In the independent study charities will be consulted on whether they feel the Fundraising Preference Service is still needed given that the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) now perform many of the same functions.

The Fundraising Regulator, which also runs the Financial Preference Service, commented to say that the commission would be an independent process of the service, which, for those that are unaware, allows people to opt in or out of which charities could contact them, whether by email, post, text or phone.  

The review came about after figures released by the Regulator in November revealed that the number of requests to block contact from charities had more than halved after the implementation of GDPR.

Currently, using either the Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) or GDPR, only lets people opt out of communication from charities on a per charity basis but the Regulator will include in its survey questions around whether people should be given the option to request a blanket ban of marketing communication from all charities through one request.

That ability to opt for a blanket ban was originally part of the recommendations for the FPS when it was first introduced back in 2015 but after consultation the decision was made for people to be able to select individual charities they no longer wished to hear from.

The ultimate goal for the consultation this year would be to decide if the FPS was still relevant, still meeting its original purpose and still offered end users a high level of service.

It’s thought the questionnaire will also include questions around the general experience’s charities had had of GDPR and it’s impact on their donation collecting ability.