Culford School Foundation’s Privacy Notice
Alumni, Friends and Supporters
This privacy notice is intended to provide information about how the School will use (or "process") Personal Data about individuals including alumni, friends and supporters for the purposes of maintaining a lasting, life-long relationship with the School.
We are committed to protecting your personal information, using it in accordance with data protection laws and not doing anything with your information that you would not reasonably expect.
What does the Culford Foundation do and why do we hold your data?
The Culford Foundation interacts worldwide with its community which includes: current and former students, also referred to as alumni, Old Culfordians or Old East Anglians; current and former parents; current and former staff, Governors and Trustees; and other friends of the School such as event sponsors, event attendees, charitable trusts or other relatives of former pupils and staff.
Culford School is a registered charity, administered by the Methodist Independent Schools Trust. Our aim is to build and maintain good relations across the Culford community, fostering support for a range of activities such as: university and careers networking, advice and support; connecting old friends and colleagues; organising reunions, social and sporting events; and fundraising, including for capital projects and for the Culford Bursary Fund. The funds which the Foundation raises enables the School to develop and maintain its facilities as well as to offer financial support to those who could not otherwise afford to attend the School.
To help us do this, the Culford School Foundation currently uses and maintains a relationship management database called the Raiser’s Edge NXT to enable us to communicate with all our stakeholders.
We also use Culford Online (Netcommunity) which is the online directory for alumni of Culford School and the East Anglian Schools to support friendraising and fundraising by the Foundation. It allows individuals to engage with the Foundation by providing a platform to create a personal profile that can be shared with other alumni, where the individual allows. Bookings and payments for events and merchandise can be made in addition to donations through Culford Online. The facility to add obituaries to the site is also available to users. Communication options to receive information from Culford Foundation can be managed by the profile holder.
How we collect personal information
- Data on current pupils is transferred from the Pupil database to the Foundation database in the term after a pupil leaves.
- When you give information to us directly; whether in writing, face to face or over the telephone. For example when you sign up for an event, request a copy of the alumni magazine, make a donation, complete a leavers’ or other contact form or tell us your news, which could be for inclusion in our alumni communications and publications.
- When we conduct surveys, including research on when and whether particular donations or funding appeals may be of interest.
- When you register with Culford Online and input your own contact details which you can update at any time. Culford Online is password protected. Culford Online collects personal information when you create a personal profile. Culford Online does not collect any personal information about you unless you choose to give it to us by completing a form, sending us an email or updating your personal profile through your self-registered account.
- When you book an event through Culford Online.
- We may supplement information that you give us with publicly available data from elsewhere, such as from LinkedIn or other online media, news articles, magazines, books, directories or other published sources.
We do this so that we can (i) potentially connect current students and recent leavers with others in their field (ii) invite you to appropriate friendraising events; and (iii) ensure that any fundraising approach we may make is appropriate, tailored to your interests where possible and, we hope, will not cause offence.
What do we do with your data?
The personal data which the Culford School Foundation holds about you will only be used for friendraising and fundraising purposes.
We will use the contact details of the constituents on our database to send you information about the activities, events, future plans and fundraising appeals for the School, together with news from alumni and other appropriate stakeholders. This includes sending updates and newsletters both by email and by post.
Most records contain education, contact details, and career information. Some may contain photographs of you while at School or attending an event for example. Photographs and stories may be published through social media
Contact with the School and donations are recorded along with any sibling or other family links if known.
We do not communicate directly with alumni under the age of 18 i.e. pupils who left Culford prior to completing Sixth Form. Pupils who leave at a younger age may keep in touch, on request, via their parents or guardians, until they reach 18 years of age.
If you have registered with Culford Online, the Foundation uses your Culford Online personal information to communicate with you using your chosen methods about events, fundraising, current and former pupils and staff; and Culford School news. This may be via electronic communication or hard copy publications such as Hartley News and FOCuS.
In addition to disclosure as permitted or required by law, data may be disclosed on a considered and confidential basis to officers, governors, employees and/or staff of Culford School, MIST (Methodist Independent Schools Trust) and auditors e.g. The Charity Commission.
