Yesterday (Friday) we had a young man on the door at around 8 PM. He had NPCC badge on a lanyard. Two weeks ago also on a Friday, a young man with Diabetes UK badge - this was at 9 PM!
My standard reply is that we give to charity but never on the door.
We or I just look through the shutters & unless they are a courier or postman holding a parcel we just don’t answer the door! If they keep coming back & really banging on the door, I go out & give them short shrift 
makes me laugh when they say “oh I’m not selling anything” when of course they are.
A couple of saturdays ago we had a charity cold caller from Battersea Dogs home knocking at our flat door. We have a secure entrance to our block of flats so he had obviously been let in by a resident or followed behind someone. When we asked him to leave as we do not allow non residents to walk around the block knocking on individual flat doors, they should only go to the flat of the resident they are visiting, he got aggressive and retorted we did not have the right to tell him what to do. Seeing as it is our private property we responded we very much had the right and my partner escorted him to the front entrance of our block of flats and made sure he left.
I hate the trend of charities indulging in cold calling as they are annoying and intrusive and I think risk taking advantage of vulnerable and lonely people.
They aren’t selling anything. What on earth is a charity fundraiser selling? They are paid a fixed hourly rate to do one of the most thankless tasks in society. The NSPCC does amazing work to protect children from abuse. How anyone on this thread can object to being asked to consider supporting such a worthy cause puzzles me. If you prefer not to support that’s fine, a polite no does the trick. A charity fundraiser will be told no many times but it’s worth it for the few who say yes. The people who say yes save and improve lives.
A polite no is what they get from me. The sellers at the door are not always so polite, sad to say, no matter how worthy the organisation they are representing. And it IS selling. They are asking you to buy a subscription.
There is an argument that if legitimate organisations use door-to-door sales, this gives an opportunity for scammers to do the same. If no legitimate organisation used this technique, it would be so much easier to safeguard the vulnerable, as the message to never buy at the door (or sign your name to something that involves taking your money) would be clear cut.
Hi Faye… I don’t think anyone on this thread were objecting to the charity or indeed the collection method. Most appear to be quite courteous in their response.
You should also note this thread was split off from the Updates from your local Safer Neighbourhood Team where several members were expressing concern about cold callers (not just from charities). The concern that the cold callers were in fact casing homes for burglaries.
Buying a subscription to stop child abuse?
Essentially, yes, when you sign up to make a monthly donation, it’s a subscription. As @starman said, no one is objecting to giving to charities per se, and this thread allows people to let other forum members know when legitimate organisations are calling in the area.
Though since pay was brought up, the CEO of the NSPCC is paid £167,000 per year not counting pension contributions with over fifty staff on salaries above £60,000.
really? I thought most fundraisers were on commission
Objection your honour… off topic… I’ll just leave this here:
It’s an interesting discussion, but since this is the public area of the forum could I ask that we keep this topic focussed on the SE23 situation rather than debating wider ethical issues. We do have areas of the site dedicated to wider debate:
Verified members - if you’d like to join discussions on ethics/philosophy/religion on SE23.life, please join our “Ethikos” group.
Advance warning - replies here may be moved to a discussion in Ethikos if they relate to general ethical issues as opposed to the immediate facts of this topic.
Did you catch his name or number? I’m sure Battersea would want to know. Unfortunately cold calling is a thankless job isn’t it? That’s probably why they get aggressive, but that’s not an excuse, they choose to do the job.
If individuals feel strongly enough about door knocking and ‘cold’ approaches from charities they can call up the charities in question and put a block on their address and number. Charities are regulated stringently and must action these requests. It’s all a big unpleasant that people seem to use this forum to complain about charities and the homeless. Not a lot of empathy here from the regulars 
I could address all the excuses not to give here but obviously we’ve been asked to keep away from the ethical and philosophical component of the discussion.
Please don’t equate not responding to cold-callers with not giving to charity. I donate my time, skills and cash to several charities. I never speak to door-to-door callers.
If you’re referring to the people who come door-to-door, they are paid sales staff doing a job, not committed supporters of the charities concerned. I can understand you feeling people here are being harsh if you thought they were people going out of their way and chosing to take a low-paid position for altruistic reasons. But that’s not the reality of these sales people or ‘chuggers’ who stop you in the street.
I know lots of very committed people who work as street fundraisers. If you want to make assumptions that’s your choice.
Check this link out for your rights and how charities are regulated.
Forum members are complaining about unwanted door-to-door solicitation, and in topics elsewhere we’ve seen (understandable) complaints about certain beggars who are either aggressive or deceptive (known by the police to be not genuinely homeless, for example).
Let’s make our points respectfully and without casting aspersions on other forum members please. I’ve seen first-hand that @RachaelDunlop is generous to charitable causes and goes out of her way to promote them.
This forum is not really my scene and I’m struggling to find a delete account option. Would you delete my account pls Chris?
Oh dear, I feel responsible for this disagreement as I started it off for complaining about ADT knocking on my door asking for details of the security on my house… didn’t realise it would escalate to this!
Faye for what it’s worth, I do support a number of charities but I never ever sign up on the doorstep as its something I like to think carefully about, which I always explain politely. I can imagine it’s a difficult job traipsing door to door in the cold.
Thanks Daffodil. I work in the 3rd sector with brilliant and kind people who try to help others. It’s such a shame when people are so dismissive of fundraisers when a majority of them really want to help others.