SE Uplift knows that community work often can’t happen unless insurance is available!
SE Uplift understands that insurance can be a barrier to great work happening in the community. Therefore, we strive to make this complicated issue as easy and accessible as possible. SE Uplift provides directors & officers and general liability insurance coverage for most of our Neighborhood Associations. And we can be a resource for community groups seeking insurance in partnership with a Neighborhood Association, or who need a policy or activity coverage on their own.
Who is Covered?
Community Groups who Partner with an Insured Neighborhood Association
At this time, our insurer is only able to extend insurance coverage to Neighborhood Associations that are listed as additionally insured under SE Uplift’s General Liability insurance policy. However, groups can partner with a covered Neighborhood Association to co-host your event or project. If you are successful in getting a Neighborhood Association to agree to co-host your activity, their insurance will be available to your project or event.
FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
1) Contact the Neighborhood Association in the location where your activity will take place at least four weeks prior to the activity start date (they only meet monthly!). Ask to be added to their board meeting agenda so you can introduce them to your activity and ask for their vote in support of co-hosting it with you. Find a Neighborhood Association and when they meet here.
2) Make sure that the Neighborhood Association records their vote to co-host your activity in their written meeting minutes.
3) Arrange to work with someone at the Neighborhood Association to send to SE Uplift a completed activity questionnaire required by our insurer. (See How to Request a Certificate of Insurance section below.)
4) SE Uplift will secure a “Certificate of Insurance” from our insurance company that demonstrates that your activity is covered. We will provide it to the Neighborhood Association who can share it with you.
If you are fiscally sponsored by SE Uplift but are NOT a Neighborhood Association, please contact the Fiscal Sponsorship Manger to inquire about your options. We can help connect you to a Neighborhood Association that may be able to co-host your activity, or direct you to insurers that can provide you with a quote or an entire policy or one-off event coverage.
District Neighborhood Associations
SE Uplift’s insurer will extend our General Liability and Directors and Officers Insurance coverage to Neighborhood Associations in our district coalition area in most situations. These groups are covered for community activities and events such as meetings, clean-ups, picnics, and art walks, garage sales, banner hangings, and more. Neighborhood Associations that are designated as 501c3 tax-exempt organizations according to the IRS, are recommended to procure their own insurance.
Annually in May, Neighborhood Associations are required to provide SE Uplift with a list of anticipated events and activities so they may be listed in our insurance policy. Large events, or activities that carry a higher risk for injury, may incur additional costs that may be passed onto the Neighborhood Association.
FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
See “How to Request a Certificate of Insurance” section below.
What is Covered?
Banners & Projects
Meetings & Events
Directors & Officers
SE Uplift’s liability insurance is required when hanging street banners either for an event or permanently as a neighborhood identifier. In order to hang banners, applicants must acquire a permit through the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and the utility company where the banners will be hung.
We have created a banner permit toolkit to help you navigate the permitting process for banners which also includes PBOT’s Cross Street Banner Application Instructions and PGE’s permit instructions and application
SE Uplift’s standard general liability policy for Neighborhood Associations covers low-risk events, meetings and community activities.
If you’re a Neighborhood Association, or want to partner with a Neighborhood Association on a large event that may fall outside of the standard coverage – for example, your event is going to have over 300 participants, involve music, alcohol, or other higher risk activities – covering the activity may incur extra costs that may be passed along to your group.
IMPORTANT: If your group has an activity that will serve or interact with children or vulnerable adults, you must secure Abuse and Molestation insurance for the event. Please talk to SE Uplift staff if this applies to your activity. Under no circumstances should your group allow a volunteer to be the only adult supervising or interacting with children or vulnerable adults.
SE Uplift provides is Directors and Officers insurance for all SE Uplift and eligible district Neighborhood Association board members. Oregon incorporated nonprofits are generally protected from law suits as long as they are complying with their mission and bylaws. However, there is always the possibility that a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit may be filed against your organization. Federal and State SLAPP Suit laws protect you, acting within your volunteer capacity, from being sued in these instances, however you will have to hire an attorney and pay associated fees to prove the wrongful suit.
Our Directors and Officers insurance provides board members with the funds necessary to prove the suit falls under the SLAPP suit protections. Neighborhood Associations are responsible for keeping SE Uplift informed of any changes to its board roster.
