Membership
Download the application form here
- Introduction
- Our Principles
- How to Join
- Membership Benefits
- Listed Profile Page
- PR and Communications - Ethical Pulse
- Networking service
- Get Ethical
- Advertising and Sponsorship
- Screening Process Enquiries
Introduction
Ethical Junction (EJ) is a networked community of organisations who actively advance ethical enterprise and lifestyle. They make a positive difference to the community around them by practicing responsibly and by being transparent.
Our members activity help other businesses, consumers and peers make positively discerning lifestyle choices . Being a member of the network is a commitment to continue these activities. Members benefit from use of the EJ logo within your organisation - every member is a representative of a growing community of ethical communities and businesses worldwide.
EJ has been built by the membership for the membership - it is owned by the people that use it. There are no shares in EJ and is incorporated as a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee.
Members are encouraged to make full use of all resources and assets that EJ is proud to have built up. This includes all the online applications and the growing team that is there to support every member in whatever they are doing. As well as the online resources, there is a growing team to support every member, with staff to assist with -
- Membership advice and network guidance
- An editorial team for Ethical Pulse
- Events Support to highlight networking, shows, promotions and festivals
- Press Release distribution
- Additional promotion, sponsorship
- Get Ethical team to help list your products for additional exposure and sales
As a member you are encouraged to interact with our team you can find all of our contact details here
Our Principles
Please review Ethical Junction CIC's Ethical Policy
Every EJ member is asked to submit an ethical statement with their application. Our team will then manually screen each member to ensure that they are upholding the ethical values outlined in the statement within their everyday operations. The core principles that we ask members to adhere to include:
- Active care for the environment
- Responsible, fair and sustainable trading practice
- The avoidance of short term business practice that cause long term damage
- Equitable, non-exploitative employment practices
- Equality of opportunity and promotion of diversity
- Socially responsible activities
Ethical Junction membership is not a certification, rather it is a declaration by our members that they are striving to be leading 'practitioners' of ethical principles through either trade, education or commitment to the community around them. EJ looks to the community itself to hold itself true to its ethics and foundations.
We charge an annual membership fee of £50 plus VAT, and each year the members must undergo the same screening process. If you would like to learn more about membership and think your organisation satisfies the criteria and can contribute to the community, please download and return an Application Form to apply for membership. Alternatively if you would like to speak to an Ethical Junction representative, please contact us on 02380 293 763 or by email info [at] ethical-junction.org
How to Join
Its pretty simple - you go here and download an application form. Then you fill it in - if you have any questions at all call or email us - and return it to our membership team. All the instructions are on the application form itself.
Your application will normally be processed within 5 days and you will be contacted with all the information you need then.
Membership Benefits
Download the application form here
We ask our members to pay an annual membership fee of £50.00 plus VAT. In return we provide our members with several commercial benefits and maintain a personal network service.
Below is a summary of the current benefits we offer to our members:
Listed Profile Page
All members receive a listed public profile page within our Directory, see this live profile page as an example. Your listing profile contain:
- Screen shot
- Company Name Used as Page Title
- Brief Description used as Meta Description
- Contact Details - available as a vCard
- Long Description
- Ethical Policy
- List of the categories you feature in
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Included in the membership price is the right to list in 4 different sub categories - each additional category is thereafter is charged at £5 per annum. This provides visitors who are interested in your niche areas of activities the chance to find out who you are and what you do. Our extensive category system, caters for all areas of the ethical sector. We are always upgrading the system and listen to our members to better refine the categories.
Page Rank / Search Engine Visibility
On top of potential return traffic there are holistic benefits gained from membership. Your listed profile page also has 5 or more hard-links to your website that contribute to your search engine visibility. Since Google ranks our site at 6/10 members, and many of our Category and Sub Category pages are Page Ranked at 3 / 4 / 5 - You can build a very good back link strategy and simply use the membership to Ethical Junction as a great value SEO solution in itself (providing you can demonstrate your organisations dedication to the core principles).
EJ profiles are spidered by other search engines too meaning your organisation could pop up all over the place. The whole site is recorded in the British Library once a year, is visited by many major and minor search engines and is used by BBC Green.
