2015 Report
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Introduction to the 2015 report The need Life happens. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes it’s just plain ugly. In order to lead the best lives we can, we all need information and support from time to time. Young people are less likely to use traditional information and support sources than their older counterparts. They still turn to family, friends and teachers when they need advice and help, but research shows they want – and they get – most of their information online. The 16 to 25 year age group is described as being ‘digital by default’. Although the internet can be amazing, it also has masses of unregulated and inaccurate information…
Our response SpunOut.ie was set up to address this gap. We imagine an Ireland where all young people can access the resources and opportunities they need to make the best choices for themselves. We strive to empower them to create positive change in their own lives and in their communities. We want them to be happy, healthy and active. SpunOut.ie is by young people for young people. We offer an online hub of relevant, credible, reliable and independently validated information for the many issues that affect young people, from exams to voting, and from unemployment to relationships – with everything in between. We operate mainly through our website and social media, but we complement that work with a range of offline activities.
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Reflections on 2013 by Owen Brennan Action Panel welcome This year saw SpunOut.ie reach an important milestone as the organisation saw its 10th birthday, making sure it was a very busy year. We said goodbye to members of the Action Panel who left and had who contributed so much to SpunOut. We also welcomed new, energetic volunteers onto the Action Panel and we worked throughout the year, seeking to develop good quality campaigns and build a greater working relationship between the Action Panel and Board. We kicked off the year with a QUIT campaign to help young people wanting to give up smoking and later launched new, updated editions of the SpunOut.ie Survival Guide. The year also saw some unique campaign ideas enter the fray as staff worked to deliver successful information campaigns on the topics of sleeping, eating well and, listening. The year also saw two referendums on marriage equality and the age of presidential candidates. On the advice of the Action Panel, SpunOut.ie sought to be a neutral player in both referendums, opting instead to encourage young people to vote and ensuring they had access to impartial information when deciding how to vote. These referendums created the opportunity for SpunOut.ie run a voter helpdesk, which saw staff and volunteers answer questions from young people regarding the voting process and the referendums on the day before voting and on the day of voting itself. The end of the 2015 saw us celebrate the organisation’s 10th birthday. In addition, a new version of the website was launched, which was designed in consultation with a range of young people to ensure it was accessible and easy to navigate. SpunOut.ie received its one millionth visit of 2015 just a few days after its launch. We also said goodbye to John Buckley, our Youth Engagement Office who had been with SpunOut since 2012. John worked to establish the Action Panel and brought volunteers into the core of the organisation, something we look forward to continuing into 2016 and beyond.
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on 2013 AReflections welcome from Ian This year was always going to be special, given that we would celebrate our 10th Birthday in 2015, but we could never have expected to have such an exciting and impactful 12 months. We kicked off the year as usual with a number of health campaigns (smoking cessation and healthy eating) run in partnership with the Health Services Executive (HSE). In February we partnered with our good friends at Twitter to launch our Online Safety Hub, a set of easy guides to safety, security and privacy online. The event was hosted at Twitter’s EMEA HQ in Dublin, and DJ Dave Cronin, YouTuber Melanie Murphy and then Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin T.D. all participated in the launch. In April, we ran a campaign to help educate our readership about how important a good night’s sleep is for our physical and mental health. We tried our best to encourage our readers to get out and vote in the marriage equality referendum in May and were delighted to see so many young people engage. We also received the very happy news in May that our animation series #DitchTheMonkey won the European Health Share Jury Prize Award for the most creative and innovative healthcare web communication in 2014. We had record traffic to the site in the second quarter with over 300,000 visits. But it was a bittersweet moment because, at the same time, we said goodbye to two brilliant staff members; Niamh and Alan. We received delivery of the second edition of the ‘SpunOut.ie Survival Guide’ in June and we quickly shipped the 6,000 copies to young people, youth groups, schools and mental health services all around the country. The team spent the Summer months preparing for our busy start to the academic year. We supported and signposted Leaving Cert students to supportive content around exam time and we heard from readers who were going through the experience.
