Foothold Frequently Asked Questions

Foothold is an independent registered charity and works to ensure that engineers and their families never face life’s challenges alone. They provide a wide range of support services including legal advice, help getting back into employment, counselling and financial assistance.

Foothold is the IET’s benevolent fund, which means for over 130 years, Foothold has supported current and former IET members to live well and thrive.

As a member or former member of the IET, you and your family can access free, confidential and impartial advice and support from Foothold by contacting their team directly.

You can find out more about the range of support services Foothold offers directly at myfoothold.org

Foothold is an independent charity and like any charitable body it can only operate through the good will and generosity of its community donors and supporters.

As the IET’s benevolent fund, we are committed to helping Foothold as a charity thrive so that as many engineers in need can access their vital support services.

We do this by introducing Foothold and their work to all our 150,000+ global members at both the point of membership renewal and by highlighting their support services through wider regular member communications.

Up until July of this year, IET members were asked annually at the point of their membership renewal if they would like to make a voluntary contribution via the IET to Foothold.

From 1 October, and going forward and in line with current best practice, rather than making a payment to us via your membership renewal to pass on, we will be signposting you to Foothold to make a direct donation should you wish. This will allow Foothold to build a direct relationship with you from the point you donate and provide a greater insight into how your donation is being used to support other engineers.

Information about the important work that Foothold does, along with direct links to donate to them will be included in all our 150,000+ member renewal notices each year.

Foothold is an important extension of our IET family, and we hope that those members who have chosen to donate historically will continue to do so via a simple process of contacting Foothold directly.

We also are committed to helping introduce Foothold and their work to many more members over the coming years and highlighting this lifetime benefit of IET membership and wide range of direct support options they have available including regular monthly donations and in-Will gifting. We will continue to promote, remind and encourage members of all the ways to donate to Foothold via the annual renewal process.

You can find out more and donate to Foothold directly on the Foothold website.

As a registered charity ourselves, we know how important it is to build relationships with our members in order to tailor our services to ensure you get the best value from us.

Maintaining high standards of data compliance and donor confidentiality is of course fundamental to both the IET and Foothold and we want to ensure our members are clear about who holds their data and what it is used for.

The change in the way our members can choose to donate to Foothold is in line with best practice and allows the charity to build a direct relationship with you and provide a greater insight into how your donation is being used to support other engineers.

There are also a range of direct support options available to you such as regular monthly donations and in-Will gifting. We will continue to remind and encourage members of all the ways to donate to Foothold via the annual renewal process.

We understand this may be a concern for many members, but we would like to reassure you that supporting you both professionally and through life’s challenges is of upmost importance to us. We remain committed to providing our members with the vital support provided by Foothold, the IET’s benevolent fund.

The changes to the way members can choose to donate will not affect the level of support or service you will receive directly from Foothold or the IET but have been put in place to give you greater control of how and when you choose to donate as well as a greater personal data transparency.

Foothold is an important extension of our IET family and has been providing support to current and former IET members for over 130 years. Like any charitable body, Foothold is funded by the good will and generosity of its community donors and supporters. We remain committed to continuing to drive awareness and support for their work to our global engineering community, which includes many more members over the coming years.

Some of the ways we will continue to do this include information sent out with our 150,000+ membership renewal notices each year about the important work that Foothold do, along with direct links to donate to them. We will also highlight the wide range of direct support options they have available including regular monthly donations and in-Will gifting to give you more choice and flexibility over how you choose to donate.

Thank you for supporting the vital work of Foothold to ensure that engineer’s and their families never face life’s challenges alone.

Information about the important work that Foothold do along with direct links to donate to them will be included in all our 150,000+ member renewal notices each year.

For any membership renewals after 1st October, you will notice that the option to add a donation to Foothold alongside your membership fees has been replaced with a link to the Donate Direct page on Foothold’s website. If you wish to continue to donate to Foothold, you will need to follow the simple steps to set up a Direct Debit or another donation method with Foothold directly.

Foothold is an important extension of our IET family, and we hope that those members who have chosen to donate historically will continue to do so.

We also are committed to helping introduce Foothold and their work to many more members over the coming years and highlighting the wide range of direct support options they have available including regular monthly donations and in-Will gifting. We will continue to remind and encourage members of all the ways to donate to Foothold via. the annual renewal process.

You can find out more and donate directly via the Foothold website.

If you have a current Direct Debit set up with the IET for your membership renewal and an additional Foothold donation you do not need to do anything. We will automatically remove the donation from your membership subscription and update your Direct Debit to reflect this change.

Further information about the important work that Foothold do along with how to easily donate directly to them will be included in your membership renewal notice.

Up until July of this year, IET Members were asked annually at the point of their membership renewal if they would like to make a voluntary contribution via the IET to Foothold. This meant that we would share minimal donation data with Foothold, for them to collect your Gift Aid and we may have shared minimal data such as to verify IET membership and entitlement to Foothold funds.

The IET do not share personal data for marketing purposes. Foothold will only communicate directly with members who have opted in to receiving communication from them directly.

If you currently receive communication from Foothold and would like to change your preferences, or opt out, please contact them direct by emailing admin@myfoothold.org.

Our membership team is here to support you and answer any membership queries you may have.

You can contact the IET membership team on membership@theiet.org or +44 (0) 1438 765678 (9:00-
17:00 BST Monday to Friday).