About Us

We respond to disasters in the world’s poorest countries, using a set of criteria to help us decide when to launch an appeal and how we can be most effective.

These criteria include:

• Is the disaster urgent and large scale, needing a swift international humanitarian response?
• Are at least two-thirds of our member organisations able to provide a fast and effective response at a large enough scale?
• Are the public likely to support the appeal so that we can respond?

Some disasters may not need a collective appeal from us as the Irish Emergency Alliance, but our individual member organisations may still respond.

We raise money by directly appealing to the Irish public and by working with the media to raise awareness of disasters taking place. We pool our resources to ensure fundraising costs are kept to a minimum and not duplicated during an emergency appeal.

We save on costs by sharing resources during appeals rather than duplicating efforts, for example creating shared adverts rather than each organisation doing this separately. By working together we also hope to work more effectively with the media to create more public awareness of emergencies and how people’s lives are affected.

For every euro you give, at least 87 cent will go directly to the disaster-affected area. The other 13 cent helps us raise even more funds to reach more people in emergencies and covers other essentials such as safeguarding systems and financial accountability. It also supports our emphasis on strong governance – for example, in its second year of incorporation, the Irish Emergency Alliance was shortlisted for both Good Governance and Humanitarian Awards. One of our core values is transparency.

While we do have a defined methodology of how to allocate donations, this depends on the emergency and how many of our members actively respond to the appeal and disaster response. Our priority is to deliver aid and support as quickly and efficiently as possible to those most in need.

Funds are allocated based upon three defined criteria - 1) Fundraising income (capacity of each member agency to raise public funds); 2) Emergency spend (capacity of each member agency to spend donations on the response); and 3) Direct Operational Countries (the number of countries each member agency directly operates in). This information is taken from the annual audited financial statements of our members.

Yes. We take security very seriously and we use online donation software that meets the Payment Card Industry Security Standard. We do not store your personal card details on our websites, database or in any other form. Personal card details you provide on paper donation forms in person, via post or verbally over the telephone, are deleted immediately after the payment has been processed. The Irish Emergency Alliance has a Data Protection Policy and is compliant with GDPR requirements.

We will process your data in a separate Irish Emergency Alliance database and we will not share your details with our member organisations. We will never share your information with third party organisations for their own marketing purposes and we will never, ever sell your information. We respect your privacy and will use your information only for the purposes you consent to when you provide it, which mainly include marketing and fundraising. Please find out more in our Privacy Policy

We are governed by a board of directors which includes the chief executives of all our member organisations, plus at least three independent trustees. It is a voluntary board — board members do not receive any payment for taking part and governing the Irish Emergency Alliance.

The vast majority of our work is done by the existing staff of our member organisations. There are three staff members for the alliance led by the Executive Director, who coordinates the work of the Alliance.

The Irish Emergency Alliance is governed by a Board consisting of twelve directors - the CEO from each of our member agencies plus four independent directors. It has four sub-committees which report to the Irish Emergency Alliance Board (an Executive Committee; Finance and Audit Committee; Programmes Committee; and a Fundraising and Communications Committee). The Irish Emergency Alliance employs three staff members and has documented policies which guide its work. It is registered with the Companies Registry Office (CRO) and the Charities Regulator (Registered Charity Number 20203848 and CHY 22307). View our CRA profile here.

The Irish Emergency Alliance is a charitable company, created by its members and limited by guarantee. We publish yearly audited accounts detailing the funds we have raised and how they were spent.

IEA 2019 Annual Report and Financial Statements

IEA 2020 Annual Report and Financial Statement

IEA 2021 Annual Report and Financial Statements

IEA 2022 Annual Report and Financial Statement

IEA 2023 Annual Report and Financial Statement

Member organisations have a strong track record in emergency programming and have demonstrated capacity in delivering emergency response in a manner that is responsive to local needs and adheres to humanitarian principles. They are also committed to delivering responses in line with internationally recognised humanitarian standards, such as the Core Humanitarian Standard, and the Red Cross and NGO Code of Conduct in Disaster Relief.

The best way to contact us is by emailing [email protected]. This helps us provide the fastest response to your query during busy appeal periods. If you wish to speak with someone you can call  01 5685861.