If your complaint relates to fundraising carried out by a charity registered in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, you should contact the Fundraising Regulator. If your complaint relates to an organisation purporting to be a charity but are not registered, please contact Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)
For charities that are registered in both Scotland with the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) and England and Wales with the Charity Commission for England and Wales / Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, the lead regulator model is applied. The lead regulator model used by the Scottish Fundraising Adjudication Panel and the Fundraising Regulator. This means that if a charity’s principal registration is in England, Wales or Northern Ireland then their lead regulator is CCEW/ CCNI then any fundraising complaints should be addressed by the Fundraising Regulator. You should be able to identify a charity’s lead registrar by searching the OSCR website. OSCR classes charities by their ‘Regulatory Type’. These are ‘Standard’, ‘Cross-border’ or ‘Registered Social Landlord’. If you remain unsure, please email info@goodfundraising.scot
As Fundraising in Scotland is subject to enhanced self-regulation, we ask that you raise your complaint with the charity before raising a complaint with the Scottish Fundraising Adjudication Panel. It’s important that the charity receives your feedback, so they can understand any problems, address your specific concerns and improve their fundraising practice. You should contact the charity by phone or in writing, either by email or post, at their head office to make your complaint. If you’re not sure of the contact details, please search the Scottish Charity Register using either the charity name or charity number. * Many small and medium sized charities may only have a 1-stage process and your complaint may go directly to the trustees. Please check with the individual charity on their specific complaints process
We ask that complaints follow the three stage complaints process, of which stage two is to raise your concerns with the charity’s trustees. A charity trustees have a legal responsibility to make sure their charity is run well. This includes overseeing their fundraising practices. If you are unsatisfied with the resolution at stage one, whether you’re unhappy with how your complaint was handled or feel the issues raised were not fully addressed, you should then appeal to the charity trustees. You can phone, write to or email the charity’s head office, noting ‘For the Attention of the Chair’. You can search the Scottish Charity Register for contact details.
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