How we raise our funds

Age UK is regulated by the Fundraising Regulator and therefore complies with the Code of Fundraising Practice and the Fundraising Promise. Our aim is to ensure that our fundraising activity is a positive experience and that donors and the public are treated with respect, fairness, honesty, and clarity at all times.

Our aim is to ensure that all agents or fundraisers representing Age UK strive to reach the highest standards, do not exert pressure on customers or donors and ensure that the wishes and welfare of our donors are at the heart of every interaction. We monitor and control our fundraising by third parties, for example by listening to recorded telephone calls and mystery shopping to check performance.

In June 2017, we piloted a Fundraising Sounding Board to seek input from older people on our fundraising communications practices. Made up of around 20 members, it has discussed a topics including understanding older people's views on the accessibility and effectiveness of the newly launched fundraising preference service, and inputting into our approach for donors in vulnerable circumstances.

We believe that the importance of raising funds needs to be consistent with our charitable objectives. We follow the Institute of Fundraising's 'Treating
donors fairly' guidance and all our fundraisers must follow our policy on fundraising with people in vulnerable circumstances.

In preparation for the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in May 2018, we updated our data permission statement to give extra clarity around the control our supporters have in receiving future communications from us and how we would use their details. We reviewed all our processes to ensure any communication preferences made by our supporters continued throughout their supporter journey with us and our supporters were reminded that they could easily and simply change
their mind at any time.

We take all complaints very seriously and respond to each individual one. To ensure that we are constantly improving, we hold a monthly review meeting which focuses on the nature of complaints we have received and what action we can take to address feedback from our supporters.