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In September we marked International Suicide Prevention Day and launched our ‘Eat Well, Feel Well’ healthy eating campaign. We saw another increase in readers, up considerably on the same period last year. Our readers also became further engaged; not only are they coming in higher numbers, they are also spending more time on the site consuming more information. It is fair to say the last three months of the year at SpunOut.ie made it the busiest quarter we’ve had in over two years. In October, we ran our new ‘Listening is Helping’ campaign to help friends of those who might be experiencing mental distress. The campaign was welcomed as a much needed initiative to empower friends and family responding to the increasing numbers of young people reaching out for help. We also celebrated our 10th birthday of the organisation in November with a huge party hosted by our partner Facebook at their Dublin HQ. We were joined by lots of friends and supporters on the night where we heard the founding story of SpunOut.ie, launched our Youth Health Report for 2015, and marked a visitor milestone for hitting 1 million visits in 2015, the first time the site ever exceeded a million hits in a single calendar year. The then Minister for Health Leo Varadkar T.D. also joined us on the night to unveil our brand new website design which has massively improved the reader experience, and increased the accessibility and speed of the site. All in all, it’s been an important and eventful year for SpunOut.ie - here’s to 2016 being even bigger and better! Ian Power, Executive Director.
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New Website Minister Leo Varadkar launched our new website for SpunOut.ie at our 10th birthday party in Facebook in November. We had three aims with the new site; to improve the reader experience, to make it more accessible and to make it load faster. We believe we have achieved all three of our aims and we’re so happy with our new look. We’ve always prided ourselves on providing easy access to relevant, reliable, and non-judgemental information and our new website will be able to provide our readers with an even more dynamic, responsive experience full of up-to-date, factual information, free of any shame or bias which is vitally important to our 80,000 monthly readers. The new site was designed and built in-house by our web developer Cian O’Mahony.
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SpunOut.ie 10th Anniversary Since 2005, SpunOut.ie has provided information designed to inform young people in Ireland about the importance of holistic wellbeing and how good health can be maintained, both physically and mentally. We’re incredibly proud to be celebrating our 10th birthday particularly as we marked another milestone the week of our Birthday SpunOut.ie recorded its 1 millionth visitor in 2015. This is the first time the site has ever clocked over a million visits in a calendar year and is further evidence of how more and more young people are choosing to inform themselves and engage with their peers online. In the last 10 years we’ve seen a lot of changes in the issues facing Ireland’s young people. SpunOut.ie is committed to continuing to provide young people with a space to have their questions answered, receive advice from other readers with lived experiences and to share their views with the SpunOut.ie community.
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#SpunOut10 Event On November 2nd, we held SpunOut.ie’s 10th birthday celebration at Facebook HQ. The board, action panel and team went above and beyond to deliver another spectacular event to mark the milestone. Over 150 people attended the event and it was wonderful to see so many old - and new - friendly faces there. As usual, our young volunteers were the stars of the show, in particular Action Panel members Ryan, Aine, and volunteer Kelly. Tara Flynn was a superb MC and Facebook were wonderful hosts. We were particularly grateful to have our founder Ruairi McKiernan there to share the founding story of SpunOut.ie and to have so many other old friends there to reminisce about their involvement with the organisation over its ten year history. It was a real honour for us to have the Minister for Health speak at the event. A number of senior managers from the HSE, Department of Health officials and representatives of Atlantic Philanthropies from New York and Dublin were in attendance to help us celebrate. Media coverage of the event was extensive with features on RTE News, RTE TwoTube, Spin1038, SpinSW, Silicon Republic and in the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner and Irish Mirror. The event also trended on Twitter in Ireland for the whole evening and prompted hundreds of messages of goodwill from advocates, supporters and partner organisations. We also received a donation of €5,000 from the Atlantic Philanthropies Employee Designated Gift Fund after the event in recognition of our achievements. This gift covered the cost of the event and we’re incredibly grateful to them for their support over the last six years. 8 8
