Event Policies

Campaigning Forum Event Policies, Terms and Conditions (2024)

Policy Contents (2024)

  1. Participant Selection Criteria: How participants are decided
  2. Event Privacy Policy: How your details will and won’t be used
  3. Reduced Fee Criteria: Who qualifies for the reduced fees
  4. Participation Fund: Fully-sponsored participation
  5. Fee Terms and Conditions: Refund policy, etc.
  6. What is Covered by the Participation Fee?
  7. Participants from the Commercial Sector
  8. Sponsorship Policies

Participant Selection Criteria

Participants are selected on the basis of one or more of:

  1. Expertise to contribute to the exchange of knowledge (i.e. campaigning, fundraising, digital, leadership, NGO management, volunteering, media, policy research and beyond)
  2. Being involved in successful initiatives from which others can learn
  3. Diversity that contributes to the exchange of knowledge (i.e. organisations, issues, countries)
  4. Participating in the shaping of the event via the Event web site and/or community lists
  5. Being able to attend both days of the event
  6. 2-3 years relevant experience, including volunteering, local activism and work beyond the campaign sector
  7. Those that have attended a Campaigning Forum/FairSay event/training in the past
  8. Those willing to contribute before and/or during the event to help make it a success, especially:
    • Finding sponsors for the event
    • Attracting new qualified participants to the event
    • Taking on a task before, during or after the event

If you’re not sure if this event is for you, get in touch and we can give you some further guidance.

Furthermore:

  1. Participation is only secure upon full receipt of the fees.
  2. Regardless of advance payment, the cancellation period still applies and any cancellations and no-shows after the cancellation period expires are still expected to pay in full.

Selection Process:

  1. Interested participants apply by initial deadline
  2. Applicants informed if they are offered a spot or if they are on the wait list
  3. Those offered a spot have 15 days to pay (payment must be received within 15 days)
  4. Those on the waitlist will be offered a spot as they become available
  5. Participation is confirmed upon receipt of fee

Event Privacy Policy

Your application details will be used:

  • To assess your application for attending the Campaigning Forum
  • For Applicants: Saved as a record of who applied
  • For Participants: Used for essential communication pre and post event leading up to and immediately following the event
  • With consent, email address added to the event email discussion list of other participations
  • With consent, participant’s name, organisation, role, country and public URLs will be publicly listed
  • With consent, participant’s name, organisation, role, country, email, phone and other provided contact details will be distributed only to other participants who also consented after the event
  • Participants topic interests and objectives for the event will be publicly shared without personally identifying information.
  • Participants’ name and organisation will be provided to the venue reception to facilitate entry to the venue
  • Applicants eligible to participate in a pre and/or post meeting will have relevant details passed to the appropriate pre/post meeting coordinator
  • With consent: Applicants indicating an interest in an offer by a third party will have their basic details (name, email, organisation, role) passed on to that third party.
  • With consent, applicants and participants: transferred to the Campaigning Forum community email discussion list after the event in order to facilitate your continued engagement with the rest of the community
  • With consent, applicants and participants: invited to join and participate in various social networks in order to facilitate your engagement with the rest of the community

At any time you can ask for any of these uses to not apply to you and/or can remove yourself from any email list or other social network in which you are included.

At the event

  1. Photos/videos: Participants’ agree that any photos, video or audio in which they appear and taken by FairSay or shared with FairSay for the purposes of making it available, can be used and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales license.
  2. Photos/videos: Those not wishing to appear in photos, videos or audio will be instructed how to signal this: traditionally via a bright yellow lanyard that will stand out in photos and videos to signal not to publish it.
  3. Confidentiality: the event works under the ‘Chatham House Rule’: nothing can be attributed without permission. This means during the event in social media posts and private shares as well as after the event to people not at the event. You may share what you learn and example without attributing who you heard it from. You may also ask for permission to attribute it.

How your details will not be used:

  • Your details will not be sold, traded or otherwise distributed to others other than is specifically outlined above
  • You won’t be added to any email list without having specifically opted-in for it

Reduced Fee Criteria

Reduced fee spaces will be allocated once organising costs are covered and the potential participant list is sufficiently a diverse. A reduced fee applies only to the participation fee. All other fees are at cost and no reduction applies. If an organisation sends more than one person, they are not eligible for any reduced fees (as they are large enough to consider sending more than one!) The reduced fee levels (from the normal participation fee) are:

  1. 40% off for participants from less represented groups
  2. 35% off for a participant from an organisation in less developed and transition countries. Independent participants may also qualify.
  3. 25% off for a participant from academics contributing to academic input and those from tiny organisations
  4. 15% off for a participant from small (but not tiny) organisations in developed countries outside the event country.

