About Us

About Us

Uplift is a people powered campaigning community of over 340,000 people who take coordinated action for progressive change across Ireland. 

We are a self-supporting independent organisation. We believe that when we work together towards a common goal we can create a better society.

We know that people are not apathetic but desire engagement in our democracy. People want to have a say in decisions that determine the type of society that we live in. By connecting with each other we will help to create a stronger, more powerful voice and have much broader impact.

Campaigns are informed by our shared values; to promote social justice, to defend fairness, protect our rights, preserve the planet and to deepen democracy. Using digital tools and a variety of campaigning strategies, our members participate and take action to advance Uplift campaigns.

Uplift is run by a small team of volunteers and staff experienced in social justice campaigning. The Board of Directors advises and supports the core team.

Uplift is completely independent and not aligned to any political or corporate interests.

People

Staff Team

Siobhan O’Donoghue

Executive Director

Siobhán is a community worker and social justice activist for many years. Her experience ranges from community and youth work, to national policy advocacy and campaigning. She has a particular interest in economic justice, women’s equality, anti-racism, and workers rights. From 2002 to 2014, Siobhán was the Director of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland. In 2012, Siobhán completed an M.A. in Applied Social Studies in NUI Maynooth. Prior to qualifying as a community and youth worker, she trained to be a nurse. In 2010 she was awarded the Captain Cathal Ryan Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship.

[email protected]

Brian Cuthbert

Director of Campaigns & Technology

Brian joined the team in March 2022 as Director of Campaigns & Technology. He works closely with the Campaigns team to make sure that Uplift are effective at what we do. Brian has spent years campaigning on Democracy and Climate Justice issues with a number of different grassroots organisations. He is also a certified project manager with experience in management consulting and software engineering. Outside of campaigning Brian’s hobbies include GAA, MMA, a little bit of coding and music.

[email protected]

Alex Barton

Fundraising and Member Support Coordinator

Alex joined the Uplift team after having volunteered on the Member Support Team for a number of years. Alex is a mother of three and her background is in digital marketing, PR and event management. Alex grew up in Kenya where she was involved in NGO work in healthcare and education. Since living in Ireland Alex has campaigned for the provision of services and medication for people with Cystic Fibrosis as well as Repeal the 8th campaign.

[email protected]

Nicola Browne

Act Now Co-Ordinator: Northern Ireland

Nicola Browne is the Project Coordinator at Act Now.
Nicola has been a social justice activist for many years & has worked on issues including refugee & asylum rights, penal law & economic and social rights. Nicola founded Participation and the Practice of Rights organisation in Belfast.
Nicola is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics and a Fellow with The Social Change Initiative’s Leadership for Social Justice and Peace in Northern Ireland programme.
She holds both an LLB (Hons) degree from the University of Dundee and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham.
Nicola tweets at @nicolajbrowne

[email protected]

Caroline Reapy

Graphic Design Intern

Caroline is a recently appointed member of the Uplift team. Her placement here is towards a BA in Design. Previous to her current studies at ATU, Caroline has gathered an array of experiences whilst travelling parts of the world. She has since developed a strong sense of values relative to fairness and equality.

[email protected]

Yusuf Murray

Communications

A culchie-exiled-in-Dublin, Yusuf joined the Uplift team with responsibility for comms in September 2022. A mature law student at Trinity, he has a decade of experience in comms, research and community organising in the third sector. Having lived, worked and studied on three continents, he believes the biggest lesson he has learnt is that humans always have more that unites than divides them. He is particularly interested in the interface of social justice, law and technology. Outside of work and studies, he keeps himself busy with hurling, football, baking, and anything and everything geeky.

[email protected]

Saoirse McHugh

Campaigner

Saoirse McHugh is from Achill Island off the west coast and has spent years campaigning on environmental issues with different grassroots groups. She is particularly interested in agriculture, land, and the power dynamics embedded within those. She has been involved in many different anti-racism campaigns and volunteers doing english conversation classes with people seeking asylum and people with refugee status. She holds a Msc in sustainable agriculture and food security. Hobbies include gardening, tree planting, and cooking.

