Last updated 17 July 2020
Live UTI Free is a user-centric, patient advocacy organization. Our primary activities focus on providing unbiased, evidence-based information to sufferers of recurrent and chronic UTI, via the website https://staging.liveutifree.com.
We welcome support in the form of grants, sponsorship, individual donations, and project funding, when it is deemed appropriate and is likely to provide value to our audience.
This funding policy outlines our policy on external funding, and explains how we make decisions around this. While some examples are listed, the intention is not to provide a comprehensive definition of all possible partnership opportunities. Please get in touch directly if you would like to discuss a collaboration.
Live UTI Free exists to help and support our global community. It is extremely important to us that we foster a sense of honesty and transparency within our community, and that starts with being fully transparent to the people we are here to serve.
In everything we do, we aim to maintain a relationship with our users in which they feel they can rely on us to provide unbiased information.
In reality, our vision of helping more people find better testing and treatment, will come to fruition more quickly if we broaden our relationships and implement collaborations with organizations and companies that allow us to improve our website and our offering.
The purpose of this funding policy is to exist as a framework that allows us to work with other organizations who have contributions that may be of value to our audience, and who wish to support our work via funding of one of the types described below.
Our goal is to build projects that will ultimately help us help our audience. Our ‘audience’ refers to users of our website, our followers on twitter, instagram and facebook, and those on our email list.
By outlining our funding policy here, we aim to:
All members of the Live UTI Free team are required to adhere to this policy, and keep up to date with any revisions to the policy.
There are four different funding categories we will consider on a case by case basis. These are project funding, sponsorship, recruitment or consulting for third parties and unrestricted grants/donations. We have outlined each of these below.
Project funding refers to projects where Live UTI Free will collaborate in partnership with another organization or individual.
Examples of project funding may include:
Such a project may be one of mutual interest. The following will apply to this type of relationship:
Members of the Live UTI Free team may occasionally provide expertise to third parties on the topics of user research, website optimization, patient perspective research, patient recruitment and digital communication.
Third party relationships will remain confidential unless direct involvement by the Live UTI Free community is required, and a written agreement is in place that covers how such a relationship will be acknowledged. Any such activities are independent of the content provided on https://staging.liveutifree.com.
Sponsorship refers to a scenario where a company or other partner funds a single activity of Live UTI Free. Examples may include:
In the case of sponsorship, the following will apply:
Companies, organizations and individuals may offer financial support and in-kind support to Live UTI Free. Any support that fits the following criteria is defined as unrestricted grants:
Live UTI Free is only interested in collaborative partnerships or funding that will have a positive impact on our users, and may help them on their path to better testing and treatment.
Live UTI Free will maintain an open and transparent relationship with all funding partners.
In order to ensure these points remain true, Live UTI Free will vet all potential funders to be satisfied that:
Live UTI Free will review potential funding partners, including their reputation in working with patient organizations, and their track record with regard to funding.
If there is any cause for concern, Live UTI Free will reconsider or reject the funds.
Live UTI Free will not knowingly accept any type of funding from a company that produces what we consider to be unethical products or services.
Live UTI Free will not recommend specific pharmaceuticals, clinicians or treatments.
Live UTI Free will ensure the responsibilities and contribution of the Live UTI Free team and any funding partner, are agreed to in writing.
The funding partner must agree to abide with the guidelines outlined herein.
If a company makes any attempt to coerce Live UTI Free to conform to its business and/or marketing agenda, either explicitly or implicitly, or does not conform to the agreed responsibilities, Live UTI Free will reject the funds or terminate an ongoing project.
Where appropriate Live UTI Free may solicit funding from consortia composed of two or more partners from the same industry.
There are activities and content at the core of Live UTI Free that will always be funded internally. This is to ensure an unbiased approach is retained, and to enable us to frequently update information as new research becomes available. These core activities and content include:
Live UTI Free will not enter into or continue a relationship with any funding partner, if the relationship and related activity may damage the reputation of Live UTI Free.
In support of this, we ask all funding partners to:
Live UTI Free retains the right to veto any content produced in connection with any funding, and we request that sufficient approval time is allocated for this purpose, as it may require approval from one or more team members.
As a user-centric, patient advocacy site, Live UTI Free will collaborate with commercial companies, non-profits, and other organizations, when it is deemed beneficial to our users.
This policy may be updated at any given time.
Partners with whom we have funded and non-funded relationships with are listed on our partners page.