Reduced places will be allocated on the basis of the following criteria (in the following order):

  1. Participants coming from outside the UK and thus also paying for travel, accommodation and meals and academics invited to contribute to the academic track. The top priority for reduced-fee places goes to those coming from:
    • Further away and thus incurring higher travel costs
    • Academics invited to participate in the academic track
    • Countries with lower economic development
    • Small organisations / are independent
  2. Participants who will significantly enrich the event will be allocated a reduced-fee spot as part of the negotiations to get them to attend
  3. Participants from organisations not yet accepted to the event to ensure participant diversity
  4. Smaller organisations or individuals for whom any fee is significant
  5. Those from organisations who have not attended in the past

Constraints: Getting a reduced fee means:

  • It is decided after the standard fee participants are approved (except for invited academics when it is decided immediately), so you may have to on a wait list if others are more deserving of the subsidy based on the above criteria.
  • Only one person from your organisation may attend
  • educed-fee places are not eligible to attend any non-free public event for free

Participation Fund

A few places are available with all costs (travel, accommodation, meals, organising fee) covered. Sponsored participation is dependent upon sponsors contributing specifically to a participation fund.

The decision on who is sponsored will be done in conjunction with the sponsors and their interests and priorities. Where there is no clear preference, the following criteria will be used:

  1. ‘Southern’-based candidates: Up to two months before the event (due to visa lead-times and travel arrangements)
  2. Non-UK candidates: up to three weeks before the event (due to travel arrangements)
  3. UK-based candidates: Up to two days before the event
  4. Candidates within 3 (ish) hours travel from venue: up to first day of event

The full participation fund will be used with FairSay covering any excess amounts.

Fee Terms and Conditions

  • Fees due in full 15 days from the date of issue or by the day before the event – whichever comes first. The organising fee rate is only valid for these 15 days after which a new invoice may be issued if the organising fee has increased.
  • Participation is only confirmed upon receipt of the fee following a offer to attend (and assuming the participation offer hasn’t been withdrawn due to late payment of fees)
  • Payments by Credit Card via PayPal will also be billed for the processing fee FairSay incurs so that FairSay receives is the full invoiced amount.
  • There are no discounts or refunds for only attending part of the event.

Cancellations and Refunds

Cancellations and refunds only apply if the person cancelling cannot/will not nominate another qualifying person to take their place. The amount refunded is based on the amount received if it differs from the amount of the invoice. For instance online and international payments often have transaction fees deducted up front and thus what is received differs from what is paid.

  1. For the participation fee
    • 100% of received payment refund: If cancelled more than 15 days in advance.
    • 75% of of received payment refund: If cancelled 7-14 days in advance
    • 0% of received payment refund: If cancelled less than 7 days in advance or a registered participant does not show up at the event. Any outstanding balance will still be owed unless a substitute participant is found.
    • All refunds will be dealt with after the event and once all fees have been received and expenses paid
  2. For the catering costs:
    • 100% catering refund if cancelled 15 days or more in advance
    • 0% catering refund if cancelled less than 15 days in advance
  3. For the on-site accommodation:
    • 100% accommodation refund if cancelled 15 or more days in advance of 12:00 on the day of check-in
    • 0% accommodation refund if cancelled less than 15 days in advance of 12:00 on the day of check-in (due to venue policy)

What is Covered by the Campaigning Forum Participation Fee?

  1. Participation in all days of the Campaigning Forum (day 0 evening – day 2 late afternoon)
  2. Lunch, 3 tea/coffee breaks a day and the associated venue service charges
  3. The meeting rooms and facilities for both days of the Campaigning Forum (day 0 evening – day 2 late afternoon)
  4. Hiring facilitators, covering speaker costs, organiser effort, printed materials, covering unpaid/short fees, etc.
  5. Venue service changes (10%) and UK VAT (20%) for venue food service

The additional options selected when applying (e.g. accommodation, dinner, training) are not included in the ‘participation fee’.

Participants from Commercial Sector

Campaigning Forum Participants from commercial sector (agencies, freelancers, service providers, consultancies, etc.) are welcome to join the Campaigning Forum if their expertise is of benefit to event participants and their organisations. However there are some constraints on their participation that is aimed to preserve the non-commercial atmosphere of the event, to prevent abuse of the event and to preserve the value of the event for sponsors. Non-sponsoring commercial participants:

  • Cannot provide parallel presentations (30 min) or short-presentations (7-8 min) unless they are invited by the organisers or get the permission of the organisers (who will ask about content and give guidance)
  • Cannot distribute materials to all participants
  • Cannot make announcements of promotions or other incentives to all participants

Commercial participants are free to propose open-space topics on any of the above and beyond. The best way for commercial participants to benefit from participating in the Campaigning Forum in addition to learning from others, is to share their expertise and build one-to-one relationships, through which NGO participants learn what you do and if they need what you can offer.

Sponsorship Policies

Campaigning Forum is organised so it does not rely on sponsorship to be viable. Thus the role of sponsorship is to allow the core event to be extended such as event videos, expert workshops, piloting new streams, etc. Furthermore, to keep NGO participant focused the following sponsorship principles are followed:

  • Sponsors have no automatic right to present. They may present if they having something of value to share (upon advance agreement)
  • Sponsors commercial activity has to be agreed with the Campaigning Forum organisers in advance (e.g. promotions, tables, announcements, distributions)
  • Sponsors have no veto over the agenda or the topics. They may input the agenda like all participants (publicly or privately).