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Reflections on 2013 The Year in Review January
2015
February
2015
March
2015
We launched our annual Quit Smoking campaign in association with the HSE
We launched our Online Safety Hub in partnership with Twitter
We sent the second edition of our much demanded book the ‘SpunOut.ie Survival Guide’ to print
April
May
May
2015
We launched our ‘Sleep Happy’ campaign in association with #LittleThings and the HSE
2015
We ran a voter registration and information campaign in the run up to the Marriage Equality Referendum
2015
Broadcaster Chris Donoghue begins his term as Chairperson of SpunOut.ie
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July
2015
The entire staff team attend a pilot HSE health inequalities training
October
2015
We support the launch of the HSE’s sexual health strategy
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August
2015
Leaving Cert & CAO results and the annual student accommodation hunt see SpunOut.ie take to the radio and TV airwaves for two weeks to provide information to young people
November
2015
We celebrate our 10th birthday at a party in Facebook
September
2015
We launched our Eat Well, Feel Well healthy eating campaign and ‘recipe generator’ search tool
December
2015
We record the busiest year for SpunOut.ie ever with almost 1.2m visits, almost 900,000 readers and 1.8m pages of information consumed
Reflections What people on said2013 about us in 2015 In 2015 Spun Out celebrated its 10th Birthday. We celebrated in Facebook HQ and #SpunOut10 was a top trend on twitter. We also started using Snapchat to great effect in our campaigns.
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 How we did in 2015
Our readers in 2015 This year saw the single biggest surge in traffic to the website in its history, with 350,000 more visits than the previous year (representing a 43% increase in traffic). This gain was due to several factors but mosly the increase in high quality content being produced by our editorial team and media producer, as well as our increased efficiencies and budget for promotion of our social content. This was combined with an improvement in our user experience in November with the launch of our newly redesigned website.
1.178m
543%
website visits
1.53
619%
31%
pages per visit
1.8m
pages views
34,373 hours on site
5198%
642%
Traffic sources
mobile share 539%
889k unique users
bounce rate
515%
54%
549%
31% 28% 28% 7% 4% 2% Google Adwords
Google Search
Direct
Referral
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Social media in 2015 It was a great year for SpunOut’s social media presence. After the departure of our communications officer in May, the editorial team took on the task of distributing our content through our social media channels. The team have spent a lot of time developing the audiences and improving the targeting of our content to ensure young people are getting content they want and need. The increase in video views has tripled since 2014 thanks to native video uploading and greater viewership of our multimedia content on social media.
32%
14
5170%
of readers came from social media
87%
12% 1% twitter
other
32,650 followers
14,992 followers
58,090 views
331,550 visits to site
45,459 visits to site
109,804 mins viewed
7,062 new likes
15,651 retweets/favs
964 subs
3,462 new followers
34 new videos
up 130
Editorial in 2015 Once again it was a busy year for the editorial team with successful campaigns on mental health, smoking, healthy eating, sleep and sexual health. Our “Listening is Helping” campaign gave young people simple listening skills to support their friends or family members in reaching out for help. Meanwhile our “Sleep Happy” campaign challenged young people to look at their sleeping habits and ways they could improve their sleep quality. We also launched our Online Safety hub in partnership with Twitter which provides young people with the information about keeping themselves safe online.
519 pieces of content were created in 2015:
230 opinion articles
Top Ten of 2015
137
70
41
27
14
34
health and lifestyle articles
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
homepage campaigns
news articles
Sample Cover Letter Social Smoking Student Grants Student Accommodation Impress with a snazzy CV
politics articles
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
employment articles
videos
Your rights and the GardaÍ Finding a job STI gum clinics in Ireland Work Rights Sexting 15
Youth engagement in 2015 Dublin Cork
16
39
outreach events
2,461
young people reached
1,176
young people consulted
 Projects in 2015 17
Quit Campaign In collaboration with the HSE’s Quit campaign we worked on a targeted quit smoking campaign for young people. The campaign focused on things like social smoking and how prevalent it has become for young people to smoke on night’s out, yet not identify as a smoker. To tackle this issue, we developed content and a new video to dispel any myths around the topic as well as highlighting effective and practical ways to deal with smoking triggers.
