Privacy Policy - The Message
Yonng people at a Higher gig

Privacy Policy


We value our supporters – we couldn’t do any of what we do without you. We work hard to ensure you are in complete control over how much or little you are involved in our activities.

The Message Trust collects various data when you use our websites, sign up to our newsletters, make a donation, volunteer, come to an event, make a purchase or are involved in any other way with our organisation. This page is here to help you understand how we use the data we collect about you when you sign up to an event, email or postal newsletters, or when you choose to give us money.  

Last updated: 15th July 2020

Information collection

If you have given us information about yourself, say when you’ve bought tickets to an event, made a donation, subscribed to our updates online, or put your name on a mailing list at a conference, we take that information and enter it into a database which helps us to understand who our supporters and customers are. We will have let you know when you supplied your information whether you will be signed up to receive any information (for example, we keep in touch with our financial supports by post and email to send updates about how their support is being used). 

We also collect information from other sources, such as fundraising sites like Just Giving and Everyday Hero, where you have agreed to support The Message Trust and have given your consent. You may wish to check their privacy policy to find out more information on how they will process your data. 

Use of your information

We use any personal information that you give us (name, email address, postal address etc), only for the purposes of: 

  • Processing any donations you might make 
  • Sending you mail and newsletters to inform you about our activities, which your support or interest are helping to provide, and informing you about opportunities for partnership through prayer, giving or volunteering 
  • Informing you about events and ways that you can be involved in our activities
  • Providing a service that you have requested such as practical help through community projects 
  • Personalised Communication, such as customised website content, emails or mailings
  • Keeping a record of your relationship with us 
  • Classify our supporters by location, e.g. one of our UK hub locations 

By donating or registering your interest, you agree to the collection and use of information necessary to process your donation or provide you with the information you have requested. At the point of supplying your information, we tell you how your information will be used. Providing your details means that you are agreeing to this use. It will not be used in other ways than is detailed.  

You may choose to unsubscribe from mail or email communications at any time without affecting your donations. If you have made a donation and/or have Gift Aid, we are legally required to store your data and may contact you regarding your donation, but we won’t use this data for anything else. If you do not want us to email you, do not provide your email address. 

How long we store your data

We will keep your personal information only for as long as we consider it necessary to perform the activities listed above. 

We have a data retention policy to implement this. We take account of legal obligations and accounting and tax considerations as well as considering what would be reasonable for the activity concerned. 

For example, we will retain details of donations for seven years to meet tax and accounting requirements, but we will only hold information provided as part of a newsletter subscription for the length of the subscription. 

Legacy income is an important source of income for our beneficiaries. We may keep data you provide indefinitely to carry out the administration of legacies and to communicate with the families of those leaving us legacies. 

Security

We restrict access to your data to our employees, administrative volunteers and for specific project partners who need to use your data to perform the activities listed above. Your data is stored in a database hosted by Blackbaud, Inc, whose security policy can be found here. Where your data is stored internally, we maintain physical and electronic security and procedures to ensure that your data is not freely available. 

Use of your data by a third party

We won’t share your data with other organisations so they can send you marketing materials. We do use a few third party services that involve sharing your data, but only so that we can fulfil the purposes intended when you supplied the data to us. These organisations do not use your data for anything else. 

We use an external mailing house, and we send your address data to them to address postal mailings to you. We also use external online mass email and event management services (such as Mailchimp and Eventbrite) to send you our updates.  

Online credit card processing is undertaken by a third party, Blackbaud Payment Services, over a secure connection. Their security and privacy policy can be found here

As mentioned in Security above, our database is hosted by Blackbaud, Inc who do not have direct access to your data except when aiding with troubleshooting issues with the database. 

Use of information collected automatically through our websites

Cookies

Cookies are files with a small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive. 

Like many sites, we use cookies to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our website. 

Log Data/Analytics

Like many site operators, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our site (“Log Data”). 

This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s IP address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our website that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics. 

In addition, we may use third party services such as Google Analytics that collect, monitor and analyse this data for the purposes of understanding usage patterns and improving our site design. We do not use this data to try to identify specific people, and we do not collect data that would allow us to do this. 

Online Security

The security of your personal information is important to us, but we acknowledge that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. 

Links to Other Websites

For your convenience, we may provide links to other websites and web pages that we do not control. We cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of any websites or pages not under our control and we do not endorse any of these websites or pages, the services or products described or offered on such sites or pages, or any of the content contained on those sites or pages. 

Putting you in control

Access to your information

You have the right to request details of the information we hold about you. To receive a copy of the personal information we hold please write to Data Protection Officer, The Message Trust, Lancaster House, Harper Road, Manchester M22 4RG. We will respond within 1 month of receiving your letter.  

For more information about your rights under the Data Protection Act you can visit the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office

Updating your preferences

If you need to update your personal information or change any of your communication preferences, please contact us at [email protected]

Updating your information

We do appreciate it if you keep your details up to date. You can do so in the same way as updating your preferences (above). 

We may use Post Office address search, postcode lists or other available sources to confirm data that you provide us with, where, for example, we are unsure of what you have completed on a form. 

We will not use these sources to create data that you have chosen not to provide, for example, if you have left a telephone number blank; nor will we automatically update changes of address, we will normally only update your address when you tell us it’s changed. However, if you are a regular giver, continuing to give regularly, and items such as Flow magazine are returned to us, we may use external sources to update your address details so that we may update you on how you money has been spent through our news and stories. 

Telling us to stop processing

You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data, to ask us to restrict our processing or to object to our processing of your personal data. You can do so at any time by writing to us at: 

Data Protection Officer
The Message Trust
Lancaster House, Harper Road
Manchester
M22 4RG 

Changes To This Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of the ‘last updated’ date above and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page. 

We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Service after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy. 

If we make any substantial changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on our website. 

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the data that we keep about you and how we use it, please contact us at [email protected] or by writing to us at Data Protection Officer, The Message Trust, Lancaster House, Harper Road, Manchester, M22 4RG, England.