No, Foothold is not part of the IET. We are an independent charity established in 1890 to support current and former IET members and their families (however, we also support the wider engineering community). Our legal name is The Institution of Engineering & Technology Benevolent Fund, our working name is Foothold and our registered charity number is 208925.

Foothold is funded by engineers, for engineers. All our support is provided free for the engineering community. We can only do this thanks to generous donations and gifts in wills from community members. We receive no funding from IET membership subscriptions or the government.

From 1st October 2023, the IET will no longer be able to collect donations for Foothold due to changes in their internal systems.

Each year Foothold receives over £400,000 of donations from around 38,000 IET members who donate to Foothold when they join or renew their IET membership. These donations are vital to enabling us to deliver our life-changing work. So we are naturally concerned about the impact a reduction in this income will have on our ability to support engineers and their families.

When you receive your next IET membership renewal, you'll 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 our website. If you wish to continue to donate to Foothold, you will need to set up a Direct Debit or other donation method with us directly.

Direct Debits help us plan our resources and support more effectively. Knowing how many people have pledged regular support through donations gives us a better understanding of how much support we will be able to provide for the engineering community each year.

It’s quick and easy to set up a Direct Debit online. Or if you’d like to use a paper form, we can send one to you to fill in and return to us.

Yes, you can choose a start date for your Direct Debit.

No, the IET will remove the donation from your membership subscription automatically and update your Direct Debit.

If you do not wish to set up a Direct Debit but you’d still like to donate, you can make a secure donation by debit or credit card on our website, or send a cheque payable to Foothold to Unit 82A, James Carter Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 7DE.

Foothold is unable to answer queries about IET memberships. You can contact the IET membership team on [email protected] or +44 (0) 1438 765678.

You can learn all about the ways we can support you and your family on our website. If you need to apply for support, you can fill out our online support enquiry form and a member of our team will get back to you.

Foothold supports current and former members of the IET, as well as their dependents. We like to stay in touch with our community to keep you up to date with the support we can offer for you and your family.

Up until November 2022 donations were collected by the IET for Foothold. This meant that the IET would share details of the donations that were made and who they were from, to enable Foothold to accurately record the donation in their financial systems and meet the reporting requirements of the Charity Commission. Foothold also used this information to contact donors to say thank you for their support. Where donations were made with a Gift Aid declaration this also enabled Foothold to claim the Gift Aid from HMRC.

In addition, if a member requested a Foothold service where membership of the IET was a condition of eligibility, minimal data would be shared between the IET and Foothold using the legal basis of ‘legitimate interest’ to verify IET membership.

If you would like to opt out of receiving communications from Foothold, please email [email protected].

As we are an independent charity, we are a separate organisation from the IET, so we don't share any data with them. If you'd like to change your personal details with Foothold, you need to contact us directly so we can do this for you.

You can opt out of our communications at any time by emailing [email protected].