How To Request a "Certificate of Insurance"
While groups want to be sure their events and activities are covered in the event of a loss or accident, some events and activities require proof of commercial general liability (GL) insurance. This proof comes in the form of a Certificate of Insurance. Most often these are required for events and activities located on City-owned property like parks or in the road right-of-way or private property like churches or schools. They may also be required when you rent a private venue for an event. SE Uplift can help its district Neighborhood Associations, and groups partnering with a district Neighborhood Associations, secure a certificate of insurance for their activities.
FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
1) Please download and complete this special events questionnaire or the special events with liquor questionnaire.
2) Email the completed form to SE Uplift’s Executive Director at least two weeks before the event.
3) SE Uplift will provide it to our insurer so they can produce a “Certificate of Insurance” that demonstrates that your activity is covered. Your group will receive the certificate by email.
TIP: If you are applying for other permits – through Portland Parks & Recreation or Portland Bureau of Transportation, we recommend that you submit the questionnaire at least 1 month prior to the event so that the required insurance documentation can be provided when you apply for your permit. For your reference, we have provided the links to commonly needed event permits for the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and Portland Parks and Recreation (PP&R).
Acknowledgment of SE Uplift
Groups receiving insurance, funds, support or additional resources from SE Uplift to support a project, activities, or event are required to place the SE Uplift logo and Office of Community and Civic Life on all printed and web-based materials associated with the project, activities, or event including, but not limited to, public announcements, media releases, newsletters, email announcements, event flyers and posters, event programs, annual reports, website pages, on-site signage, and social media announcements.
For press releases, newspaper articles, curtain speeches, and other applications where logos are not applicable, or if space and format do not permit the use of the SE Uplift logo, SE Uplift support should be acknowledged using the following statement, “[name of project] is made possible in part through funding from the City of Portland Office of Community & Civic Life and SE Uplift Neighborhood Coalition.”
Insurance FAQs
General Liability insurance typically covers NA-hosted or co-hosted meetings, national night out events, picnics, garage sales, clean ups, littler pick-up and other small scale community events under 300 people (e.g. Harvest Celebration). For now, these types of activates are still common and are covered.
The NA would need to host or co-host the event for it to be covered. If it is a large event like a movie in the park or more than 300 people or contains high-risk activities like trampolines, a bouncy house, alcohol, or music, you will need to issue a request to have this special event covered. Special events can cost anywhere from $50 – $500 per event.
Events that include high risk activities. According to the insurance provider that typically includes: alcohol, music, over 300 people, trampolines, races and competitive sports, bouncy houses, and other dangerous activities.
Events and activities on City-owned property like parks or in the road right-of-way typically require proof of general liability insurance. Ideally, the NA will know what events they have coming up in May when SEUL prepares to renew its insurance policy and make the request at that time. However, we understand that things come up and you may need to request a certificate mid-year. Please give SEUL at least a week to get the certificate. It can take anywhere from 2-15 days to get a certificate depending on a number of factors.
Three main aspects of coverage appear to be shifting. First, the City of Portland is requiring Abuse and Molestation insurance for entities who serve or interact with children or vulnerable adults. Second, insurance providers are getting more strict about who and what they will cover for entities we extend our coverage to. Lastly, as NAs become their own 501C3, insurance providers recommend they get their own coverage as a separate and independent Organization (that “control” logic), that said, so long as the scope of the NAs activities has not changed, SEUL will continue to extend our coverage until we are told we can’t by the insurance provide.
If it were up to us we would! However, our insurance provider only allows us to extend our insurance to groups and activities that SE Uplift has some level of ”control” over – the logic being that we would then also be able to mange the “risk” (e.g. say no to activities that involve tightropes and swimming with sharks). That said, we don’t want this to be a barrier for great projects and events so please check in with staff early if you have an upcoming event or project that needs coverage.
No, we do this as a courtesy and as part of our Liaison Program. Neither the ONI Standards nor our grant agreement with the City of Portland require us to provide D&O Coverage. This benefit is at the discretion of the board of directors.
Insurance companies do not align perfectly with SEUL’s desire to provide it to everyone we can OR our grant agreement, city codes or the ONI Standards. The insurance provider is not governed by any of these other requirements and SEUL has to work within the parameters of our insurance provider to provide the best coverage we can to meet our grant agreement, ONI Standards, and our mission.
Yes, SEUL’s Grant Agreement with Civic Life requires that anything produced/provided using funds from the grant (i.e. insurance) include their logo. Download an include a SEUL and OCCL Logo to add to your promotional materials.