Paying fundraisers a commission based on the amount of donations they generate for a charity can harm their psychological wellbeing, a report is warning.

The report by think tank Rogare is calling for safeguards to be put in place to better protect fundraisers who are being paid by commission.

Wellbeing concerns include commission payments “making it harder for them to resist inappropriate donor behaviour”.

They can also be impacted psychologically by potential “division” and “resentment” caused by organisations blaming fundraisers for failing to hit targets, and fundraisers blaming their employer for not helping them meet targets.

There are also concerns that being paid by commission rather than a salary can create a “gig economy”, with days without earning causing harm to their wellbeing. Also “some may take on a number of commission-based gigs to ensure they can make ends meet, leading to burnout”.

Overall payment by commission can make “a very stressful job even more stressful and thus becoming yet another contributory cause of burnout”.

Rogare is recommending that commissions should never be the sole form of remuneration and should always be part of a mix of different types of payment.

Commissions should also never be for salaried fundraising staff at a charity and instead only be paid to agency or freelance fundraisers.

It should also only be paid if there are safeguards in place to protect fundraisers’ wellbeing, it adds.

“If charities cannot put these safeguards in place – especially to exercise their duty of care to protect the psychological wellbeing of their fundraisers – then they should not be using commission as part of their remuneration packages, irrespective of whether the relevant code of practice permits it,” states the report.

Report co-author Heather Hill said that conversations around paying fundraisers a commission “is long overdue and we are pleased to offer this paper as a way of jumpstarting critical thinking around the issue”.

She added: “We would like to make it clear that we are neither arguing for nor against commission-based pay for fundraisers, only evaluating the ethical arguments.”

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