Supporter Engagement

Our global approach is reflected in the local services we offer to our supporters. Our Supporter Engagement team is dedicated to providing the highest standards of care to all of our supporters - both directly, and as a link with 50 countries where our development activities are carried out.

Our aim

We are actively involved in building strong reciprocal relationships with and between supporters, sponsored children and their communities. We aim to provide the highest standards of service to our supporters, to help achieve our commitment to give every child every chance in life.

Our values

Our values are shared by all those staff who both liaise directly with supporters or who work 'behind the scenes' to ensure that your experience of Plan International UK is as good as we'd like it to be:

• Integrity: we are open and honest in our communications, sharing the realities and challenges of our work
• Accountable: we value the commitment made by our supporters and understand that every penny matters
• Progressive: we constantly evaluate our work, learning and passing on development knowledge and practices.

Our services

We endeavour to provide the highest quality of service to you and all our supporters and to make your experience of Plan International UK a positive one. We pride ourselves on learning from our work and from those who support us. We welcome any feedback you give us.

In order to develop as an organisation and to improve the quality of service that we offer we carefully monitor all questions, complaints and praise.

Things sometimes do go wrong and when this happens we want to know about it. We will always take the opportunity to learn from any mistakes and wherever possible put things right.

Getting in touch

If you have a comment, suggestion or complaint you can find all the ways to get in touch on our contact page.

To help us answer your query more quickly, please include:

• Your supporter reference number if you have one
• Daytime contact number
• Full name and address
• Email address

We’ll aim to answer your query by email within five working days and by letter in 10 working days.

Note: our office is open from 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. (Calls may be monitored or recorded for training purposes)

Our Supporter Complaints policy

Plan International UK (Plan UK) aims to maintain high standards in all of its work but we recognise that we can sometimes get things wrong, despite our best intentions. We are committed to establishing and maintaining good relations with all supporters, campaigners, partners, volunteers and members of the public and we aim to always treat people with respect.

Plan UK is a member of the Fundraising Regulator and, as such, complies with the Code of Fundraising Practice.

Your feedback matters to us

At Plan UK, we openly welcome feedback, comments, suggestions and complaints. We actively encourage you to contact us with your feedback, whether good or bad. Complaints are especially important to us as they may help us to see where our procedures or activities might be improved.

Without your feedback on these occasions, we may not be able to improve the service we offer to you in the future, and therefore we value and take seriously any feedback you provide.

We promise to take all complaints seriously and to deal with them in a timely manner.

How to complain

You can call us, write to us or email us about your complaint and our Supporter Engagement Team will be pleased to help.

First stage: contact us

If you have a complaint you can contact us by email, telephone, social media or letter.

To help us investigate and address all complaints, we ask you to provide us with as much information as possible, namely:

• The reason for your complaint
• Where and when what you’re complaining about happened
• The name(s) of anyone involved (if known)
• What outcome you are hoping for
• Your contact details (name, address, daytime telephone number and/or email)

You can email [email protected] or call our Supporter Engagement Team on 0300 777 9779.

If you would prefer to write, please send your complaint to: 

Supporter Engagement Team, Plan International UK, Finsgate, 5-7 Cranwood Street, London EC1V 9LH

We will try to resolve the problem as quickly as possible and we will either confirm resolution of your complaint or, if not possible at this stage, acknowledge your complaint within the following timescales:

• Either immediately or on the same day if you telephone us
• Within two working days if you contact us by email
• Within 10 working days if you send us a letter

You will be given the name of the staff member dealing with your complaint and when they will next contact you, either with a proposed resolution or an update.

Second stage: taking your complaint further

If, for any reason, you are not happy with the resolution of your complaint, you can bring this to the attention of our Supporter Engagement Manager. Please set out clearly in writing (or in an email to [email protected]) the details of the complaint, explaining why you were not satisfied with our response and what you would like us to do to put things right.

Our Supporter Engagement Manager will send an acknowledgment within two working days.

We strive to respond in full to complaints within ten working days.

If the matter requires further investigation beyond ten days, we will contact you to advise when you can expect our response. In most instances, this will be within 20 working days.

Please address this letter to:

Supporter Engagement Manager, Plan International UK, Finsgate, 5-7 Cranwood Street, London EC1V 9LH

Third stage: the next stage

If you are still not satisfied with our response and wish to take your complaint further, please inform our Supporter Engagement Manager within 28 days of receiving their reply.

Your case will then be passed to the relevant member of our senior management team (that is, Head of Unit or the Director responsible for the activity) who will further investigate your complaint and will contact you with their conclusions and any actions to be taken.

You can expect this to take a further 10 working days from the date on which we receive your letter or email.

Fourth stage: the final stage

The final stage, if you are still not satisfied with our response, is for the complaint to be escalated to the Chief Executive’s Office (CEO) for final response.

The CEO will review the complaint and send Plan UK’s final response within 10 working days.

Privacy Notice

We want everyone who supports us to feel confident and comfortable that any personal information you share with us will be looked after and used appropriately. Please see our Privacy Notice for more details.

Taking your complaint outside Plan UK

If your complaint is about our fundraising work or activities and you are not satisfied with our response, you are entitled to take it to the Fundraising Regulator. As a member of the Fundraising Regulator, Plan UK is committed to abiding by any decision they reach on complaints that are escalated to them.

Their contact details are:

The Fundraising Regulator
2nd floor, CAN Mezzanine Building, 49-51 East Road, London, N1 6AH

Website: www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk
Telephone: 0300 999 3407
Email: [email protected]

Follow up

In order for us to improve the service we provide, we may wish to contact you within a month of your complaint being dealt with in order to check that you were satisfied with our resolution.

Any information you give will only be used to ensure that we provide the best possible service we can.