COUNTY NEWS: RNLI appeals to Sussex supporters to '˜opt-in' before end of year deadline

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), is issuing an urgent reminder to people in Sussex to opt in to receiving communications from the lifesaving charity, before this new approach is adopted next year.

From January 1, 2017, the RNLI will be the first major charity to move to a new approach for communicating with its supporters, unless they give their express permission to receive letters, emails or phonecalls, the RNLI will not able to contact them again.

The charity will then ‘close the doors’ on its current supporter database, only contacting those who have expressly given permission to be contacted.

Made in October 2015, the decision to stop communicating directly with supporters without permission applies to all forms of communication, not just fundraising appeals, and to all methods of contacting supporters.

The RNLI said it has the greatest respect for supporters, from volunteer lifeboat crews and community fundraisers, to the public who respond to appeals.

When stories appeared in the national media highlighting issues around the ways in which charities contact supporters, the RNLI said it decided to strengthen its already strict procedures and pledged only to contact people who wish to hear from the lifesaving charity.

Steve Warne, coxswain at Hastings RNLI Lifeboat Station, said: “From January 1, 2017, we won’t contact any of our current supporters unless they’ve responded to us and opted themselves in.

“This means we could lose touch with hundreds of thousands of the 900,000 people we currently contact. I’d urge all those who value what we do to take a moment to ‘tick the box’ online at www.rnli.org/savelives.