Reasons for lapse: the case of face‐to‐face donors

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Face‐to‐face fundraising is attracting increasingly hostile media coverage in the United Kingdom in the run up to the publication of the Charities Act in 2004. Despite the antipathy comparatively little is known about how donors view this technique and why they might elect to terminate their support having been recruited by this medium. This paper reports the results of a survey of 4,800 face‐to‐face recruits, comparing the attitudes and profiles of both active and lapsed supporters. The results suggest that donors exhibit high levels of satisfaction with the recruitment process and lapse primarily because of a change in their financial circumstances rather than feelings of having being pressurised to offer their support.