We may pass data to other organisations, known as Data Processors, who provide specific services such as printing, mailing houses, wealth screening services and fundraising consultants to the Culford School Foundation. We may also carry out due diligence research on donors in line with the charity gift policy and meet money laundering regulations. There are contractual agreements in place that require them to process your data compliantly with data protection laws. They are required to delete or destroy all such information once they have completed the agreed activities carried out on our behalf.
The School does not retain any bank card information. Third party payment processor Global Payments is used for payments processed over the telephone or in person. Any payments details provided by you through Culford Online are securely processed directly by a third party provider Blackbaud Merchant Services.
We do not sell, share or swap information with any third parties for their own use and will not provide your contact information to other alumni or others without your consent.
Protecting Your Data & Security
Culford Foundation’s relationship management database, the Raiser’s Edge NXT and Netcommunity (Culford Online) is owned and hosted by Blackbaud. Blackbaud offers Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”) or Model Clauses as a mechanism to provide appropriate safeguards for the protection of personal data for EU, UK, and Swiss data protection purposes.
Blackbaud, its subsidiaries, and its affiliates are certified under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework; regarding the collection, storage, transfer, use and other processing of Personal Data transferred from the European Union and Switzerland, respectively, to the United States.
All information is held and transmitted securely on our database.
Culford School and their third party suppliers are compliant with the PCI DSS Safer Payments programme when completing payment transactions. For further information on PCI DSS SaferPayments Programme please visit https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/
Our Responsibilities
The school has appointed the Compliance Officer as the Data Protection Lead who will endeavour to ensure that all personal data is processed in compliance with this policy and Data Protection Law.
Basis for Processing
The law requires us to tell you the legal basis on which we process your data:
In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent for example, when you tick a box to receive email newsletters;
In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to fulfil our contractual obligations to you for example, if you make payment through Culford Online to book an event or make a donation;
If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data, for example; if you gift aid a donation, we are required to tell HMRC the name and postcode of the donor and the date and amount of the donation;
In all other cases we are processing your data based on your pre-existing relationship with Culford or the East Anglian Schools which establishes a legitimate interest in our sharing with you news of developments at Culford, our fundraising programme generally, and the social and networking opportunities that we offer our community. It is on this basis that we hold and process the information that you or others have supplied to us, and use it in the manner set out in this Privacy Notice.
We will also use your address details to send you direct marketing information by post, telling you about friendraising and fundraising opportunities that we think may interest you.
How long do we keep your data for?
We pride ourselves on offering a lifelong relationship with our alumni and former staff; many individuals remain in contact with us until they die. As relationships between constituents and Culford School are often long term ones, we expect to maintain and update your data for as long as that relationship exists. You may ask us to cease contact at any time by contacting: foundation@culford.co.uk or telephone 01284 385310 or updating your personal profile using Culford Online.
Data Control: Your Rights
You will receive our general news and information as described above, including about our events and our development and fundraising programmes, unless you ask us not to.
We will communicate with you based on your personal preferences chosen at registration. Culford Online allows you to update your personal information and communication preferences at any time.
You have the right to receive copies of the information we hold on you and, in some cases, to object to how we process it. If we do hold information about you, you can ask to correct any mistakes.
If you wish to make a Subject Access Request to find out if we hold any personal information, please contact the Compliance Officer at the address detailed below or email: compliance@culford.co.uk
If you have any queries, wish to restrict data processing or sharing, including use for fundraising or marketing of events or do not want to be contacted at all, please inform us:
Culford School Foundation, Culford School, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP28 6TX
Tel: +44 (0)1284 385310 Email: foundation@culford.co.uk
Please note, minimal information is always retained to make sure we do not contact you inadvertently. Our privacy notice and data protection policy are under constant review and any changes will be published on our website, via our email links and can be provided in hardcopy on request.
Compliance
If you believe we have not complied with this Privacy Notice or have acted otherwise than in accordance with current Data Protection Law, please direct your concerns or complaint to:
The Compliance Officer Tel: +44 (0)1284 728615
Email: compliance@culford.co.uk
You may also refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at https://ico.org.uk/ although the ICO recommends that steps are taken to resolve it directly with us, before involving them.
Updates & Changes to our Privacy Notice
This privacy notice and Culford Foundation’s policies are subject to regular review.
Last updated December 2022
