Campaign Collective pledges transparency on expenses

As part of its commitment to providing affordable professional communications support, Campaign Collective pledges absolute transparency around fees and expenses.

For many years, PR and marketing agencies have followed the lead of the advertising industry by “marking up” external expenses, thereby increasing clients’ bills by a substantial percentage (the industry average in 2015 was 13%).

For charities, not-for-profits and social enterprises in particular, this practise can place an intolerable strain on already stretched budgets and ultimately mean the difference between being able to afford a campaign and not.

Campaign Collective pledges never to arbitrarily mark up expenses incurred on behalf of clients, nor charge for office running costs (another established practice in around three-quarters of marketing agencies).

For brought-in services from other companies (such as print/production, venue hire, etc), Campaign Collective charges a 10% project management fee, to be agreed in advance, but clients are welcome to buy these services direct from suppliers and manage the process and supplier relationship themselves to avoid this cost.

Simon Francis, Founder Member of Campaign Collective, said:

For too long, agencies have relied on marking up supplier invoices as a way of boosting their bottom line. At  Campaign Collective, we believe that agencies should be paid for delivering great work, not simply for forwarding on an invoice.

Any profits made from project management fees are reinvested into Campaign Collective’s social purpose – subsidising support for micro charities and community organisations and helping to develop the next generation of communications professionals.