Ways2Raise is an advice, learning and resource platform for young people working towards ambitious fundraising goals. We want the journey to build confidence, enterprise skills, financial capability and independence while respecting a young person’s safety, privacy, age and the important role of parents and guardians.
Parents and guardians stay involved
Ways2Raise is designed to support families, not replace parental judgement or supervision. Registration and account messages use the parent or guardian’s email address. For fundraising with supporters and businesses, a family may set up a separate generic shared inbox—such as RubyKenyaTrip@your-email-provider.example—that the parent or guardian and young person can both access. This lets the young person build confidence while a parent or guardian can oversee every message in and out.
We collect less, not more
We deliberately minimise the personal information we collect about young people and ask only for information needed to provide the service, such as a first name, trip details, target and fundraising progress. Normal onboarding does not require a young person’s surname or private personal email address. A shared fundraising inbox is different: it is parent-approved and used only for fundraising correspondence. Read our Privacy Policy for more detail.
Ways2Raise never handles fundraising money
Our role is to provide ideas, planning tools, learning resources, guidance and progress tracking. Any financial arrangement used by a family sits outside Ways2Raise and remains the family’s decision.
Private resource accounts and personal information
Keep the personal details out of the plan. Ways2Raise is a private resource account: it does not ask families to build or publish a fundraising webpage, host payment links or share a public fundraising profile through the site. Families should still avoid putting surnames, home addresses, telephone numbers, personal email addresses, banking details, passwords or private family information into any account field or AI prompt.
Staying safe while fundraising
Fundraising can involve selling products, providing services, approaching local businesses, attending events and dealing with supporters. Parents and guardians should consider the young person’s age and maturity, location, adult supervision, travel, cash handling, food hygiene, permissions and the rules or age limits of any outside service. Ways2Raise does not individually risk-assess every fundraising idea; seek appropriate guidance where needed.
Learning to use AI responsibly
Ways2Raise encourages young people to use AI as a productive skill: to explore ideas, improve prompts, plan, communicate and question weak outputs. Never enter a full name, address, telephone number, personal email, identifying school details, passwords, bank/card details, login credentials or private family information into an AI prompt. Check important AI-generated information independently.
Our people and safer recruitment
Before anyone is given a role involving young people, family information or safeguarding responsibilities, Ways2Raise will complete safer-recruitment checks, training and access controls. We will obtain the appropriate DBS check for each role wherever it is legally eligible or required, and will not place someone in a child-facing or sensitive-data role until the required checks are complete. DBS eligibility is role-specific, so this is assessed properly for every staff member and volunteer rather than treated as a one-size-fits-all tick box.
Ways2Raise staff and volunteers must not communicate with a young person through personal email, personal devices or social media. Routine Ways2Raise communications go to the parent or guardian’s account email. The family’s shared fundraising inbox is for their own contact with supporters and businesses, under parent or guardian oversight.
Businesses, sponsorship and third-party services
Ways2Raise may link to useful third-party websites and services. They have their own terms, privacy policies, age restrictions and safety rules, which families should check before using them. Any future sponsorship functionality will be designed with parental visibility, appropriate boundaries and minimised sharing of young people’s information as core considerations. Ways2Raise does not currently operate a sponsor marketplace or unrestricted adult-to-young-person private messaging.
The role of parents and guardians
Ways2Raise provides the roadmap. Parents and guardians remain an important part of the journey when a young person decides what to share, carries out activities, deals with the public or businesses, uses third-party services, makes money-related decisions or communicates with people they do not already know.
Something doesn’t feel right?
If something does not feel right, we would rather hear about it. Contact us about safeguarding, privacy, inappropriate content, misuse, a business interaction or an unsafe public interaction through our Contact page.
Our approach will keep developing
Safeguarding, technology and online behaviour evolve. Ways2Raise will continue reviewing its approach as the platform grows, new features are introduced, AI tools evolve and more young people use the service. Young people’s wellbeing must remain part of every decision we make.