Poppy Seller Olive Cooke Takes Own Life After Being Bombarded With 3,000 Charity Letters A Year

Olive Cooke, one of Britain’s oldest and longest-serving poppy sellers, became “distressed and overwhelmed” after she was bombarded with an “almost uncontrollable” stream of donation requests from charities, a report has found.

Mrs Cooke, 92, from Fishponds in Bristol, was found dead near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol in May last year. Shortly after her death, a coroner ruled that the great-grandmother—who suffered from depression, low mood and breast cancer—had taken her own life.

An inquiry by the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB), estimated that Mrs Cooke received up to 3,000 charity letters each year.

Mrs Cooke, who is believed to have sold around 30,000 poppies during the 76 years she spent raising money for the Royal British Legion, was in the databases of 99 charities. Mrs Cooke’s names, address and phone number had been bought by 70 of the organisations, the inquiry said.

“Mrs Cooke’s experience demonstrates the inevitable consequences of a fundraising regime where charities have been willing to exchange or sell the personal details of donors to each other, and to commercial third parties,” said Andrew Hind, chairman of the FRSB. “This created a situation where a donor to a number of charities could find themselves, after a period of time, receiving mail packs and phone calls from an ever-growing, and almost uncontrollable, number of charities.”

A mere 14 of the 99 charities with Mrs Cooke’s contact details provided her with an opt-out box on every piece of communication: only ten of the charities included it on the first piece of communication, two included a tick-box once a year, 56 provided contact information and 16 had no opt-out options at all, according to the Civil Society.

Appropriate alterations have since been made to the Code of Fundraising Practise. As of December 2015, organisations must clearly display details of how the recipient can, by a single step, opt-out of receiving such communications from a charity.

Mrs Cooks family has made it clear that they do not blame the charities for her death; however, they did criticize the charities for hounding her for donations every month. “Mrs Cooke’s family have indicated that the cumulative impact of the number of organisations mailing her led to her feeling distressed and overwhelmed,” the report said.

Following her death, Mrs Cooke’s experiences have been echoed in the hundreds of complaints the FRSB received, Mr Hind added. “This investigation underlines the need for a charity’s right to ask for funds to be balanced with the public’s right to say no. There needs to be an easier way for individuals to control how they are approached by charities and greater organisational commitment to meeting donors’ needs.”

In a statement, her family said: ‘We want Olive to be remembered for her incredibly kind, generous and charitable nature. Far from being a victim, she was a strong believer in the importance of charities in UK society and local communities. She found great comfort in the knowledge that her support could help someone else live a better life. At the same time, she was concerned about the amount of letters that she was receiving from charities and we are sure that she would have been very upset to know that her details were being shared or sold by some charities who she had agreed to support.”

Mrs Cooke’s family has welcomed the change to the Code of Fundraising Practise. In a statement they said: “We are very grateful that there has been an investigation into charity fundraising practice overseen by the Fundraising Standards Board and are pleased that there have been changes to the Code of Practice as to how charities fundraise, as well as changes to the law to prevent elderly and vulnerable people feeling pressured to give when they can’t.”

Photo: Mike Weston ABIPP/MOD

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