[email protected]

Jacob Sosinsky

Junior Campaigner

Jacob joined the Team in February 2023 as a Junior Campaigner. He is focusing on MyUplift and empowering members to create and run their petitions.
Jacob is studying Community Development and Youth Work with Equal Ireland, as well as Sustainable Development Goals with ATU. He is an LGBTQ+ and climate activist. Jacob has experience in empowering communities, leading training and workshops, communication as well as IT and business. He is an active volunteer in Youth and Climate organizations.
Outside of work and volunteering, he is a proud father of 2 cats - Kitty and Dixie.

[email protected]

Board Members

Photo of Evgeny Shtorn

Evgeny Shtorn

Director

Evgeny Shtorn is a writer, activist, and researcher from St Petersburg. Due to his involvement in civil society work he was forced to leave Russia in 2018. In 2019, he was granted international protection in the Republic of Ireland. He works as a Social and Cultural Diversity Consultant collaborating with different universities and NGO’s. He co-facilitated a project with people seeking asylum 'Something From There' in the National Gallery of Ireland. Evgeny’s writing has been published in academic journals, anthologies and new media outlets in Russia, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Ireland. As an activist, he has been involved in human rights and LGBT advocacy for almost two decades. He is a co-founder of Queer Diaspora Ireland, an initative that supports LGBT people in direct provision. In 2019 he was awarded the Inclusion award by Galway Community Pride. In 2020, Shtorn was awarded the GALAs Person of the Year by the National LGBT Federation of Ireland (NXF). He is also a member of the board of directors of Dublin Pride.

Photo of Bruce Clarke

Bruce Clark

Secretary

Bruce is a fundraising manager and consultant with over 30 years of experience in direct marketing for NGOs. He is very driven by results and learning from analysis and adaptation from other markets and enjoys working for causes such as international development, peace, human rights and the environment. He brought together a consortium of charities to create The Good Form, the Irish Charities Taxback campaign. Bruce is also a keen mountain-hiker and have, in a voluntary capacity, completed fundraising challenges such as Amnesty Trek Scotland, Oxfam Trailtrekker, Barretstown Dublin Mountains Challenge and Dublin & Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team’s Walk The Line.

Photo of Fatima Halawa

Fatima Halawa

Director

Fatima Halawa, is a filmmaker, social justice activist and youth facilitator. She has completed an MA in Contemporary Screen Industry with DCU and has a Digital Creative Media qualification from DIT.

Photo of Jon Lloyd

Jon Lloyd

Director

Jon has been involved in campaigning, fundraising and marketing for the last 13 years. He is one of the world’s top digital fundraising and campaigning experts, having honed his craft in digital-first organisations. He’s passionate about sharing his knowledge with as many people as possible to raise standards in the nonprofit sector to increase our impact. Jon has a true global outlook, having won campaigns and raised tens of millions of Euros in nearly every country in the world for human rights, healthcare, advocacy and campaigning, education, hospitals, and community organisations. He currently lives in London, UK, via New Zealand and Canada.

Photo of Anna Nolan

Anna Nolan

Chairperson

Anna Nolan is from Northern Ireland and has many years supporting organisations with campaign strategy, creative interventions and communications across the world. Anna was the Director of The Syria Campaign from 2014 to 2018, a human rights organisation that supports Syria’s heroes in their struggle for freedom and democracy.

Photo of Bill Abom

Bill Abom

Director

Bill Abom is Deputy Director of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland and an experienced community work practitioner. He was Mandate Trade Union’s Lead Organiser and previously worked with SIPTU. He has a Master’s Degree in Development Studies from Kimmage Development Studies Centre, Dublin and previously served as the Associate Director of Rural & Migrant Ministry, located in New York State, developing and coordinating programmes to support the voices, leadership and actions of migrant farm workers and their families.

Photo of Bex Hay

Bex Hay

Director

Bex is Co-founder and CTO at Organise, a UK organisation that helps empower workers with the tools, support and confidence to improve their working lives. Bex has a background in corporate campaigning and previously worked at ShareAction, mobilising people power to make our financial system fairer. Outside of work Bex is usually watching, playing or talking about cricket.

Photo of Anne Gibney

Anne Gibney

Director

Anne is a graduate of Griffith College and a Fellow of ACCA. She has over 30 years experience of financial management in the NGO and private sector. Anne is the Head of Finance & Operations of the National Women’s Council from 2010 – present and is passionate about women’s equality.

