Data Protection Privacy Notice for Audiences, Friends and Supporters

About this notice

This privacy notice explains how Gresham College handles and uses the personal data we collect about friends, audiences, current and potential supporters, whether donors, volunteers or participants, in activities that we run. It recognises the changes made to the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.

All data is held securely and will be treated confidentially and with sensitivity to enable us to further the work of Gresham College and better provide services to our audiences and supporters. We aim to be always clear about how and why we collect your personal information, and not do anything that you would not reasonably expect.

Who we are

The College’s Fundraising and Communication team supports Gresham College by engaging with audiences and supporters of the charity. We help you keep in touch with Gresham College so you can be updated about the free educational talks and videos as well as inviting you to other special events. We send newsletters and other communications by mail and email. We also fundraise to support Gresham College’s ongoing work particularly to encourage more people's love of learning – from a broader range of backgrounds and ages.

Our responsibilities and legal basis for processing your data

To carry out our work, it is necessary for us to process and store personal information relating to audiences, supporters and friends of Gresham College according to the principles of UK GDPR.

Gresham College processes the information outlined in this Privacy Notice in pursuit of our legitimate interests in:

• communicating with audiences, friends and past, current and potential supporters
• providing benefits and services to audiences, Friends and past, current and potential supporters
• enabling Gresham College to achieve its strategic and operational goals
• furthering Gresham College’s educational and charitable mission (which includes fundraising and securing the support of volunteers)

We may pursue these legitimate interests by contacting you by telephone, email, post, text or social media. Information about how you can manage the ways that we contact you, including how to opt out from some of or all contact from Gresham College, is outlined in the ‘How we use your personal data’ section below.

Whilst Gresham College relies on legitimate interest as the legal basis for processing where this is not overridden by the interests and rights or freedoms of the data subjects concerned, it recognises that legitimate interest is not the only lawful ground for processing data and that certain data-types cannot be included under this provision. As such, where appropriate, we will sometimes process your data under an alternative legal basis - e.g. because you have given us consent to do so in accordance with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)

The data we hold and how we collect it

Gresham College maintains a record of all members of the community including friends, audiences, current and potential supporters, whether donors, volunteers or participants in activities.

We gather personal data from you when you enquire about our activities and news; register for an event, make a donation, volunteer, subscribe to the Gresham College Newsletter, engage with our social media channels, or otherwise provide us with information. In some circumstances, we may ask you if you are a UK taxpayer so that we can claim Gift Aid. Third parties, including but not limited to Donorbox, CAF, Stripe, Eventbrite, Cision, Mailchimp and independent event organisers, may also share your personal data with us if you have given your permission, and you should consult their privacy policies to understand how and what may be shared.

We always aim to keep your details up-to-date, and we will do this by communicating directly with you, as well as by using publicly available resources such as the Royal Mail’s National Change of Address database (NCOA).

The vast majority of the information we hold is obtained directly from you, in the ways outlined above. In addition, we may also obtain data from trusted public domain sources.

The personal data we hold about you may include:
• name, title, gender and date of birth
• contact details including postal address, email, phone number and links to social media accounts, together with your communication preferences
• occupation, professional activities and other life achievements
• recreations and interests
• family and spouse/partner details and your relationships with other supporters and friends
• records of donations and Gift Aid status, where applicable (as required by HMRC)
• records of communications sent to you by Gresham College or received from you
• volunteering by you on behalf of Gresham College
• financial information relating to you and your family, including data and estimations around your income, assets and potential capacity to make a gift
• information about your philanthropic donations and volunteering with other organisations
• media articles about you
• information on your engagement with Gresham College via meetings, events, groups or networks
• personal data provided by you for a specific purpose (e.g. disability and dietary preferences for event management purposes)
• information about your use of Gresham College resources or facilities including event registration

Gresham College does not store any credit/debit card details and is PCI-DSS compliant. Bank details used for processing Direct Debits are held under the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme.

How we use your personal data

Your data is used by Gresham College to communicate with you in a variety of ways, including:
• the promotion of the relationship between Gresham College and its audiences and supporters for mutual benefit
• charity related fundraising initiatives involving audiences and other supporters
• eliciting non-financial support (e.g. pro bono activities and volunteering)
• invitations to lectures, special events and other activities of interest organised by Gresham College
• charity mailings, both hard-copy and electronic (e.g. Gresham College newsletters)
• promoting the benefits and services available to Gresham College friends and supporters

Communications to you may be sent by post, telephone, email, text or via social media, depending on the contact details we hold, and the preferences expressed by you about the types of communication you wish to receive.

Tools may be used to help us improve the effectiveness of Gresham College’s communications with you, including tracking whether the emails we send are opened and which links are clicked within a message. We monitor website visits and use tools such as Google Analytics to improve our website and services.