60,142
3,317
6
page views
18
video views
3
new opinions
new factsheets
Outreach will be completed in 2016
Quit campaign was featured on three iRadio Healthy Living Bulletins
Survival Guide to Life Update SURVIVAL RVIVAL GUIDE SU
GUIDE
to life
Since being published in April 2014, we have now distributed over 10,000 copies. In April of 2015 we got our second print run of 6,000 copies and fully sold out in six months. The second edition added even more great content to our book. Readers have especially loved the fact that we ship copies for free. Also our digital versions of the book are doing really well with 1,200 ebooks downloaded and the PDF has 16,000 views. We plan on having a third print run in 2016 so watch this space. MARIE DUFFY & TRICIA PURCELL
10,000
16,065
1,200
pre-book
paperback copies shipped
pdf views
kindle & iBooks copies distributed
now taking orders for the third print run
You can pre-order the book now for free at www.SpunOut.ie/Guide It’s also available in Paperback, and on Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad/Mac and Android. 19
Online Safety Hub
The online safety hub was developed as a one stop shop for the vast amount of online safety content on SpunOut.ie. The project involved developing new information as well as refreshing some of our existing content. A new landing page was developed to host all the content and provide a cleaner, more engaging manner of discovering content. The project was launched in the Twitter European headquarters on February 2nd and was attended by Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD. The content was audited throughout the year to ensure it reflected any updates or new safety features available.
page views
attended our launch at the Twitter HQ
pieces of content
worked with partners to fact check content
34,784
50
33
6
Media Coverage
Tweet from TD Frances Fitzgerald,
FM 104, iRadio, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Newstalk FM, Northern Side FM, Shannonside FM, Spin 1038 & Today FM.
“Lots of useful information on @SpunOut Online Safety Hub - important to stay safe on the internet and when using apps. #SID2015”
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Sleep Happy Campaign SpunOut.ie’s sleep campaign focused on helping young people get a better night’s sleep to boost overall wellbeing. We distributed sleep guides, published content, videos and a new sleep quiz on the website. Almost 1,200 readers completed our sleep assessment quiz as part of the campaign.
27,940 page views
21
3
273
1,694
sleep articles
colleges visited
sms sleep tips sent
completed the online sleep quiz
400
young people engaged through outreach
“Going to sleep and waking up at the same time is hard, but all for better sleep #ZZZchallenge @ SpunOut #sleepchallenge” @K_Doughy
“Want to Sleep Happy? @JohnDaveBuckley from @SpunOut joins us next about their #ZZZchallenge” @spin1038 21
Voter Registration and helpdesk
During the two referendums in May, SpunOut.ie joined forces with the USI to encourage young people to register to vote, ensure they had the info they needed to make up their minds and that they were given the space to have their say on the referendum topics. SpunOut.ie offered online and phone support to first time and young voters on referendum day to help with a range of questions.
trending
28,000
+ 1,000
#VoterRegDay ended up trending on Twitter
page views on voting content since campaign
additional young people registered to vote
“So #MarRef + #PresRef weeks away, be sure to register to vote by 5/5. www.spunout.ie/vote #voterregday” @DesBishop 22
“Tomorrow is @SpunOut “Deadline to register to vote is #voterregday Check it out- make MAY 5TH. If you’re a new voter or sure you can vote in #marref & changing your address, get on it! #presref www.spunout.ie/vote” www.spunout.ie #VoterRegDay” @TaraFlynn @UnaMullally
Eat Well, Feel Well When young people move into independent living it can be hard to build and maintain healthy eating habits. SpunOut.ie’s ‘Eat Well, Feel Well’ campaign focused on helping young people make quick, easy and healthy food to fill and fuel.