Photo of Marieanne McKeown

Marieanne McKeown

Director

Marieanne is from Northern Ireland and has worked in the social change sector for over 18
years. She is currently Regional Director for Europe with Kids in Need of Defense (KIND),
leading KIND’s work across Europe providing pro bono legal assistance to unaccompanied
and separated migrant children.
Marieanne is a Board member of the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and co-founder of Impact Mavens, which provides coaching and consulting for women and non-profits that want to put well-being at the heart of their impact.

Photo of board member Rory Doherty

Rory Doherty

Director

Rory Doherty is from Northern Ireland and has been working in the field of peace and reconciliation across North and West Belfast for over 15 years. He has dedicated his professional life to empowering the voices of marginalised young people and women in Northern Ireland.
Rory has played an important role in elevating the voices of those who have drawn the ‘short straw’ in the legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict and who could fuel positive change in their society.

In 2018 Rory was awarded with a fellowship with the Social Change Initiative. The fellowship enabled Rory to study and apply models of international good practice for youth-based campaigning. This led to the creation of his storytelling toolkit and website titled, 'Past Present Future Change.' More recently Rory founded ‘Voicing the Void’, a new social enterprise with a vision, ‘To inspire personal and societal change through the power of storytelling.’

How we are Funded

Uplift doesn’t accept money from the Government or big corporations. We are a fivers and tenners movement and rely on the support of our members. In 2021, a large chunk of our funding came from one off and regular member donations as well as small grants from groups such as  The Community Foundation of Ireland, Reset and OPEN. The average member donation is €14. We also partner with bigger organisations like The Simon Community, SumOfUs and Mandate Trade Union to run partner campaigns that Uplift members care about.

Here is a breakdown of our funding in 2021: 

How we spend money

We put a lot of time and effort into running meaningful campaigns for our members and like any organisation we need to keep the lights on and pay things like tax, insurance and audit fees. We keep our costs down where possible and we don’t need lots of money to have impact.

Here’s a breakdown of how we spent money in 2021:

These categories include salary costs. In 2021 Uplift had a team of 8 employees. No one gets paid big bucks but all staff members are paid a decent living wage. Staffing costs include salaries, pensions, working from home allowances and payments to Revenue.

A pie chart of our spending in 2021, showing that we spent 35% of our income on Campaigning, 11 on Community campaigns (MyUplift), 16% on Technology, 15% on Operations and Admin, 13% on Communications and Messaging and 11% on Fundraising and Member Support.

You can view and download our audited accounts here:

Financial Statement and Signed Auditors Report (Year-end Dec 2021)

Directors Report and Financial Statement (Year-end Dec 2020)

Directors Report and Financial Statement (Year-end Dec 2019)

Directors Report and Financial Statement (Year-end Dec 2018)

Directors Report and Financial Statement (June 2016 – Dec 2017)

Directors Report and Financial Statement (May 2015 – April 2016)

Directors’ Report and Financial Statements (June 2014 – April 2015)

You can read a copy of our donations policy here.

Our Values

We believe that:

  • People are not apathetic, but by protecting vested interests and powerful elites, our political system has systematically denied us meaningful opportunities to participate in the vital decisions that critically affect us. This has led to a sense of helplessness and powerlessness.
  • A critical mass of Irish people support the progressive values of equality, justice, and sustainability, and are hungry for accessible, effective, trustworthy ways to advance those values in Ireland.
  • Great change is possible when people come together to take action. It is possible to affect change and influence decision makers, including the political system and big business.
  • Leadership is demonstrated in many forms. Leadership needs to come from the people, be accountable, and be directed towards the common good. A healthy democracy requires the critical engagement of people. Asking questions is one of the most powerful democratic acts we can do.
  • Social justice is about the fair distribution of wealth, resources and privileges within society. Uplift members believe in the right of people to realise their full potential. This includes taking a stand on the rights of low paid workers, progressive taxation, challenging exploitation, access to quality health care, and public services.
  • Uplift members believe that discrimination and prejudice need to be challenged so that everyone can participate fully and equally. This includes taking a stand against racism, sexism, classism, transphobia, ableism, homophobia and biphobia. It also means taking a stand for the rights of communities experiencing economic, social, and political exclusion.
  • Our planet is in extreme danger and Uplift members stand up for protecting our natural resources, including our woodlands, by fighting policies and practices that cause climate change and environmental destruction.

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