If you prefer not to receive some types of communication, or any communication whatsoever, you can amend your preferences at any time by emailing support@gresham.ac.uk or writing to:

Head of Fundraising and Engagement Gresham College, Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn, London, EC1N 2HH
Office +44(0) 20 7831 0575

We will not contact you for any purposes by post, email, text message, social media or telephone if you have told us you do not want to hear from us by any of those channels. If you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) but have provided us with a telephone number, we will assume that we have your consent to call you on this number until notified otherwise.

If you unsubscribe from any or all of the communication channels mentioned above, we will update our records to stop further communication as quickly as we can. Please be aware that it can sometimes take a short while for the change to be fully implemented.

Research, wealth screening, data analysis and data-matching

Gresham College is a grateful recipient of public and private philanthropy, enabling it to continue to provide free lectures to the general public. Ethical and transparent fundraising is therefore essential to its mission.

In order to ensure that this is carried out as efficiently as possible, whilst respecting the rights and wishes of audiences, supporters and potential supporters, we may gather information about you from trusted publicly available sources to help us understand more about you as an individual and your ability to support the charity in ways financial or otherwise.

We may perform wealth screening, a process which uses trusted third-party organisations, to help us identify a small percentage of audiences and friends who may be interested in becoming more closely involved in the life and aims of Gresham College and may have capacity to influence or give support at a significant level. We may use information gathered from public sources, alongside the information you provide, to undertake analysis of who might support the charity and better understand the preferences of our audiences and friends with regard to events, communication and services. By so doing, we can more effectively focus the conversations we have with you and ensure that we provide you with an experience as an audience member, friend, donor or potential donor that is appropriate.

From time to time, we may carry out research into individuals before we have provided our privacy notice to them on the basis of Article 14.5.b of GDPR, which states that the obligation to provide a privacy notice shall not apply where the action “is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of the objectives of that processing”. Such individuals will still be provided with the privacy notice at the point of first contact or as soon as it is reasonable to do so.

Publicly available sources are used to carry out due diligence on donors in accordance with Gresham College’s Gift Acceptance Policy undertake data-matching, e.g. via the National Change of Address Register, to find new contact details for audiences, friends and supporters with whom we have lost touch.

Gresham College is registered with the Fundraising Regulator and committed to its Code of Practice.

Public domain sources

The publicly available sources we use to conduct research and due diligence include:
• Companies House and other business-related resources
• company websites and annual reports
• Charity Commission, GuideStar and other sources for non-profits
• annual and donor reports of other organisations
• rich lists
• philanthropy press
• LexisNexis (national and international press, and due diligence tools)
• general internet and press searches
• Who’s Who and Debrett’s People of Today
• The King’s Honours Lists
• LinkedIn
• National Change of Address Register

Who can view your personal data?

Your personal data is securely held on the Gresham College database, access to which is controlled with staff’s roles and permissions.

No personal data will be disclosed to external parties, other than those contracted by Gresham College in order to assist with its routine activities as detailed above, or where we may be required to do so by law. An example of the latter is that Gresham College has a legal obligation to supply some of the information we hold about our donors for the processing of Gift Aid by HMRC when donors have completed a Gift Aid declaration.

Where data is shared with a third-party contractor (e.g. for the purposes of analysis, updating or cloud-storage), we ensure that we have a data processing and non-disclosure agreement in place. This means that any third party is only able to use information we provide for specified purposes and must keep it secure. We do not sell your personal data to other organisations, nor share it as part of any reciprocal arrangement.

Global Gresham College

Gresham College is a global charity, with audiences and supporters of all nationalities. Where a transfer of information covered by this privacy notice takes place between the charity and territory outside the UK, we ensure that an adequate level of protection is in place in accordance with UK data protection law. Further information about the measures we use to protect data when being transferred internationally is available from our Data Protection Officer or Executive Director (whose contact details are set out below).

How long is your personal data kept

Gresham College maintains a record of all audiences, friends and supporters and, as such, we hold details in perpetuity. Other information will be reviewed according to Gresham College’s records External Retention Schedule and deleted if the criteria for retention are no longer met.

Your rights and further information

We try to ensure that the data we hold for you is up-to-date, reasonable and not excessive. You will always have the right to:

• be informed as to how we use your data (via this privacy notice)
• access or request a copy of the data we hold about you
• update, amend or rectify the data we hold about you
• change your communication preferences at any time to restrict how we process your data, or opt out of some or all communication from Gresham College
• object to or restrict the processing of your information for any of the purposes outlined in this privacy notice
• ask us to remove your data from our records.

If you have any queries about this privacy notice or how we process your personal data, please write to the Executive Director by email or at Gresham College, Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn, London, EC1N 2HH by post. Email support@gresham.ac.uk

Future changes

Because of changes to legislation or institutional data-management practices, we may have cause on occasion to amend elements of the information processing described above. If this should happen, we will always alert you by publishing the latest version of this document on this web page and, where possible, emailing or postal mailing you.

Last updated on: 06 January 2025