83,753 page views
48
2,112
203
4
healthy recipes created
video views
sms with healthy tips sent
universities and colleges visited
250
young people engaged through outreach
“Great job on the #EatWellFeelWell campaign! Brilliant tips on eating safely, healthily & on a budget .” @the_isha
“Super happy to know my food blog is doing well for #EatWellFeelWell campaign. Join in too!.” @Ryan_Mangan 23
Leaving Cert and Exams
Every year our exam support and results content is very popular among students in both secondary and third level education. This year we created more written and video content than ever before. This content went down extremely well with readers and will be an asset to SpunOut.ie all year long.
10,330
11
1
10
page views on SpunOut.ie
pieces of content factsheets for the campaign
new video new video for campaign
opinion pieces opinion from young people pieces
10,330 views on content
11
1
10
We were also featured on Ireland AM and Spin 103.8 to discuss the campaign and speak about the pressures young people felt at this time of year. 24
Listening is helping For our Listening is helping campaign we wanted to try a new approach to a mental health awareness campaign and focus on listening instead of the usual tips on talking about mental health. We took our inspiration from the National Office of Suicide Prevention’s Little Thing’s campaign ‘Lending an ear is lending a hand’, and from the young people who use the website. We worked in collaboration with the Samaritans to publish factsheets, and peer-to-peer advice and videos to educate young people in active listening skills.
11,334
4
11
page views
new videos
new factsheets
5
new opinion pieces
“Love this new @SpunOut animation for their #ListeningIsHelping campaign, some ideas worth bearing in mind!” - @SarahKEB 25
 All about our team
Our people In 2015 we said goodbye to a number of dedicated and talented people. In April, we made the position of office manager redundant and sadly said goodbye to Niamh Farrell who had held the post for four years up to that point. Niamh is a wonderful and caring person who is hugely missed by the rest of the team. It is no exaggeration to say that without Niamh’s contribution to the organisation SpunOut.ie would not exist as it does today and the team and directors would like to sincerely thank Niamh for her major contribution over her four years of service. In May, the board of directors appointed broadcaster Chris Donoghue to succeed long time board member Mark Keane as chairperson of Community Creations, the legal entity controlling SpunOut.ie. The board would like to thank Mark for his unwavering committment to SpunOut.ie and for his energetic and wise leadership of the organisation for 18 months prior to his departure. Mark joined the board through his involvement with Atlantic Philanthropies and brought a unique perspective to the organisation. We wish him and his family all the best. In June, we said goodbye to our talented communications officer Alan O’Mara who left us to take up opportunities elsewhere and to spend the summer in the United States. Alan has since wrote a book and founded a new organisation; RealTalks.ie - we wish him every success with his new venture. We really miss Alan’s Spotify playlisting skills; the man knows how to get an office in the mood for the weekend. We do not, however, miss Alan & John’s version of #LadBantz. And that bring us to our last staff departure for the year, when we bid farewell to our passionate and brilliant youth engagement officer John Buckley in November 2015. John spent the last three years expertly building up SpunOut.ie’s capacity to engage with young people and he leaves a strong foundation from which this work continues to grow. John was instrumental in embedding a culture of putting the reader first in SpunOut.ie and for that the directors are hugely grateful. We wish him the best of luck in his new career at Facebook.
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Our Staff
Ian Power
Executive Director
John Buckley
Deputy Director / Youth Engagement (Left in November)
Marie Duffy Editor
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Tricia Purcell
Cian O'Mahony
Acting Editor/Staff Writer
Web Designer/Developer
Jack Deacon
Claire O'Dowd
Multimedia Producer
Communications & Outreach Officer (Joined in December)
Niamh Farrell Office Manager (Left in April)
Oisin McKenna Staff Writer
Alan O'Mara Communications (Left in June)
Our Board of Directors
Chris Donoghue
Siobhan Cassidy Treasurer
Chair of the Board
Anita Butt
Kirsten Connolly
Paul Anders Resigned 2015
Celine Doyle
Vice Chair Joined April 2016
Sorcha Cusack Resigned 2016
NIamh O'Brien Joined March 2016
Catherine Falvey
Joe O'Connor
Company Seretary
Martyn Rosney Resigned 2016
Pedro Ecija Serrano
Anne-Marie O'Sullivan Resigned 2015
Olive Fogarty
Amy McArdle
Mark Keane Resigned 2015
Owen Brennan
Joined March 2016
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Our Action Panel
Aaron Harper
Aine O'Connell
Avril Clarke
Bebhinn Wynn Judge
Claire McCallion
Clara Barry
Declan Meenagh
Domhnaill Harkin
Elizabeth MacBride
Eoin Corbett
Erin Brightwood
Gregg Kelly
James Bohan
Jennifer Akandu
Katie McDougall
Kevin McGowan
Lariane Costa Ramos
Michael White
Niamh Herbet
Owen Brennan
Patrycja Koszczuk
Sarah Bermingham
Sorcha Cusack
Zoe-Louise Cummins
Roybn Gilmore
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Ryan Mangan
Our volunteers Without volunteers, SpunOut.ie would not serve its mission of being "by young people, for young people". Volunteers ensure that SpunOut.ie remains relevant and reaches more young people across the country. Volunteers undertook a number of roles.
