Chuggers and Charity, a first draft

Abused by drunks, spat at and called obscene names, chuggers have a lot more to deal with than public prejudices. But do they deserve your charity?

The word chugger, a portmanteau of the words charity and mugger, is an example of the negative labels that, along with an identity card, hang around the neck of every street fundraiser. Dealing with these stereotypes is one of the first tasks that you need to overcome if you are to succeed as a charity fundraiser. Contrary to popular belief not all chuggers are the aggressive, pushy individuals who intimidate the pubic and guilt trip people into signing away their wages.

Not just anyone can become a charity fundraiser; if a candidate passes a lengthy telephone interview, then they are invited for a gruelling four hour screening process. Only those who demonstrate the right personal attributes, positivity, imagination and passion, are offered to attend the subsequent two days of training.
Becoming a street fundraiser is not a job, it is a strict lifestyle choice. It means spending nine hours a day, six days per week on the high streets of the UK, regardless of the often atrocious Bristish weather conditions. Sunday is not a day of rest, instead it means packing up all your belongings, travelling to a new location, unpacking all your belongings and preparing for the next day’s fundraising.

It is not just prejudice and harsh weather conditions that street fundraisers must overcome; abuse at the hands of the public is relentless; in Manchester I was spat at, in Liverpool a drunk man repeatedly hit me over the head with a newspaper, I was verbally abused on a daily basis and often people used me as a vent for their grievances about the world’s problems. I even spent a substantial amount of time once listening to man as he told me about his divorce. Despite this torrent of abuse, a street fundraiser must remain cheerful and positive at all times; they do this by remaining passionate about the charities they represent.

Most members of the public have a story to tell about how they were bullied by a chugger, just as they have a story about a rude waiter in a restaurant. However, unlike waiters, a negative experience with a fundraiser tends to linger. People love to hate chuggers, not because of the odd bad experience, but because a chugger is the bearer of bad news. No one wants to walk down a street in the morning, coffee in one hand, paper in the other, and be reminded of breast cancer or of the continuing crisis in Darfur, but keeping these issues in the forefront of the public eye is the only way to remind people that these are crisis’s that continue to threaten the fabric of our community.

It is unlikely that the negative publicity and abuse will cease to surround street fundraisers but it should be remembered that these are people who risk abuse and discrimination to raise funds for worthwhile causes, whilst keeping the public aware of the serious issues facing communities around the world. It’s a thankless job but somebody needs to do it.