Crowdfunder transparency page

Believe in Scotland is a campaign managed by the pro-independence business group Business for Scotland - when we crowdfund we have two types of donations: public donations and business donations made by Business for Scotland members. 

This allows us to ask business donors to make larger, typically £5k donations as matching funding based on getting matching funding from the public - in this way, people know that when they make a smaller public donation their money is doubled by pulling down matching business donations.  

The public donations are paid into a separate high interest savings account and left there until there is a qualifying campaigning expense. Qualifying campaigning expense examples includes: printing leaflets, paying for staging and audio video at a march and rally, social media advertising and online campaigning costs such as mailing list management, graphic design, merchandising, campaign material distribution cost, posters, indy days of action, billboards etc.

The Business for Scotland donations go towards admin, office costs and equipment wages, as it says on the Crowdfunder and About webpages "Every single penny donated to Believe in Scotland by the public up to £45,000 though our crowdfunder goes directly towards independence campaigning". We hope to match the surplus public donations from the 2024 crowdfunder with matching business donations soon. All payments into and out of the ring fenced account are tracked on a spreadsheet and the Finance Sub Group of the elected BiS National Campaign Steering Group (33 representatives) can request access to the public donations account and the board members of Business for Scotland (8 members) have access to all accounts and receive monthly reports from an independent accountant.

Everything people need to know is published on our website About page and FAQ section here https://www.believeinscotland.org/about

Steering Group representatives are elected by the local Yes Groups in each of our 17 regions (you can see a list of our affiliated groups here). Representatives from national organisations have been chosen internally by the national organisation. You can view the elected members of the National Campaign Steering Group here.

Business for Scotland ltd was audited by OpenDemocracy and received an A grade - the highest grade for financial transparency.  https://www.businessforscotland.com/who-funds-us

Click here to return to the 2024 Crowdfunder page.

Click here to return to the Believe in Scotland About page.