Privacy Notice

Introduction

This privacy notice gives you information about how Rainfall Foundation collects and uses your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide if you are a donor, fundraiser, supporter, event attendee, volunteer, job applicant or offline subscriber.

Rainfall Foundation (charity number 1212419) is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice).

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us at admin@rainfallfoundation.org.uk.

This privacy notice does not apply to individuals who receive direct support through our programmes. A separate privacy notice applies to programme participants.

1. The types of personal data we collect about you

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, including:

• name, address, email address and telephone number;
• technical and usage data relating to use of our website (including IP address and browser information);
• donation and Gift Aid information;
• communications preferences;
• recruitment and volunteering information, including CVs and references and, if applicable, DBS checks; and
• event related information, including emergency contact details and limited health information where relevant.

2. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct collection: via website contact forms, newsletter signups, donations, event registration, applications to work or volunteer with us, and direct communications (email, phone or in person).
• Indirect collection: from trusted third parties such as fundraising platforms (for example JustGiving), partner organisations, or publicly available sources used for due diligence and governance purposes.
• As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies.

Below we have broken down the different ways you might interact with us, and what information we might collect directly from you.

Website visitors and social media use

• When you visit our website, the personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.
• We may use Google Analytics to better understand how people use our website. For instance, we can determine the number of people using our site and how they find and use our web pages. With this information we can continually improve our website and its visibility.
• We use social media to inform, educate and engage new potential supporters. We may target ads using social media at audiences who appear to have an interest in Rainfall's work.
• If you have given us consent to use your image or become a case study to help promote our work, we may post this on our social media outlets.

Newsletter subscribers

• If you subscribe to our mailing list, we will ask you for personal information such as your name and email address.

Online donations on our website

• If you donate via our website, we will record the name, date and donation amount. If you choose to make your donation with Gift Aid, we store your address on our internal donor database. To claim Gift Aid from HMRC, we will need your name and address.
• If you set up a standing order to donate to us regularly, we will store your bank details.

Supporters and fundraisers

• If you take part in an event for us, we will ask you for your name, age, address and contact number. If you take part in a physical event such as a marathon, we also might ask about your health status. We will also ask for emergency contact details, but we will only contact that person in an emergency and delete the information once the event is finished.
• If you give us emergency contact details on behalf of someone else, you confirm that the other person has given you permission to act on their behalf and has agreed that you can provide this information to us.

Job applicants and volunteers

• If you apply to work with or volunteer for us, we will ask for your personal information, a CV and references in order to process your application.
• Successful job applicants will also be asked to undergo a DBS check. The DBS check process is set out by the Disclosure and Barring Service which is a government body. This process includes specifying what proof of ID and address information is required. Volunteers may also be asked to undergo a DBS check depending on their involvement.

Use of other organisations' data

• We may receive personal data about you from third parties. For example, if you decide to donate to us using services such as JustGiving and Virgin Money Giving, we may receive details about you and your donation. In such circumstances, your donation will be subject to the terms and conditions and privacy policies presented to you by those third party providers. Those third parties only provide us with your data if you have given them permission to.
• We may collect and review information about organisations and individuals from publicly available sources (such as the Charity Commission, company websites, media coverage and online search tools) to help us better understand their interests and priorities. We use this information to ensure that any approach we make is appropriate and aligned with our charitable objectives, and to protect the reputation and integrity of our organisation. This helps us avoid contacting individuals or organisations where there is a clear mismatch or potential risk.
• We may record and retain relevant publicly available information about prospective donors in our database so that we can make informed and proportionate fundraising approaches and avoid unnecessary or inappropriate contact. This may include assessing publicly expressed interests in charitable causes to help us understand whether our work is likely to be relevant to them. We only keep information that is relevant and necessary for these purposes, and we review it regularly to ensure it remains accurate and appropriate.

3. How we use your personal data

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract with you: where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Legitimate interests: we may use your personal data where it is necessary to provide our services and pursue our legitimate interests. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
• Legal obligation: we may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.
• Consent: we rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose.

Direct marketing

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have subscribed to our newsletter. We will get your express consent before we share your personal data with any third party for their own direct marketing purposes. You can ask us to stop sending you marketing communications at any time by following the opt out links within any marketing communication sent to you.

Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a more personalised service.

You have the choice to accept or reject cookies by changing settings on your browser. If you do accept cookies on the Rainfall website, you will be prompted to renew your consent after 365 days. Sensitive information like passwords and credit card details are not stored on cookies placed on your system by the Rainfall website. For more information about cookies visit allaboutcookies.com.

We may use third party cookies for Google Analytics and for other third parties. You have the choice to accept or reject third party cookies by changing settings on your browser.

4. Disclosures of your personal data

We do not sell personal data and do not share it for third party marketing purposes. We may share personal data with a limited number of service providers.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

5. International transfers

We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as UK law.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to service providers, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that one of the following safeguards is in place:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed by the UK to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.
• We may use specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK which give the transferred personal data the same protection as it has in the UK, namely the International Data Transfer Agreement.

6. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

7. Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

• General enquiries will normally be retained for up to 12 months after the enquiry is closed.
• Initial referral information will be retained in accordance with Rainfall's referral and intake procedures. If someone joins Rainfall's programme, the handling and retention of their information will be explained in the separate Participant Privacy Notice.
• Donation, accounting and Gift Aid records will generally be retained for at least six years after the relevant financial or accounting period.
• Partnership and contractual records may be retained for up to six years after the relationship ends.
• Marketing information will be retained until you unsubscribe or it is no longer required.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

8. Your legal rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing, where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
• You also have the absolute right to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios: if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

9. Complaints

You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). However, before doing so please make sure you have first made your complaint to us or asked us for clarification if there is something you do not understand.

10. Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This version was last updated in June 2026.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.

11. Third party links

This website may include links to third party websites, plug ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.