Advertising Standards Authority
Mid City Place, 71 High Holborn
London WC1V 6QT
I was recently considering making a donation to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, using their website, and I was concerned when I was unable to discover what percentage of my donation would be spent on the cause. https://www.gwct.org.uk/donate/general-donation/
When I managed to track down a copy of their report and accounts, I was shocked to see that the charity spends £2.4m on raising funds, but only generates £7.1m, which seems a very low proportion. Perhaps this is why they are so reluctant to make a solicitation statement on their website. Overall, I found this to be very misleading, since I was encouraged to believe that all of my donation would support their work, while their accounts (which don’t seem to be on their website), revealed that a large proportion of my financial commitment would be spent on marketing. Worse still, their marketing/fundraising doesn’t look to be very effective if their fundraising ratio is so low.
I was also very concerned that although I was asked to disclose my contact details as part of the process of making a donation, it was not at all clear that I would be able to opt out of email or postal communications, since I could see no data protection statement or opt-out process. I was concerned that if I provided them with my telephone number, I would be bombarded with aggressive telemarketing. This certainly made me think twice about supporting them.
I would be grateful if you could investigate these matters.
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