Oxfam marketing team falls out over charity’s fundraising strategy

Members of the Oxfam marketing team are understood to have broken ranks and walked out last week amid rows over the direction of fundraising efforts.

Despite denials from the charity, it is understood that there have been disagreements between Edward Fox, Oxfam’s director of fundraising and supporter marketing, and some of his team about the charity’s direct marketing arrangements.

Sources say that the alleged walk-out was triggered by a dispute over a direct marketing pitch. The &£5m account was won by EHS Brann in June last year, but the agency is no longer working with the charity.

The charity employs 180 marketing staff, 120 of whom work in supporter marketing, which handles fundraising. It is not clear how many were involved in the alleged dispute or even whether they have now returned to work.

Matters are reported to have come to a head on Friday last week, when several staff walked out of the charity’s offices in Oxford. A spokeswoman for the charity denies that there had been any incident but says that Oxfam is in talks with DM agencies.

In a statement Fox, who joined Oxfam in September 2003 from Christian charity World Vision, says: “We are not working with any other agencies at the moment, but we are talking to other agencies towards the possibility of working with one of them in the future.”