Working with the New Regs (UK, but not Gift Aid related)

Matt Page · March 2016

I've been wrestling for months with how to comply with the various changes that are coming about with regard to processing charity data in the UK, but not having much luck. And I guess I was wondering how other organisations were managing this.

The challenges I'm having are twofold:

1 - We need to adopt a new system so we can be compliant with the new regs.

As I see it there are a series of different changes (Etherington, EU GDPR etc.), but essentially everything is moving towards "Opt-in" consent and most of our consistuents are (sort of) based around an "opt-out" system. Plus we need to have separate permissions around mail/phone/email

2 - Our system is creaking to breaking point already
So we do a whole range of events as well as a general mailing, enewsletters, two raffles (via DM) and corporate mailings. We have non-fundraising departments using the system (to manage volunteers and education events, although there is a crossover) and we have old records some of which were marked "no mail" but for our purposes rather than the requests of the person (for example to exclude spouses - double bad practice). As a hospice we also don't solicit people who are recently bereaved so that gets done through solicit code as well.

I can seee a move to using both solicit codes and attributes is on the cards, but even then I can't figure out a way to capture all these multiplying options without it being ridiculously complicated for the people inputting the data or dealing with amendments.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom - or just want a space to bemoan a similarly difficult situation? I'm aware that some of these issues might be more about soft skills than RE skills, but just feel overwhelmend by the complexity and a seeming no-win situation.

Matt

James Redding · March 2016

I’m currently in the process of reviewing my charities marketing preferences as there too complex. At the moment I’ve chosen not to implement a universal OPT In, as it is still not clear what is happening with the opt in and the FPS. For example does an existing supporter automatically get opt in? If someone signs up on the FPS does that over right the Opt in they’ve given you etc.
The approach I’ve taken was to separate out preference into 3 groups Marketing Opt Out, Marketing Opt In and Send me which are all stored in attributes. The reason for using attributes is that it allows you store the date the marketing preference was captured which to me is important to know. I feel this approach would allow me to adopt an opt in and FPS flag when the requirements are clearer

Opt out’s

No Contact
No Appeals
No Phone
No Postal
Specific Mailings only*
No Challenges
No Event
No ….

OPT In

Opt in to Email
Opt in to SMS

Send Me

Send Annual Review
Send Appeals
Send Challenges
Send Community
Send …..

*These people will only get mailing list in the send me category.

Matt Page · April 2016

Did anyone join the webinar on this the other day? What did you think? There were 500 of us apparently!

It was quite useful, though a couple of bits I would query, but overall I'd recommend anyone who is not sure how to proceed with all of this to get on the next one.

Matt

Michael Steven · May 2016

I found the webinar useful and re-assuring that it seemed to align with the route we have gone down so far, which is using Attributes - one for each channel:

Description Date Comments [Yes / No] [Date received] [Opt-in / Did not Opt-out OR Opt-out / Did not opt-in] via [method] [Yes / No] [Date received] [Opt-in / Did not Opt-out OR Opt-out / Did not opt-in] via [method] [Yes / No] [Date received] [Opt-in / Did not Opt-out OR Opt-out / Did not opt-in] via [method] [Yes / No] [Date received] [Opt-in / Did not Opt-out OR Opt-out / Did not opt-in] via [method]

Category

Postal Consent

Email Consent

Phone Consent

Text Consent

The Attribute ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ options must be a Data Type of Table not a direct Data Type of Yes / No (otherwise you will not be able to use DOES NOT EQUAL with these attributes in Query)

We are currently use opt-out tick boxes on paper donation / membership forms (with a clear unambiguous contact preference message, keeping in mind that returning a form is a clear affirmative action) We offer a ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ selector box (with no default) online via NetCommunity.

We are considering rather than ‘Yes’ / ‘No’, having ‘Opt-in’ / ‘Did not Opt-out’ / ‘Opt-out’ / ‘Did not opt-in’ as the selectable options, to give greater transparency, but are awaiting to see further guidelines before implementing this.

We are also looking into using Actions to keep a record of historical contact preferences whenever someone changes their existing preferences.

Hope you find this insight in how we are progressing useful!

Working with the New Regs (UK, but not Gift Aid related)

Comments

Categories