Naming charities we investigate

Since our launch in 2016, we have published a selection of investigation decisions on our website, so that other fundraising organisations can learn from them. At the moment, the organisations involved aren’t named in these summaries.

What’s changing?

In October 2018, the Board of the Fundraising Regulator agreed that we will name all organisations we investigate, whether the complaint is upheld or not. Organisations will be named in all investigations into complaints received on or after 1 March 2019.

What does the change mean for organisations that are investigated?

We won’t apply the naming policy retrospectively.

So we’ll only name organisations in our website summaries if we received the complaint on or after 1 March 2019. 

When we publish our decisions, we’ll recognise the organisations that have cooperated fully with our investigation and any actions they have taken to learn from the complaint, whether it is upheld or not.

Why are you changing your approach?

We think it’s right that we name all the organisations we investigate, so that we:

  • promote and support a culture of ethical fundraising
  • allow the public, donors and potential donors to make informed decisions when they choose to donate to charity

What’s not changing?

We’ll continue to share our findings with the organisations we investigate before we publish them. So they’ll still be able to check the facts are right and they’ll still have an opportunity to comment before we publish.

We will not be publishing the names of people who make complaints.