How we collect information about you

Our mission at The Mark Townsend Charitable Trust is to ensure that everyone is able to access the support they require whilst being treated with both support and respect.

We want to make sure that you only receive the information and communications that are most relevant to you – Whether you are visiting our website and social media, receiving post, text messages or calls.

You will always receive the best attention when you want to fundraise for us, apply for a grant, access support, share your story or make a donation.

We collect information from you in the following ways –

When you directly interact with us –

This can be if you contact us to fundraise, apply for a grant, access support, share your story, make a donation, ask us a question, purchase something from us, apply for a volunteering opportunity, comment, like or direct message us on our website or social media. This also includes when you email, call, text or send something in the post.

When you interact with us through partners working on our behalf –

This could be when you contact a committee member but only when it concerns a charitable matter such as, fundraising for us, applying for a grant, accessing support, sharing your story, making a donation, asking a question, purchasing something from us, applying for a volunteering opportunity, comment, like or direct messaging us on our social media or website. This also includes when you email, call, text or send something in the post but only concerning charitable matters.

When you interact with us through third parties –

This could be if you provide a donation through a third party fundraising site such as JustGiving or one of the other third party sites that we work with.

When you visit our website –

We gather general information on which may include which pages you visit most often and which events, services or information is most relevant and in demand.

We use ‘cookies’ to make sure that our site runs effectively. There are more details on cookies below.

We use this information to ensure that users are able to access what is required from visiting our website – we always aim to be offering the most efficient and best experience for you. Wherever we can we do aim to use anonymous information which will never identify individual visitors to our website.

Information we collect and why we use it

Personal information we collect includes details such as your name, date of birth, email address, postal address and telephone number, as well as information you provide in any communications between us. You will have given us this information whilst making a donation, registering for an event, making a donation, communications via our website, social media, post, email, phone calls and texts messages.

We will use this information for –

To process your donations or other payments and verify any financial transactions

To provide support, services or goods that you have requested.

To update you with important messages about your donation, an event, services, goods or support you have requested.

To comply with the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016 and follow the recommendations of the official regulator of charities, the Charity Commission, which requires us to identify and verify the identity of supporters who make major gifts so we can assess any risks associated with accepting their donation(s).

To keep a record of your relationships with us

If you volunteer with us, to administer the volunteering agreement.

If you do not provide this information, we will not be able to process your donation, sign you up for an event or provide, support, goods and services you have requested.

We may also use your personal information:

To contact you about your work and how you can support The Mark Townsend Charitable Trust

To invite you to participate in a survey or research

Sensitive Personal Information –

If you share your personal experience or the experience of a family member, friend or relative we may also collect this information. If you provide us with any Sensitive Personal Information by phone, email or by any other means, we will treat this information with extra care and confidentiality and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

You can, of course, decide if you want to remain anonymous, if you are happy to share your personal details with staff members of if you would like us to share your story as part of our work telling people’s personal stories about mental health (in meeting, on our blog)

Legal basis for using your information

In some cases we will only use your personal information where we have your consent or because we need to use it in order to fulfil a contract with you (placing an order with us, making a donation)

However, there are other lawful reasons that allow to process your personal information and one of those is called ‘legitimate interest’. This means that the reason we are processing your information is because there is a legitimate interest for The Mark Townsend Charitable Trust to process your information to help us to achieve our goals of ensuring that everyone needing our help or experiencing a mental health problem gets treated quickly, fairly and with the care and respect that they deserve.

Whenever we have to process your Personal Information under the ‘legitimate interest’ lawful basis we make sure that we take into account your rights and interests. We will not process your personal information if we feel that there is an imbalance to either of those categories.

Some examples where we have legitimate interest to process your Personal Information is where we contact you about our work via post, social media or our website. Conducting research to better understand who our supporters are, improving our services, for our legal purposes (for example, dealing with complaints and claims) or for complying with guidance from the Charity Commission.

Cookies –

When you first visit our website, we will ask for consent to set any cookies (and to process any personal data collected by these cookies) which are not strictly necessary to make our pages work: You WILL be able to set your preferences at this stage. Where cookies are strictly necessary, we consider that we do have a legitimate interest in processing the personal data that they collect.

You can, of course, withdraw your consent by clearing cookies from the cache in your computer and reject them next time you visit our website.

Sharing your information

The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our volunteers at The Mark Townsend Charitable Trust so that they can support you.

We would never sell or share your personal information with organisations so that they could contact you for marketing purposes. Nor would we ever sell any information about your web browsing activity.

Legal Disclosure –

We may disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority) or in order to enforce conditions of our other agreements

Storing your information safely

At The Mark Townsend Charitable Trust we do take looking after your information very seriously. We have organisational and technical measures to protect any information that we have under our control, both on and offline, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Despite our best efforts, the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. We do try our best to protect your personal information sent to us in this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site.

Our website does contain links to other sites. Whilst we do try to only link to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content, or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or websites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites and advertisers.

How long do we hold your information for?

We only hold any personal information for as long as it is reasonable and necessary for the relevant activity which also may be to fulfil statutory obligations.

Your Rights

You have various rights in respect of the personal information that we hold about you.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights or make a complaint please contact us –

Call – 07887 242287 or 07920 092434 or

Email – themarktownsendcharitabletrust@hotmail.com

Access to your personal information –

You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, along with information on what personal information we use, why we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it for and whether it has been used for any automated decision making. You can make a request for access free of charge. You will need to make a request for access in writing and provide us with evidence of your identity.

Right to object –

You can object to our processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes. You will need to contact us, as above, providing details of your objection

Consent –

If you have given us your consent to use personal information you can withdraw your consent at any time.

Rectification –

You can ask us to change or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal information held about you.

Erasure –

You can ask us to delete your personal information where it is no longer necessary for us to use it, or you have withdrawn consent, or where we have no lawful basis for keeping it.

Portability –

You can ask us to provide you or a third party with some of the personal information that we hold about you in structured, commonly used, electronic form, so it can be easily transferred.

Restriction –

You can ask us to restrict the personal information we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.

No automated decision making – Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. You have the right not to be subject to automated decisions that will create legal effects or have a similar significant impact on you, unless you have given us consent, it is necessary for a contract between you and us or is otherwise permitted by law. You also have certain rights to challenge decisions made about you. We do NOT currently carry out any automated decision-making.

Please note that some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances, where one of your rights does not apply, we will communicate the reason to you.