Privacy Notice
Adopted: 18 September 2020 | Updated: 14 August 2026
Mount Elgon Foundation
{Registered at the UK Charity Commission, no. 1186668)
This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information. It replaces the version adopted on 18 September 2020.
Contact details
West House, South Green, Kirtlington, Oxfordshire, UK OX5 3HJ
Email: admin@mountelgonfoundation.org.uk
What information we collect, use, and why
To provide services and goods, including delivery and third-party referrals
- Names and contact details
- Addresses
- Date of birth
- Payment details (including card or bank information for transfers and direct debits)
- Website user information (including user journeys and cookie tracking)
- Information relating to compliments or complaints
- Records of your contact with us
To receive donations or funding, send newsletters, claim UK Gift Aid and organise other fundraising activities
- Names and contact details
- Addresses
- Payment or banking details
- Donation history
- Tax payer information (for Gift Aid purposes)
For service updates or marketing purposes
- Names and contact details
- Marketing preferences
- Website and app user journey information
- Records of consent, where appropriate
Sensitive personal information
We may need to collect details about any health condition or disability you have, where you have told us about it, so that we can make appropriate arrangements for your participation in an MEF event, or to meet any additional requirements in how we communicate or engage with you. We treat any special category data of this kind with extra care, and only use it for the purpose you shared it with us.
Lawful bases and data protection rights
Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. You can find out more about lawful bases on the ICO’s website.
Which lawful basis we rely on may affect your data protection rights, set out in brief below:
- Your right of access – you can ask us for copies of your personal information, including where we got it from and who we share it with. Some exemptions may apply.
- Your right to rectification – you can ask us to correct or complete inaccurate or incomplete information.
- Your right to erasure – you can ask us to delete your personal information.
- Your right to restriction of processing – you can ask us to limit how we use your personal information.
- Your right to object to processing – you can object to us processing your personal data.
- Your right to data portability – you can ask us to transfer your information to another organisation, or to you.
- Your right to withdraw consent – where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
If you make a request, we must respond without undue delay and in any event within one month. To make a request, contact us using the details at the top of this notice.
Our lawful bases for each purpose
Providing services and goods, including delivery and third party referrals:
- Consent – we have your permission, given after we provided all the relevant information. You can withdraw consent at any time.
- Legitimate interests – we collect and use personal information to deliver our conservation and community work effectively, including providing resources, project materials, and support to those we work with, and referring individuals to partner organisations (such as other conservation bodies, community groups, or specialist services) where they can better meet a specific need. This is necessary so we can coordinate our conservation, cultural heritage and community projects, ensure goods and resources reach the intended recipients or communities on Mount Elgon, and work effectively with local partners. We only collect what is needed for these purposes, and the benefit to the individuals and communities we work with outweighs any limited privacy impact.
Receiving donations or funding and organising fundraising activities:
- Consent – where you have opted in (for example, to receive email or text updates about our work, campaigns or events), we rely on your consent under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. You can withdraw this at any time.
- Legal obligation – we are required by HMRC to collect and keep certain information (name, address and Gift Aid declaration) to claim Gift Aid on eligible donations, and to keep these records for at least six years from the date of your last donation.
- Legitimate interests – we collect and use personal information to process donations and administer fundraising activities generally, including recording who has donated, issuing thank-yous, and managing donor relationships. This is necessary so we can run our fundraising effectively and account for the funds that support our conservation and community work. The benefit – sustaining work donors have chosen to support – outweighs the limited privacy impact of this basic record-keeping.
Service updates or marketing purposes:
- Consent – we only send marketing or service update communications to those who have actively opted in, and you can withdraw consent at any time.
Where we get personal information from
- Directly from you
- Publicly available sources
- From other sources: we may use the Royal Mail’s postcode finder, National Change of Address update (NCOA®), or the electoral roll to check the accuracy of address information we hold, or information made publicly available by the Charity Commission, Companies House, or in published news articles.
How long we keep information
We only keep your personal information for as long as it is required, and in accordance with statutory requirements. For example, HMRC requires us to keep a record of your name, address and Gift Aid declaration for six years from the date of your last donation. Where information is no longer required, we dispose of it securely. If you have told us you do not wish to hear from us in future, we keep the minimum information necessary to meet our statutory obligations (such as HMRC requirements) and to ensure we do not contact you further.
Who we share information with
- Data processors – for example, GoFundMe, Myriad USA and Myriad Australia, our secure third-party donation processing platforms, which handle donations on our behalf.
- Organisations we’re legally obliged to share personal information with – for example, HMRC, for Gift Aid purposes.
- Publicly on our website, social media or other marketing and information media – for example, donor names or testimonials, where you have agreed to this.
How to complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a data protection complaint to us:
Online: https://mountelgonfoundation.org.uk/contact/
If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.
The ICO’s address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113