Charities should not touch free advertising opportunities in the News of the World with a bargepole
July 2011
Once again charities find themselves having to resist the temptation of being lured into what could backfire as damaging brand alignment
In light of James Murdoch’s announcement that the News of the World will be offering charities free advertising in the final edition of the newspaper this Sunday, the Institute of Fundraising advised its members to consult the Acceptance or Refusal of Donations Code of Fundraising Practice.[1]
The code states that a clear policy on the acceptance or refusal of donations is important for all charitable organisations. Such a policy needs to be acceptable to all those associated with the charity and agreed formally by a charities’ trustees. The decision as to whether a charity ought to accept a donation or not should be grounded in its mission and policy objectives.
At the Institute’s National Convention held 4 to 6 July, the theme of raising awareness using celebrities was tackled by keynote speaker Max Clifford who reminded delegates of the comparatively small risk of what happens if a celebrity recruited to promote a charity goes toxic. He said “Celebrities can change public perception. Although there is a downside – and a risk that celebrity will misbehave – the plusses outweigh the minuses by 90 per cent.”
But even the skills of this seasoned PR czar would be unlikely to turn around any knock-on negative associations if charities were to go ahead and take the free advertising space. Before the decision was taken to close the 168-year old newspaper yesterday, 20 leading companies confirmed they were suspending their advertising with it over the weekend of 9/10 July. At the same time the Royal British Legion confirmed it had dropped the newspaper as its campaigning partner because bereaved relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had their phones hacked by a private investigator working for The News of the World.[2]
See also Tamsin Turk’s article, ‘Headline News’ on the perils of the wrong sort of PR. This can be viewed here.
Anthony Hagger, 08/07/2011
I posted this link on the News of the World facebook page along with some other links with the same advise and guess what they deleted the links and so I attempted this about four times and all kept getting deleted, it is obvious the NOW does not want charties to make an informed choice.
John Thompson, 14/07/2011
This issue also sparked quite a debate on UK Fundraising’s LinkedIn group that you might like to contribute to: http://bit.ly/pm5WTz