Fundraising, donations, and Competitions

As a society group you are able to run competitions and fundraise for yourselves or other charities. Because we as a Union, whom you are affiliated to, are a charity, we are required to adhere to charity fundraising law as well as declare any fundraising carried out for or on behalf of our societies. We’re flexible with you hosting fundraising and competitions but ask you to let us know you’re planning them so we can check we’re complying with any legal requirements.

Two people standing next to a trophy.

Fundraising

  • You are allowed to fundraise for your society or a registered UK charity.
  • You can check a charity is registered on the charity commission website.
  • You can fundraise by taking online SU Website donations, setting up a just giving page (or similar) or cash collection (In cash buckets which we can provide)
  • You are not permitted to fundraise by collecting donations into a committee members bank account, opening a bank account for the society or other methods unless approved by us.
  • Some charities provide resources and equipment to support fundraising initiatives, let us know if you’d like help arranging delivery of these.
  • You must be clear to donors where there money is being donated to e.g. 80% charity 20% society etc.
  • You can host events with lotteries or raffles, please discuss with SU staff to check

We follow the gambling commissions guidance and regulations on fundraising for society events; you can browse their fundraising pages here.

Donations

You are able to have donations into your society, these should be one-off donations that can be made by any members, committee members, alumni, members of the public etc.

We are also able to set up specific donation prices onto your society web shop for pre-selected amounts.

If a donation is being regularly made by the same donor, we recommend getting a sponsorship agreement with them in place.

Competitions

Hosting a competition is a great way to drive engagement. When you’re ready to host a competition you’ll need to publicise some terms and conditions, this could be done as a news article from your society.

In your Terms and Conditions you need to include the following:

  1. The first section should always include a bit of info about who you are as a society and your society email address.
  2. What date(s) is your competition open from and until?
  3. Who is eligible to participate?
  4. How can they enter?
  5. How will winner(s) be determined?
  6. What Prize(s) are available?
  7. How and When winners will be announced
  8. How winners can collect/ receive prizes and how long do they have to do this?

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