Last Updated November 2015
Uplift is an independent member based organisation. Your support is vital to every aspect of Uplift’s work. We rely upon donations and grants and do not take money from government, political parties or big business.
How we use donations
To run effective campaigns members are asked to help fund campaigns and to donate to the ongoing work of Uplift. Donations are generally small and usually are in response to a call to support a specific action; i.e buying an advert,organising an event, funding materials for a campaign.
Members also support Uplift with one-off and regular donations that is used to support the day-to-day running costs of Uplift. Uplift is committed to keeping its running costs low. We believe that being nimble and cost efficient will help achieve the change we collectively want.
If we’ve asked for donations for a very specific purpose (eg. to pay for an advert), and then aren’t able to do the thing we’ve specified or something very similar, we’ll get in touch to explain why. If you donated to fund a particular tactic you will be informed about how the money has been spent.
If you make a one-off donation to a specific campaign the money will be spent on that campaign. In cases where this is not possible (e.g because the campaign has already been won) the money will be spent on the same issue. Otherwise the money will be put into general funds to support Uplift’s work. Included in the estimated cost of an action is overheads and staff time. This will vary depending on the amount of time allocated to the campaign ie 3 days, a week, longer.
Our annual accounts
Uplift incorporated as a limited company with guarantee in July 2014. Our first audited accounts will be submitted to the Company Registration Office in December 2015. They will then be published on the Uplift website. We believe it is important to be transparent and accountable about how we are funded and how we spend your donations.
Income we receive
Since setting up in May 2014 Uplift has raised funding to support the development of our campaigning infrastructure and putting in place a small team.
Uplift aims to be eventually funded mainly through members supporting specific campaigns and actions as well as regular donations that help pay for overheads and staff costs. No amount is too small and every part of your donation goes towards making Uplift a stronger people powered organisation.
What things cost Uplift money?
Uplift is a lean operation. A small staff team is supported by volunteers, a website with significant back end data processing capacities, servers, as well as multiple social media platform. From day to day, campaign actions will cost varying amounts e.g. newspaper adverts, hire of equipment, printing.
Security of donations
128 bit SSL technology is used to secure your donation, just like a bank does. This means that all the details are encrypted. The payment gateway used to process donations for one-off and regular donations including credit and debit payments is Stripe. Stripe is the market leader of online bank transactions. Uplift does not have access to your credit or debit card details but our payment gateway may maintain details for recurring payments.
Refunds
Uplift has a refund policy in case a donation is made in error. If you contact the staff team within 7 days of making the donation we will return it to you within 30 days without charge.
Any questions?
Transparency and accountability about how your money is spent is very important. If you have any questions, or suggestions on how this can be improved please contact the Director of Uplift, Síobhan O’ Donoghue at [email protected]