Last updated: January 2025
For many of us, New Unity is a beacon of hope and community in challenging times. With financial support, we can work together to achieve the important goal of building love and justice in our community and our world. Please see below for the many ways you can support New Unity, as well as other local charities.
What is a pledge? A pledge is simply a promise to donate money in the future. Pledges help us to be able to plan for the future. Here at New Unity, making an annual pledge is typically associated with formalising your commitment to our community by registering as a member for that year. A pledge can be anything from £1 upwards; some people pledge in this region, while others pledge four-figure sums (and everything in between). You can pledge any time of the year, but we especially appreciate you doing so around February/March, so that our trustees are best equipped to plan for the upcoming financial year starting April 1st.
Pledging involves informing us of your intentions, which you can do here, followed by fulfilling your commitment via whatever payment method and cadence is most convenient for you. We provide our bank details in the pledge form because most of our members prefer to set up automatic recurring transfers, but we also accept cheques, card payments and cash. It’s vital to make sure you both fill out the form and make the payment you pledge - if you only send the money without filling out the form, you won’t be counted as a member.
What is a donation? A donation may or may not be the fulfillment of a pledge. Sometimes, people make donations on top of their pledged amount. Or sometimes people don’t want to join as members right now, for a number of reasons, but still want to support New Unity. In this instance, you can make a donation at this link.
What’s the offertory? The offertory is held during every Sunday gathering. A long-held tradition at NU is for collections to be passed on to local external charities.
Offertory donations can be made using the same online form as donations made to New Unity. How do we know which donation is for NU, and which is for the external charity? Any donations sent using that form between 11am and 1pm on Sundays will automatically be passed on to the chosen charities - so if you donate then, you can be confident your donation will reach the right place. You can also donate to the offertory in person using the donation bag or the SumUp machine. If you donate outside of this time slot, New Unity will keep your donation for its own general funds.
-
New Unity has a proud history of building love and justice which stretches back centuries. Mary Wollstonecraft’s influential feminist ideals were born and nurtured within the walls of our Meeting House, and the actions of our ministers and campaigners over the centuries have inspired revolutions and major social change. We’ve campaigned recently on everything from legalising same sex marriage to fighting climate change. We want to take our work of community-building and justice-seeking to the next level, and to be able to fund the staff and the resources required for that. “Justice,” said Cornel West, “is what love looks like in public”. In an age of political and climate uncertainty, we want to make sure that we are doing all we can to make our communities and world as just as possible.
To bring our budget in line with our collective ambitions, we are asking you to share your treasure as generously as you can. New Unity is a democratic organisation, and everyone is free to contribute within their means. No pledge or donation is too big or too small.
Annual membership
Important information about pledging
A pledge is different from a one-off donation. A pledge is a financial commitment to donate a certain sum of money over the course of the financial year.
You can let us know using the pledge support form that you would like to commit to donate a certain amount of money. We need you to update this commitment every year (even if you've joined in a previous year or already have an ongoing Direct Debit set up). You have the option to declare Gift Aid to further support New Unity.
Details...
1) By far the easiest way to tell us about your pledge is to provide your details in the pledge form. This is the form accessed via the "BECOME A MEMBER/PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT" button below. The form further down that says "DONATE TO NEW UNITY TODAY" is used for actually making a donation (one-off or linked to an existing pledge), rather than pledging to donate in the future.
If you cannot use the form you can also email your pledge details to nick@new-unity.org.
2) Your pledged donation(s) can be paid at any time during the 2025-26 financial year, which begins on April 1st 2025. The best way is to pay is in regular installments via Direct Debit or standing order. You will need to fill out the form to renew your pledge and membership for 2025-26, even if you already have an existing Direct Debit or standing order set up, and even if you filled out the form in a previous year.
The bank details appear at the end of the pledge form process online, or are here:
Account name: New Unity
Account Number: 00028377
Sort code: 40-52-40
If it is at all possible for you pay using online or telephone banking, please choose this option. If you would like to send a cheque, please email nick@new-unity.org first; our office isn't staffed every day, so we'll need to co-ordinate times for safe delivery.
3) If you're a UK taxpayer you can consider declaring Gift Aid on your donation. This allows New Unity to claim an extra amount on top of your donation! Details on how to do this, and what it entails, are in the online form.
