20 April 2016

Charities: Should you trust us?

Following a year of negative media coverage for the charity sector, the Institute of Fundraising (IOF) recently published an overview of fundraising in the UK.

Their conclusion was that “Public trust in fundraising is weaker than it has been for many years […] charities have fallen from 8^th to 12^th place in just six months in the list of trusted public institutions, falling behind supermarkets and TV and radio stations for the first time.”

Our Fundraising Promise

We are registered with the Fundraising Regulator, who set and maintain standards for charitable fundraising in the UK. This means we are commited to pledging to you - our supporters - the Fundraising Promise as detailed here (TEXT/HTML; CHARSET=UTF-8 64 KB).

So, should you trust us?

In recent months alleged poor practice of a few charities has come to light, with examples of harassing telephone calls and personal data being shared and sold.

However, for the most part we fundraisers work tirelessly to help support causes we love as much as the people who fund them. Fundraising appeals are sent via email or by post, because fundraisers want to let people who care as much as we do know the challenges we face, and sadly without their support (your support), we cannot fund our cause.

Here at Redwings, we try to do our very best to respect our amazing donors. Our supporters are our lifeblood and we value every penny and pound you give – without you we simply wouldn’t exist.

We do not buy, share or sell your data. We do not send unsolicited mail, nor do we fundraise on the streets or undertake telephone fundraising.

Instead, we open our doors at our five visitor centres across the UK, welcoming 100,000 people each year to see for themselves what we do with their donations to help horses in need.

We have over 70,000 Facebook followers who read about happy horses in our care, or share tragic tales of those who have been rescued and are in need of help. We send two newsletters a year to those who want them, and three fundraising appeals in the hope that people can help us address our most pressing needs such as caring for recent arrivals or creating more paddocks so we can help more horses.

Sometimes our work is heart-breaking, sometimes heart-warming, but it is all funded by people like you. So, with your permission, we will continue to write, email, post on Facebook, update our website and welcome you to our centres, in the hope that by sharing the story of the horses you have enabled us to help so far, you will continue to be there in the future so that we can help many more.

Trust us, we care about them as much as you do.