Face to Face fundraising

Face to Face fundraising is an essential and highly effective part of our fundraising programme to find new supporters, committed to giving regularly, by signing up to our Sponsor a Puppy and Lucky Lottery campaigns. These provide regular donations and steady income through direct debit payments, enabling us to plan for the future.

This style of fundraising gives potential donors the opportunity to talk directly to a representative of Guide Dogs, giving them access to information about how we operate and how their money will be used to help people who are blind or partially sighted.

Face to Face fundraising is used by many charities and is highly successful. Since we began using this style of fundraising in 2001, we have recruited hundreds of thousands of new supporters through our door to door, street and private venue fundraising teams.

General questions

All of our fundraisers wear:

A blue t-shirt, jacket or tabard, with Guide Dogs’ logo

An ID badge with the fundraiser’s name, photo, ID number and expiry date

If you are unsure as to whether someone claiming to represent Guide Dogs is an authorised fundraiser you can contact our Supporter Care Team on 0345 143 0233 from Monday to Friday between 9am-1pm and 2-5pm. If calling outside of these hours you can also check “where we're visiting” below, to see if we are fundraising in your area. For general enquires regarding face to face fundraising, please call 0800 953 0113.
Door-to-door (D2D) fundraising

Door-to-door fundraising is where our fundraisers call at homes across the UK, knocking on doors to speak with people about our work and asking them to support us by signing up to Sponsor a Puppy.

Our door teams work regionally across the UK.

Private sites

Private site fundraising is where our teams visit a variety of locations such as train stations, shopping centres, supermarkets, large public events and festivals. These teams setup a Guide Dogs stand to work from and engage with people to provide them with information about Guide Dogs and to sign up supporters to Sponsor a Puppy and Lucky Lottery.

Street Fundraising

Our street fundraisers work in teams on town centre high streets throughout the UK, talking to members of the public to give them information about Guide Dogs’ work and asking them to sign up to support us. We do not currently have any live Street Fundraising activity.
Our teams of fundraisers are highly trained and enthusiastic individuals. They are dedicated to raising money and building awareness of our commitment to making people who are blind or partially sighted more mobile.

We are committed to ensuring that our fundraisers offer a positive experience to the public when interacting with them, and are friendly, professional and helpful.

We have an in-house team of fundraisers and also work with agencies to provide additional fundraising.

We are members of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF), Fundraising Regulator, and the Fundraising Standards Board. All of our fundraisers follow the code of conduct set out by the Fundraising Regulator . We also conduct mystery shops and audits on our face to face activity and carry out quality calling to make sure that all of our fundraisers meet the high standards that we expect from them every day.
Guide Dogs has a team of in-house fundraisers and also chooses to work with trusted partner agencies to help deliver professional ethical fundraising on our behalf. All fundraisers working on these teams are coached by Guide Dogs to ensure they are informed about our campaigns and provide an excellent quality of service in line with our own standards.

Charity Link

Charity Link are a fundraising specialist who have been operating for over 25 years. They have over 150 fundraising staff working in conjunction with a few chosen charities. Charity Link are our key partner for fundraising services at national events and within private sites. They have been working with us since 2000 and in that time have helped sign up hundreds of thousands of supporters to Sponsor a Puppy.

Appco UK

Appco UK are one of the longest-running and most experienced face-to-face donor recruitment agencies in the UK. Appco provide professional door to door and private site fundraising services to promote our Sponsor a Puppy campaign.

Charity Link and Appco UK are active members of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.

Where we're visiting

Week commencing 18 November

You can see the locations our Door to Door fundraising teams are working this week by checking the postcodes we are due to visit.

Despite our best efforts to keep this information updated, we sometimes change locations due to unforeseen circumstances. If your postcode is not listed below, and you’re concerned about authenticity following a visit from a Guide Dogs fundraiser, please contact our Supporter Care team on 0345 143 0233. You can also check the fundraiser is wearing an in date ID badge. The fundraiser will never enter your home.

See all of our fundraising opportunities

Face to Face fundraising

General questions

Where we're visiting

Week commencing 18 November

You can see the locations our Door to Door fundraising teams are working this week by checking the postcodes we are due to visit.

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