Editorial Volunteers
Editorial Volunteers
Action Panel
152 editorial volunteers were involved in creating over 200 pieces of content for SpunOut.ie's opinion section as well as youth proofing over 600 factsheets.
Campaign volunteers support SpunOut.ie at outreach and events ensuring that more young people know about our work.
The SpunOut.ie Action Panel is a core part of SpunOut.ie and ensures that young people are at the core of decision making in the organisation. In 2015 there were 26 action panel members
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Awards and prizes
We were deighted to win a Health Share jury prize in July, for our 'Ditch The Monkey' series.
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ďƒ– Our finances 33
Our finances for 2015 In 2015, the company was principally funded by grants received from the HSE (Health and Wellbeing division and the National Office for Suicide Prevention) and from the Scheme to Support National Organisations funded by the Department of Environment, Community & Local Government which is administered by Pobal. We also saw an increase in donations up to €42,377 from €19,053 in 2014. This represents significant growth in the fundraising activities that we instigated back in 2013, as well as the outcome of a successful 10th anniversary birthday event in Facebook in October 2015. The figure of €95k in the accounts from The Atlantic Philanthropies represents the final payment from our final grant from the limited life foundation. We did a lot of work in 2015 to secure replacement funding following the exit of The Atlantic Philanthropies programme in addition to prudent cost management. As a result the organisation returned from a negative net asset position at the end of 2014 back to a positive net asset figure of €23,132. The Profit & Loss report is showing a surplus of €23,024 at the end of 2015 (up from a deficit of €235,753 at the end of 2014). We hope to build on this positive financial position in 2016. As always, we are committed to finding other diversified resources through statutory, philanthropic and fundraising sources. We are really grateful for the support of our funders, donors, fundraisers and to those who attended our fundraising events, whose efforts and kindness help us deliver our service to young people in Ireland in 2015.
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34
Statement of financial activities Note
Unrestricted Funds 2015
Income from: Charitable activities
Restricted Funds 2015
Total Funds 2015
Total Funds 2014
421,696
322,400
w 3
315,824
105,872
42,377
-
42,377
19,053
358,201
105,872
464,073
341,453
323,253
105,872
429,125
569,361
10,730
-
10,730
4,845
1,014
-
1,014
3,000
334,997
105,872
440,869
577,106
Net income / (expenditure)
23,204
-
23,204
(235,753)
Net movement in funds
23,204
-
23,204
(235,753)
(72)
-
(72)
235,681
23,132
-
23,132
(72)
Donations Total Income
Expenditure on: Charitable activities Governance Cost of generating funds
5
Total expenditure
Reconciliation of funds: Total funds at 1 January 2015 Total funds at 31 December 2015
All activities relate to continuing operations.
35
35
Balancing sheet Note
2015 â‚Ź
Fixed assets Tangiable assets
7
2014 â‚Ź 6,330
6,639
6,330
6,639
Current assets Debtors: amounts falling due within one year
8
2,565
6,299
Cash at bank and in hand
9
91,634
111,714
94,199
118,013
(77,397)
(124,724)
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
10
Net current assets
16,802
(6,711)
Total assets less current liabilities
23,132
(72)
Net Assets
23,132
(72)
-
-
Unrestricted funds
23,132
(72)
Members' funds
23,132
(72)
Reserves Restricted funds
The financial statements were approved and authorised for ussie buy the board.
