Your questions answered

FAQs

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  What Is Under One Sky?

  We are a UK based charity supporting people affected by homelessness
  

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  What Do You Do?

  Our main activity is outreach in the form of Skywalks where our teams walk the streets to connect with our homeless friends and provide life essentials (food, water, hot drinks, clothing…) as well as practical help and befriending. Through our work we also aim to expand the public’s understanding of the root causes and the human reality of homelessness.
  

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  Why Are You Doing This?

  Our mission is to work with others to end homelessness. For us this means supporting those affected to move from surviving to thriving in life, not only putting a roof over somebody’s head.

  There are close to 300,000 people affected by homelessness in England alone. The majority are families living in temporary accommodation. In London 1 in every 53 people are homeless. Our focus is on supporting those who face the toughest form of homelessness; street homelessness.

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  Who is Involved?

  Under One Sky is primarily run by volunteers, supported by volunteer steering team and governed by a board of trustees.

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  What Is Your History?

  Under One Sky evolved from a one-off Christmas outreach event organised by founder Mikkel Juel Iversen in 2012. Between 2012-2019 Under One Sky was a “friends and family” initiative that undertook a 3-4 outreach events each winter. In 2018 Under One Sky incorporated as non-profit company as both the volunteer base and private donations continued to grow. In 2021 Under One Sky became a C.I.C. (Community Interest Company). In 2022 the organisation converted from a C.I.C. into a CIO (registered charity).
  
  The transformation of Under One Sky from a winter outreach pop-up project to a 24/7 organisation was brought about by the pandemic. During the lockdowns Under One Sky’s teams operated daily across Central London serving up to 600 people per day. The moment of transformation was captured by this article in The Guardian.

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  Are You Making A Difference?

  Under One Sky has served people affected by homelessness well over 100,000 times primarily in London. Each week we serve 500 homeless friends on average. Those interactions involve a conversation between an individual and the Under One Sky team as well as the provision of life supplies such as food, toiletries, sleeping bags, mobile phones and clothing. Our teams even take orders for specific items which are then delivered the next week if we have them in stock.
  Our focus is on establishing a sense of friendship. What people living on the streets desperately lack is genuine social connection with other human beings who are not in a similar situation. The stigma associated with homelessness is enormous. Our teams rebuild trust in and reconnection to “society”. Through these conversations we learn about ways we can be of direct support or refer to other organisations for additional support.
  
  We have supported many people off the streets by connecting them with housing and employment opportunities or helping them return home to family and friends in the UK and abroad. We also support people with life critical items such as glasses, wheelchairs and the like.
  

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  What Is A Skywalk?

  We call our street outreach events Skywalks. At each event a designated team led by a team leader covers a specific geographical area by foot and serves anywhere from 20 to 100+ homeless friends.
  

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  Are You A Charity?

  Yes, Under One Sky was registered with the Charity Commission on 11 May 2022. On that date Under One Sky converted from being incorporated as Under One Sky Collective C.I.C. (company number: 11661118) to being registered as Under One Sky CIO (charity number: 1198901). CIO is an abbreviation of charitable incorporated organisation.

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  Do You Work With Other Charities?

  We work with other charities, social enterprises, companies and institutions to have the biggest possible impact. Each organisation has one or more pieces of the solution and only by collaborating can we make each piece count fully.
  A key priority for Under One Sky is to build community and engage that community in the cause. Social issues are shared issues in society and we need a wide range of capabilities to develop effective solutions. Importantly we need individuals and organisations to invest themselves emotionally in the issue.

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  Where does your funding come from?

  Our two main funding sources to date have been private and corporate donations. With Under One Sky becoming a charity (11 May 2022) we hope to attract more funding from foundations.

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  How Do You Spend Donations?

  To date 100% of private donations have been spent directly on delivering the services we provide to our homeless friends. Costs directly related to service delivery account for more than 80% of total costs (based on 2022 figures).
  
  Each week we purchase supplies for food, beverages and clothing and on one-off items such as mobile phones, glasses, emergency hostel stays and travel tickets to reconnect homeless friends with their families.
  
  We do get certain supplies donated and constantly work to get more of our needs covered through supplies donations. To date we have distributed more than 2.5 million items most of which were purchased.
  
  We've been informed that a website purporting to provide information for people affected by homelessness made an allegation in 2020, without any evidence, that donations amounting for more than £250,000 to Under One Sky had gone into the bank account of our founder and had not been used for the purposes of the organisation. This is completely untrue. We can assure our homeless friends and donors that every single penny of every donation to Under One Sky goes into the Under One Sky bank account, and is then used to fund our activities. As part of the charity registration process the Charity Commission also conducted a thorough review of our financial history. If you have any questions about this or other unjustified allegations, please contact us at contact@underoneskytogether.com.

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  How Can I Get Involved?

  There are 4 main ways of getting involved and supporting our work.
  Advocacy: Amplify the cause and our work to impact it by following and sharing our posts and stories on social media. Links to our social media accounts can be found at the bottom right corner of our website.
  Donations: As we spend significant amounts purchasing supplies we very much welcome bulk in-kind donations as well as financial donations. For in-kind/financial donations get in touch on contact@underoneskytogether.com or click here to donate using our crowdfunding campaign
  Partnering: Collaboration with companies, institutions and homeless sector organisations is key to how we operate. To explore partnerships please email us on contact@underoneskytogether.com
  Volunteering: We have volunteering opportunities both related to our outreach work and to supporting the daily running and future growth of the charity. Sign up to volunteer here.

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  What are your plans for the future?

  To realise our mission to end homelessness our plans are centred around 3 priority areas:
  1) Shift how the public relates to homelessness to build wide support to end it.
  2) Grow and engage local and global communities to become actively involved in the cause.
  3) Change lives by developing solutions that effectively deliver transition from surviving in isolation to thriving in society.