in 2016 than in any year since monitoring began, according to figures from the payments processor Rapidata.

The company says anecdotal evidence indicates the fall could be down to “dramatically less communication with supporters” by charities in the wake of the negative media attention on charity fundraising in 2015.

Rapidata’s Charity Direct Debit Tracking Report 2017, published today, is based on data from more than 9.5 million direct debit transactions to charity. It says that in 2016 the cancellation rate was 2.6 per cent, the lowest since Rapidata began compiling the data in 2003.

The figure is 10 per cent lower than the 2015 average of 2.9 per cent, although the report says the £9.7bn donated in 2016 was “on a par” with 2015.

The cancellation rate of 2 per cent recorded in April 2016 was the lowest monthly rate the company has recorded.

The report suggests the low cancellation rate in 2016 could be connected to charities’ reluctance to contact donors after the fundraising scandals of 2015.

In the report, Scott Gray, chief executive of Rapidata, says: “From anecdotal evidence, we believe that charities responded to the negative media onslaught and to the uncertainties resulting from a government review and significant regulatory change by stopping or postponing their fundraising campaigns, especially those involving telephone or direct mail communications.

“Dramatically less communication with supporters seems largely to account for these unusual results. There simply wasn’t the usual volume of activity – such as upgrade campaigns – taking place across the year, which in turn has resulted in less cancellations being recorded.

“This may go some way to explaining why the data for 2016 presents such an anomalous year in our records.”

The report also recommends the introduction of an industry standard for direct debit cancellations, called the “cancellation average benchmark”, which would be given to charities that kept their annual cancellations below 3 per cent.

“We believe that any charity whose cancellation rate rises above 3 per cent for any given month, aside from exceptional reasons from within the charity sector or outside events that may impact the rate, should review their supporter care programmes and strategic operations, with the aim of reducing and improving this rate,” the report says.

“By identifying reasons for a rise and by carefully planning activities, charities can help prevent a repeat occurrence during similar months, campaigns or occasions in the future.”

The idea has been welcomed by the Institute of Fundraising.

In a statement accompanying the report, Peter Lewis, chief executive of the IoF, said: “The health of direct debits and knowing what is happening in this part of our sector is vital.

“In broad terms, I welcome the idea of the sector-wide cancellation benchmark proposed in this report that charities should aim to stay below. I look forward to the discussions around this and encourage others to join these on how this might be taken forward.”

The figures for first quarter of 2017 showed a slight rise in the cancellation rate to 2.86 per cent, compared with 2.65 per cent in same period last year, but Gray argues in the report that this return to normal was an indication that the sector was starting to feel more “confident and stable” and that fundraising activity had been reenergised.

Gray says: “While it may be concerning to see an increase in cancellation rates for 2017, any figures which indicate a return to a sense of normality can only be welcomed as a good thing as it shows that charities’ confidence in their activity with both new and existing donors is returning.”

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