Fundraising: our approach

We’re incredibly grateful to the donors and partners who give so generously to Scouts. It’s thanks to their support that we can bring skills for life to so many young people, and it’s vital to our future success.

Following legislation

We’re registered with the Fundraising Regulator and follow its Code of Fundraising Practice, and we’re a member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising. Our charity lottery launched in December 2023 and is regulated by the Gambling Commission.

We make sure all staff involved in fundraising are aware of the need to follow relevant fundraising legislation and codes of practice. We’re not aware of any failure to comply during the year – by our staff or our Commercial Participators.

Personal data and privacy

We take the protection of our donors’ personal data very seriously.

• We only use personal data in a way they’re happy with and our privacy policy is available on our website.
• We give donors the opportunity to change their minds if they’d like to stop getting our communications.
• We never share or sell their data.
• We don’t contact anyone if we know they don’t want us to.
• We make sure no one’s ever pressured to leave us a legacy or to donate.
• We take steps to make sure vulnerable people are protected if a concern is raised.

We welcome legacies, grant funding and donations, which appear in our accounts as ‘voluntary income.’

Corporate partners

We have Commercial Participator Agreements with corporate partners who sponsor some of our programme activities.

We monitor any fundraising activities that our partners do on our behalf, and there’s a provision in all our partnership contracts for doing so. This is usually through regular meetings, feedback and agreeing to give access to more information if it’s needed.

Where corporate partners are sponsors, but they’re not taking part in any direct public fundraising, access to further information isn’t always necessary.

In all our Commercial Participator Agreements, our partners agree to protect vulnerable people from any intrusion of their privacy, and to not make any unreasonable approaches to, or put pressure on, any vulnerable person to give money. This is included even if they’re not undertaking any direct public fundraising.

We’ve received two complaints about our fundraising activity this year. We responded to the complainants within one week with an explanation of our approach. We’re committed to investigating complaints and resolving them with the complainant.

1. This year we were awarded £500,000 by Postcode Children Trust as part of a new partnership, thanks to support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
2. In our first full year of funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Uniformed Youth Fund, we were able to create over 4,300 new places for young people in under-served communities.
3. As well as sponsoring our Scouts Adventure Challenge Award, our new partner Dacia have provided an Outdoor Adventure Fund, available to all sections looking for financial support for an adventure.
4. We launched our Scouts Lottery in December, a new way for supporters to donate, with the chance of winning a cash prize.