Your profile page is a public opportunity to say what you do and why you do it and be sure to get noticed! Coupled with good copy writing The listing benefits alone provide HUGE benefits to your organisation and the growth of the sector.
Download the application form here
Ethical Pulse - PR and Communications
Ethical Pulse is our online news section, it is a collaborative feed dedicated to the membership, we allow members to post their press releases and articles. There is no limit to the amount of times you can post, but we suggest limiting it to once a month.
We optimise this section for Search Engine Visibility and have found topical stories posted up here by members can drive a lot of random traffic to the site. Nearly 50% of our entire traffic to ethical-junction.org is usually flowing through Ethical Pulse.
Through this section we also run some of our members' campaigns and promotions. e.g.: Fair Trade Fortnight, book reviews, product reviews, etc.
There are three types of mail-out from the Ethical Pulse team.
Ethical Pulse Bulletin
This is a fortnightly newsletter that goes out to an opt-in mailing list of about 8,500 people - including the entire membership and a public list which contains consumers, journalists, non-members and other networks.
Members can feature articles and offers in this edition. Anyone can sign up for this edition here.
Members Bulletins
In the alternate weeks between the Ethical Pulse Bulletin a special members bulletin is sent out to just the membership list - that is every member we have in the network.
This edition contains news, offers and opportunities that may be of interest specifically to our membership - for example, discounts on event space or a call out for members to feature in a press article or book. It could also be that a business is for sale or a discount on recycled envelopes. Whatever it is its worth reading - and its worth getting your offer in if you have something you want to say to over 1400 other ethical organisations!! There is an opportunity within the application form to list as many of your colleagues as you want to receive this edition.
Specific Bulletins
Occasionally there will be something that just can't wait! In this instance we will send out a bulletin to whatever list is most relevant! So look out for these, they are normally good news!
So get in touch!
As with every part of EJ, the more engaged you can be with this resource the better.
If you are interested in learning more about Ethical Pulse please email editor[at]ethical-junction.org
Networking Service
Members who have compatible businesses or projects are always encouraged to work together. The EJ team is a 'hands on' social network and we welcome the opportunity to talk to our members on a one to one level. It helps us understand organisations agendas and needs. Through this service we will do our best to connect you to the right members.
Very often it is easy for Ethical Junction to work with a member who is putting on an event to help promote it. We can invite the entire membership, if thats what you want! We also work strategically with organisations such as Striding Out to promote specific networking events all over the country. You can find a full list of our members who offer networking opportunities here.
If you are interested in learning more about our networking service or have events please email sue[at]ethical-junction.org or call 02380 293 763
Get Ethical
All members with products or services for sale can display them for free through Get Ethical www.getethical.com. There is a commission payable to Get Ethical for products sold through the shop of 15%.
For more information contact or call info [at] getethical.com us on 02380 293 763
Other Offers
From time to time Ethical Junction will negotiate additional benefits for members. You will be informed about them on an as and when basis. It's important that you get as many of your colleagues on the member email list we hold here so you always hear about the latest benefits.
Membership is £50.00 plus VAT per year
Download the application form here
Advertising and Sponsorship
Advertising
EJ members have exclusive use of an ad network called Ethical Ads. It is a comprehensive way to advertise and promote your organisation, business, products or message through a unique channel. It is also a way of supporting other members through the use of your marketing spend!
Ethical Ads is not just for advertisers though - it is also for members who want to make money from the existing traffic on their website by promoting other ethical organisations.
You can read about Ethical Ads in more detail here.
Sponsorship
Members can sponsor a top-level category they feel most relevant to them for example, a fashion retailer would want to sponsor Clothing and Fashion.
As a sponsor you can have a hard-linked 468x60 banner installed on every page of that category and sub-categories contained within. We would hope that a sponsor might also take an active role in inspiring debate in the forum or contribute specific pieces to editions of Ethical Pulse. We value members that feel they can sponsor us, and like to work closely.
Category sponsorship is
- 1 month - £150
- 3 Months - £400
- 6 Months - £700
- 12 Months - £1,000
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of EJ please contact Tom on 02380 293 763 or tom[at]ethical-junction.org
Screening Process Enquiries
Contact us directly Download the application form here
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