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 What we learned 37
Some of the things we learned in 2015 1. Our people are our strength In 2015, we not only said goodbye to key staff, but we also welcomed broadcaster Chris Donoghue as our new Chairperson following the retirement of long time board member Mark Keane. Our new board members settled into their appointments as directors of the organisation, our action panel said goodbye to Declan and Avril (two long serving members) and our new editorial staff members grew in confidence and the whole team grew in skill. We’ve always known how important our people are to the success of SpunOut.ie but it’s a point worth remembering and restating. Our organisation relies hugely on the passionate and expert advice from our action panel and our board. Their advice supports the small staff team to confidently overcome any challenges and to work hard to deliver the incredible list of campaigns and projects delivered in 2015. We really miss Niamh, Mark, Alan and John - but the organisation will always continue to evolve and adapt. As a small community, such big changes to the people involved is a risk to the contuniuty of the SpunOut.ie way, spirit and ethos. To safeguard against this, in late 2015 we began to develop a Theory of Change for SpunOut.ie to firmly restate our collective values and purpose.
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2. We’ve come a long way In this, the year of our 10th birthday, it was a great opportunity to reflect on the distance travelled by the organisation since the founders started SpunOut.ie in 2005. It was a wonderful occassion when the whole SpunOut.ie family - old and new - joined us for our birthday bash at Facebook in November. The newer members of the community were fascinated to hear about the early days and the challenges overcome to bring SpunOut.ie to where it is today. This made the new board even more determined to chart a decisive course for SpunOut.ie over the next three years to 2019 as they began the process to develop a new organisational strategy to be launched in Spring 2017. We need to be bold in coming up with innovative ways to respond to the ever changing needs of the young people we serve. It was so interesting to hear how SpunOut.ie was a ground-breaking initiative when it began, and I think that has caused the community to reflect on what we need to do to remain as relevant, responsive and innovative as the project was back in 2005. Central to this process is hearing from our community and an extensive stakeholder consultation is planned to inform our new strategy.
3. The limitations on our ability to respond In 2015, probably more than ever, we recognised how important a sustainable, multi-annual funding stream is to the organisation’s ability to respond to the needs of the young people we serve. In the last year, we’ve seen a massive spike in our readership, a corresponding rise in demand for new information 39
and video content, and an increasingly desperate call for more help and support. Our team is very small, and they deliver way beyond what is asked of them, but it is tough to know there is more we could do - if we only had the resources to be able to do it. At the moment the organisation is still making progress in replacing the philanthropic funding programme which helped maintain the organisation for the past seven years. In 2016, we’ll hopefully complete this task. But our ability to respond to that greater need will rely on the further diversification of our funding streams and our ability to attract sustainable, secure, multi-annual funding. This would allow us to bring in the human power to create more information, devise more personalised ways of targeting that information to the people who need it, and provide a deeper level of support and signposting than we are currently able to deliver. We need to challenge ourselves to better communicate the impact of our work if we are to be successful. In late 2015 we began work on a measurement framework to structure a consistent way to demonstrate our reach and the difference we are making to our beneficiaries; our young readers. Measuring success is just the first step, the most important part is telling people about your success and by the end of 2016 we hope to have made huge improvements in how we do this. Making a better case for support is the only way we’ll secure sustainable, multi-annual funding to be able to respond to the needs of our young readers. We know what we have to do. Hopefully, the next twelve months will see us succeed in doing it.
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Transparency and Governance Overview At SpunOut.ie we are very open about our performance, income, spending, governance and leadership. Our vision is to empower young people in Ireland to live happy and healthy lives and our mission is to provide an Irish online information hub written by young people for young people. We believe we should be 100% transparent and accountable to our readers, donors, funders and the public as to how SpunOut.ie is governed. Our board is made of up of passionate people who either work with young people or are experts in necessary fields to ensure the good governance of the organisation. The one thing they all have in common is a desire to see the young people of Ireland prosper. Similarly, our Action Panel (a group of 30 young people from around Ireland) play a pivotal role in our governance structure to ensure our messages stay relevant to the people we serve.
