Crowd funding platform to back projects as well as legal challenges

May 9, 2016

The Crowd Justice fundraising platform is to be used for the first time to support a project, rather than an individual legal action.

Crowd Justice has secured backing for a wide range of cases since it was launched in May last year. Cases currently on the website and seeking funding involve attempts to stop:

Haringey Council staging the Wireless Festival and similar major events in Finsbury Park;
The Department for Health imposing the junior doctors’ contract;
Wandsworth Council allowing Battersea Park to be used by Formula E, a car racing series.

In a departure for the platform, Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE) wants to raise funds to run its 'Tackling Discrimination in the East' (TDE) project.

TDE is designed to help people “who are the victim of all kinds of unlawful discrimination; with disability, race and pregnancy the most common types of discrimination”.

So far it has raised £2,275 towards its stretch goal of £5,000. This is intended to fill a gap created after Big Lottery Funding stopped at the end of March this year. The organisation is through to the second stage of its bid for another three years’ worth of funding but is yet to find out if it has been successful.

ISCRE said: “Our clients are, on the whole, the working poor, who could not afford private lawyers but are not eligible for legal aid.

“Compensation is often small in value, so most do not interest the ‘no win no fee’ lawyers. They are security guards, nursery nurses, food factory agency staff, care homes staff, drivers, cleaners.”

It added: “The gender mix is about 50:50. Nearly half have a disability, many due to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. About half are White British; the other half are from minority ethnic communities, whether long established here or new migrants from Poland, Portugal and the Baltic States.

“Many report the stress of the discrimination has caused them depression and anxiety, requiring medical treatment.”

ISCRE said that overall, since 2013 it had advised 680 clients, helping them win £237,930.58 in compensation.

“We also help to get agreed references to help people get further work. We even got six clients reinstated and five cases where we agreed reasonable adjustments to allow for continuing in employment,” it said.

“We also helped to get changes to premises open to the public (such as a concert hall, gates to a public park, a shop and a financial services centre).”