Telephone fundraising

We only call supporters who have given us permission to do so and who have provided their telephone number. We'll always ask permission to speak with you and you can choose to end the call at any time. The telephone gives us the opportunity to listen to you. It’s a vital part of our communications. It means we can update you about the people you’ve helped us care for and how you can help us reach even more people with a terminal illness.

As a supporter of Marie Curie you are in total control of the call at all times and our fundraisers will never put you under undue pressure to give.

If you receive a fundraising call from Marie Curie you'll be speaking to a fundraiser who works for our telemarketing partner agencies, DTV Optimise, Angel, and Ethicall. As we're unable to make these calls ourselves we have to employ a professional telephone fundraising agency to do this on our behalf. Please rest assured that we went through a thorough process to find the right partner.

The staff at our agency are highly trained and have permanent contracts and salaries, with no bonus schemes. They employ passionate and professional fundraisers who are committed to supporting charities.

We feel it’s important to work in partnership with our agencies so they can really get to know our supporters and speak to you in the right way.

Every call they make is recorded, which enables us to monitor these calls every week, and listen to any concerns you might raise. We provide callers with ongoing feedback and support to ensure you have the best possible experience as a donor. If you ever have feedback we can retrieve those recordings to listen to the call.

Please be aware that we only store call recordings for six months.

The telephone numbers DTV Optimise call from are:

Angel call from 0203 455 1210 and Ethicall call from 0117 325 4489.

When you miss a call from Marie Curie, we want you to know that we tried to call you. That’s why if you call back the numbers we use you’ll hear an automated message telling you who called.

We respect your wishes and will cease any form of communication upon request. If you’d rather not hear from Marie Curie by phone please call our Supporter Relations team on 0800 716 146 or email supporter.relations@mariecurie.org.uk (please remember to include the telephone number that we’ve tried to contact you on).

Alternatively, if you do receive a call from the number above, just let the caller know that you don’t want to hear from Marie Curie by phone again in the future.

Our agency only calls between 10am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 5pm on Saturdays. Call centres are allowed to call until 9pm on a weekday and 6pm on weekends, but we have chosen not to contact our supporters as late as this.

The protection of your data is of the highest importance to both Marie Curie and our agency. We only use secure and encrypted methods of transfer and the agency does not store your data longer than the campaign on which you’ve been called. Everything is protected by legally binding contracts and data protocol agreements.

Every fundraiser that calls on behalf of Marie Curie will be briefed and trained by a Marie Curie employee. Our agency also offers ongoing training and support and we hold regular debriefs with fundraisers too.

We select a few agencies to test against each other to find the right fit for Marie Curie. We chose our partner DTV Optimise because they offer the best value for money, high quality calls and a positive, supporter focussed ethos. As a supporter of Marie Curie you are in total control of the call at all times and our fundraisers will never put you under undue pressure to give.

We only pay our agency for completed calls. That means they need to speak to the named supporter and record an outcome. These costs vary depending on the type of call being made and will always be disclosed to you during the call. If these costs are not mentioned to you please contact our Supporter Relations Team to let us know. We are open and honest about all our fundraising.