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Governance and Funding

We are proud to be primarily funded by members of the public, which keeps us fiercely independent.

We operate on a not-for-profit basis.

Governance & Funding

  • Good Law Project is a private not for profit company limited by guarantee (Company Registration Number 10556197).  You can read our Articles of Association here. Our Code of Conduct is available here. Our assets and funding are used for the benefit of the community and no one in the organisation can be paid more than the annual salary of a backbench UK MP. We maintain a strategic risk register which is reviewed and updated at every board meeting.

  • Good Law Project uses the law to hold power to account, protect the environment and ensure no one is left behind.

  • We use the law to tackle important issues of unlawfulness, wrongdoing and disadvantage. We recognise there are many ways of winning:

    1. We litigate: where the law is being ignored we act.
    2. We campaign: we increase the costs of breaking the law with public pressure.
    3. We empower: we help people to understand and use the law themselves.

    Read more about our work and how we make a difference here.

  • Our areas of work:
    Holding power to account

      • We strengthen and enforce the law against the government and others with power.
      • We fight for transparency, good Government and good governance.

    Protecting the environment

      • We strengthen and enforce the law against those who harm the environment or fail to adequately protect it.
      • We prioritise local geographic areas and natural assets with national significance.

    No-one left behind

      • We help marginalised communities access what the law can do.
      • We support and amplify marginalised voices and communities.

    You can read more about our cases here.

  • Good Law Project is primarily funded by members of the public through regular and one-off donations, as well as crowd-funded donations to cover the costs of specific litigation. We are incredibly grateful to all our supporters without whom we could not continue our work. Regular and one-off donations fund the core costs of our strategic litigation programme, including costs of legal staff who identify and develop our cases. They also cover our general running costs, including our financial management and administration, donor support and fundraising activities.

    For all grants and donations given for specific activities, the Good Law Project takes 10% to cover our core running costs. We are committed to transparency in our finances, and we accept donations and grants in accordance with the donations policy. We are hugely grateful to have received support from Avaaz, Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, Lund Trust, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, Necessity, 38 Degrees, and Dale Vince, CEO of Ecotricity.

    Our accounts for the year to 31 January 2022 can be found here. We publish information about our finances in our annual report each year. Our 2021 annual report is available here.

  • The Good Law Project manages its finances in accordance with policies and procedures approved by its board. We do not exist to generate a profit. We plan to match our expenditure with our income whilst maintaining a reasonable level of reserves to ensure that we are able to respond to opportunities and adapt should we face adverse events.

  • We use monthly and one-off donations to cover the staff and other costs of researching potential cases, developing and progressing our litigation, keeping our donors and supporters updated and communicating more widely about our work, ensuring that our finances are well-managed and controlled and running our organisation. Case-specific donations are used to cover the costs of the relevant litigation, with a modest contribution towards our ongoing core costs. Any case funds remaining after all the litigation costs have been covered are used in accordance with the case details published.

  • Good Law Project is committed to treating its employees fairly, stewarding to the best of its ability the funds generously given by our supporters and operating with transparency. In line with the above, and in recognition of the exceptional cost of living crisis which impacts our team as well as our supporters, we have decided to bring forward our annual pay review. Salaries for the Good Law Project team will therefore be increased in July 2022, rather than October 2022.

    We have conducted extensive market analysis of pay awards and will be making increases of between 4% and 6%, prioritising for higher increases staff who are at the lower end of our pay scale. In addition to the above, we will also be making a flat rate, one-off exceptional cost of living payment to all team members. We believe the above represents a fair, sensible and simple approach, in line with our organisation’s values and our commitment to ensuring that our supporters’ donations are well stewarded.

    We thank all who continue to support Good Law Project: your donations are particularly appreciated at what we know are difficult times for many.

We rely on your support

Good Law Project only exists thanks to donations from people across the UK. We are incredibly grateful to all of our supporters, without whom our work would not be possible.

Every single penny that we receive makes a huge difference to our ability to hold those in power to account and demand a better, fairer future.

If you’re in a position to support our work, you can do so here. Thank you

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