Performance In 2015, SpunOut.ie recorded 889,000 readers making 1,178,000 visits to the site and consuming 1,800,000 pages of information.
Expenditure In simple terms, it cost approximately 50c per reader to run the SpunOut.ie service in 2015. Around 72% of this was spent on staff related costs. As an information hub, our main cost is employing the people to keep it full of content, to run the campaigns to inform and build awareness, and to advertise our service to new readers. 41
Transparency and Governance Income Last year (2015), we spent €440,869 of an income of €464,073. • HSE €190,800 (42%) • Atlantic Philanthropies €95,000 (21%) • Department of Environment, Community & Local Government administered by Pobal €69,533 (15.5%) • NOSP ‘yourmentalhealth.ie’ €46,364 (10%) • Donations €42,377 (9%) • Sponsorship & Funding €10,999 (2.5%)
Audited Accounts SpunOut.ie is a registered trading name and project of Community Creations Limited. SpunOut.ie is currently the only project being run by Community Creations Limited. Our audited annual accounts for the year end 31/12/15 can be downloaded on our website at SpunOut.ie/About You can also review our profile on both Benefacts.ie and CharitiesRegulatoryAuthority.ie for further information.
Staff Salaries No staff member at SpunOut.ie earned over €50,000 per annum (inclusive of pension, health insurance etc.) or under €25,000 per annum in 2015. The Executive Director was paid a total (gross) of €50,000 in 2015. 42
Transparency and Governance Board Members All board members are entitled to be refunded for vouched expenses associated with attending the six annual board meetings. The total cost of running our board meetings came to €726 in 2015. Our board members are donors to SpunOut.ie.
Funders Our main funders in 2015 were the Health Service Executive, the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Department of the Environment, Community & Local Government (through Pobal). The Health Service Executive has funded the work of SpunOut.ie with a Section 39 grant every year since our foundation in 2004. In 2015 this grant totalled €190,800; half of which came from the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) and remainder from HSE’s Health & Wellbeing Directorate. The Atlantic Philanthropies has granted a total of €880,000 to SpunOut.ie over the period 2009 - 2013 with a further grant of €220,000 to the organisation for the period 2014 (€130,000) - 2015 (€90,000). We received an additional €5,000 from the Atlantic Philanthropies Employee Designated Gift Fund in November 2015.
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Transparency and Governance Governance Code For the purposes of the Governance Code, Community Creations is a 'Type B' organisation and the board certified compliance with the Governance Code for 'Type B' organisations in 2013. The board, however, wished to obtain the 'gold standard' in compliance by completing the actions required of 'Type C' or large organisations and certified compliance with the Governance Code for ‘Type C’ organisations in 2016.
Statement of Fundraising Principles We are signatories of the Statement of Fundraising Principles. Our donor charter and signed declaration can be viewed on our website at SpunOut.ie/about
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Transparency and Governance Complaints Here at SpunOut.ie we take your feedback seriously, especially complaints. If you do have a comment about any aspect of our work, including fundraising, you can contact Community Creations Ltd. in writing or by telephone. In the first instance, your correspondence will be dealt with by our Executive Director 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. Write to: Executive Director Community Creations Ltd. t/a SpunOut.ie Sean MacBride House 48 Fleet Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 6753554 Email: info@spunout.ie We are open Monday to Friday from 09.30 am to 5.30 pm. Where the Community Creations Limited’s procedure for complaints relating to fundraising activities becomes exhausted without satisfaction to the complainant, the next level of the complaints procedure is directed to the Monitoring Group of the Statement of Guiding Principles for Fundraising. You can email the group at audit@spunout.ie Any and all matters of illegality will be addressed immediately to An Garda Síochána. 45
See you in 2016! 46
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