Transparency Report

Our Governance

SpunOut.ie aims to be at the forefront of best practice in openness and transparency. Our board and staff are fully committed to the highest standards in corporate governance, as evidenced by our full and ongoing compliance with the Governance Code for Community, Voluntary and Charity Organisations in Ireland. Our signed statement of compliance with the Governance Code can be found here.

As we have been chosen to be assessed as a ‘Type C’ organisation, SpunOut.ie strongly welcomes robust engagement with our stakeholders to ensure we are constantly in compliance with the letter and spirit of the Code’s principles. We will always make it a priority to address any and all shortcomings to our governance structures as promptly as possible.

Our 2018-2020 Strategy Plan 'Amplifying Impact' can be viewed here.

Our Reach in 2018

SpunOut.ie increased our reach by over 230,000 readers in 2018 compared to the previous year. We recorded an average of over 151,000 website visits per month, making for a total of 1,812,124 website visits in 2018. Just over 2,468,000 pages of SpunOut.ie content were viewed throughout the year, an increase of 25.8% on 2017. Our total readership grew by 22.1% to 1,277,457 readers throughout the year.

Our largest sources of website traffic were from social media (40% of all website visits) and Google Search (38%). Google Ads accounted for an additional 14% of our website traffic in 2018.

Our Finances in 2018

In 2018, we spent €662,010 of an income of €684,214. This resulted in a surplus of €22,204 which will be put towards building up reserves for operational expenses.

The largest part of our spending was on staff-related costs. As an information hub, our main cost is employing the team of people who keep SpunOut.ie full of content, run our information campaigns, and advertise the service to new readers.

Annual Financial Statements

We’ve provided our audited Director’s Report and Financial Statements for 2018 to the Companies Registration Office and they will be available for download soon.

SpunOut.ie and the Triple Lock Standard

SpunOut.ie is a triple-locked member of the Charities Institute Ireland. This means we are committed to best practice in transparency, accounting, fundraising and governance.

As part of meeting the standards of the Triple Lock, our Board of Directors has signed up to the Guidelines for Charitable Organisations on Fundraising from the Public. We are also in full compliance with the Charity SORP in our accounting, and have been working hard to ensure we always meet the standards of the Governance Code.

SORP

The Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) is a set of best practice guidelines for how charities should prepare their annual accounts and report their finances. Compliance with the SORP obliges a charity to provide a very high level of information about its operations and to prioritise transparency and accountability in its financial management.

SpunOut.ie is among the 9% of charities in Ireland preparing their accounts using SORP.

Our Fundraising Principles

Our signed copy of the Statement can be viewed here.

We have produced a Donor Charter outlining our commitment to users, donors and funders, which can be read here.

SpunOut.ie’s Benefacts Profile

You can access our Benefacts.ie profile here.

Our Staff

Our highest earning member of staff is our CEO, who was paid a total (gross) of €60,000 in 2017.

No employee was paid more than €60,000 or less than €24,000 per annum.

You can find a list of our current staff members here.

Our Board of Directors

All Board members are entitled to be refunded for vouched expenses associated with attending our Board meetings, of which there are no fewer than six per year.

There were no Board expenses claimed in 2018.

You can find a list of our current board members here.

SpunOut.ie Action Panel

The SpunOut.ie Action Panel are a group of 150 young people from all over Ireland who play a pivotal role in our governance structure and ensure our service and message stay relevant to the people we serve.

You can find a list of our action panel members here.

Funders

Our main funders in 2018 were:

• The Health Service Executive (HSE) which has funded our work through a Section 39 grant every year since our foundation in 2004
• The Department of Children & Youth Affairs via the City of Dublin Youth Services Board through the Youth Information Centres scheme (DCYA/CDYSB/YIC)
• The Department of Children & Youth Affairs via Pobal through the Youth Services Grant Scheme
• The Department of Rural and Community Development via Pobal through the Scheme to Support National Organisations (DCRD/Pobal/SSNO)

Legal Entity

SpunOut.ie is a registered trading name and project of Community Creations CLG.

Community Creations CLG also operates the Crisis Text Line Ireland project.

Stewardship

SpunOut.ie recognises the vital role of stakeholder stewardship in ensuring our commitment to good governance. Any stakeholder wishing to act as a steward in reviewing or monitoring our commitment to the Code will have the full support of SpunOut.ie throughout their engagement. You can click here to read the Governance Code's guidelines for effective stewardship, including how to rank our level of compliance.

Any enquiries on the issue of stewardship and SpunOut.ie may be directed to our CEO at hello@spunout.ie

Our Complaints Procedure

SpunOut.ie takes all feedback seriously, especially complaints. If you have a comment about any aspect of our work, including fundraising, you can contact Community Creations CLG in writing or by telephone. In the first instance, your correspondence will be dealt with by our CEO in a timely manner.

Please give us as much information as possible and let us know how you would like us to respond, providing relevant contact details for yourself.

Write to:

CEO

Community Creations CLG t/a SpunOut.ie

Sean MacBride House

48 Fleet Street

Dublin 2

Tel: 01 675 3554

Email: hello@spunout.ie

We are available Monday to Friday from 09:30am to 5:30pm.

If you make a complaint relating to fundraising activities that we cannot resolve to your satisfaction, the next level of the complaints procedure is to contact the Monitoring Group of the Statement of Guiding Principles for Fundraising. You can email the group at audit@spunout.ie. Any and all matter of illegality will be addressed immediately to An Garda Síochana.