Our vision is a world in which everyone is connected to causes and inspired to give to them.
Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to protecting your personal information.
This Privacy Statement (“Statement”) explains when and why we collect information from you and with whom it is shared. By visiting BigGive.org or registering with the website, you agree to the practices detailed in this Statement. Big Give reserves the right to update this Statement from time to time and will notify you of these where appropriate. Please refer to this Statement frequently to see any updates or changes.
Big Give’s processing and retention of personal information are governed by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”), the UK GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018, or any legislation that amends or replaces it. For the purpose of the (UK) GDPR, we are the data controller for the personal information covered by this Statement. The contact details of the controller can be found in section 9 of this Statement.
“Champion”: Partners of Big Give, external funders who contribute Matched Funding. Champions can be trusts, foundations, corporations or philanthropists.
“Charity”: Any charitable organisation which is registered on Big Give’s platform.
“Donor”: Supporter who makes a donation to a charity’s campaign on Big Give’s platform.
“Pledger”: Supporter of a charity who contributes to the match fund of a specific charity.
“Job Applicant”: Candidates for job vacancies as advertised by Big Give.
“Payment Processor”: Partners of Big Give responsible for processing donations. Big Give currently partners with Stripe. For more information on how Stripe process your personal information, please refer to Stripe’s Privacy Statement.
“Big Give”: The Big Give Trust, Dragon Court, 27-29 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5LX, registered charity no: 1136547, who run BigGive.org. We are also referred to as “we” / “us” / “our” in this Statement.
When you donate to a charity on Big Give, you will be asked to provide personal information.
The personal information we ask you to provide may include title, first name, last name, address, email address and card payment details. If you are eligible for UK Gift Aid, you may also provide your UK domicile address, which may be different from your billing address. Big Give does not store or have access to your credit/debit card details or passwords. This information is held by our Payment Processor (please see section 1.3 for more details).
You may choose to complete the donation process using valid social media login details, such as Facebook, Twitter or Google. For more information on how Facebook, Twitter or Google handle your personal information, you may refer to their privacy statements.
Where you have chosen a password to save your donor details, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone and to notify us in the event you become aware that someone has had access to your password.
We ask you to enter the details specified in section 1.1 when making a donation on Big Give to ensure your donation is successfully administered to your chosen charity, and Gift Aid can be claimed (if you answered ‘Yes’ to the Gift Aid statement in the donation journey). You will receive an automated donation receipt via email from Big Give when your payment has been successfully processed.
Your title, first name and last name are collected to enable us and the Charities to manage your mailing list subscriptions, as well as to identify and manage donations (e.g. resolve donation queries), to verify and administer pledges (See section 1.6) and to manage and analyse their donors’ lists.
If you answered ‘Yes’ to the Gift Aid statement, your title, first name, last name, and address would be required for Big Give or Charities to be able to reclaim the Gift Aid. If you agree to receive marketing communications from a Charity, your email address is also needed for the sending of such communications.
We would like to stay in touch with you about our match funding campaigns, and other news we feel would be of value to you. When you make a donation on Big Give, we give you the opportunity to opt-in to email updates from us. If you answered ‘Yes’ to receiving emails from Big Give, your first name, last name and email address will be collected for the sending of such emails.
You can unsubscribe from these communications at any time by following the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our emails. Please be assured this will not prevent you from using Big Give platform to make donations to the causes you care about most.
Your personal information is processed on the basis of your consent (which you can withdraw at any time), where required by the applicable law (e.g. claiming Gift Aid) and where necessary for the purposes of Big Give and Charities’ legitimate interests (i.e. ensuring the functioning of Big Give platform and effective administration of donations and pledges), except where these legitimate interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.
Our Payment Processor
Our Payment Processor uses the personal information you provide to make donations to your chosen charity.
They use appropriate technologies and procedures to protect personal information, and all personal information they store is held on secure servers and is encrypted. For more information on how Stripe process your personal information, please refer to Stripe’s Privacy Statement.
The charity you are donating to
When you make a donation on Big Give, you have the option to sign up to receive further communications from the charity to which you are donating.
Selecting ‘Yes’ for the charity means the charity will be able to contact you to thank you for your donation, explain how it has made a difference to their work and let you know about news & activities.
Selecting ‘No’ for the charity means that the charity will not be able to contact you in the future, which may include sending you thanks for your donation, updates on how it is being used, newsletters and future campaigns. You might continue to receive communications from the charity if you have already shared your details with them via other methods.
Please note that your details, including title, name and address, may be shared with the charity for Gift Aid purposes regardless of whether you’ve selected ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to receiving communications from the charity. Charities need this information about you to submit Gift Aid claims to HMRC.
As you are providing personal information directly to the charity to which you are donating, please make sure you carefully read and understand the charity’s privacy statementand the way in which the charity will use your personal information (including the ways and purposes for which the charity may contact you). We are not responsible for the way any charity uses the information which it collects via Big Give platform.
If you wish to stop receiving emails from a charity, please contact the charity directly with your request using the details on its own website. If you do not receive a response, you can use the Fundraising Regulator’s Fundraising Preference Service to stop the charity from contacting you.
We will not share your details with any third parties unrelated to Big Give, except where we are under a legal obligation to do so or in order to enforce or apply our Website Terms and Conditions.
If you would like to know what information we hold about you or how your information has been processed, you have the right under the (UK) GDPR to submit a Subject Access Request by raising a case as described below. Big Give shall take action without undue delay after receiving the request, and will inform the data subject within one month after receiving the request. Depending on the request, this might take longer, and Big Give will act in accordance with Article 12 of the (UK) GDPR. Please feel free to get in touch with us with any questions by raising a case on our website or writing to us at Dragon Court, 27-29 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5LX.
Please refer to section 6 ‘Data Subject Rights’
When you pledge to a charity on Big Give, this is a contribution to their match funding pot that will enable them to reach their fundraising goals. See section 4 for how we process Pledger information.
Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of third parties (i.e. charities). If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy statements and that we do not accept any responsibility for the security, collection or use of your personal information on these websites. Please check these statements before you submit any personal information to these websites.
We offer donors the ability to save their card details to facilitate future donations. To do this, you are invited to set a password at the end of the donation journey.
Big Give does not store or have access to your payment details or passwords. Payment information is held by our Payment Processor (please see section 1.3 for more details). Your password is held on secure servers and is hashed.
To further protect your account, we check the password you have used against a database of breached passwords through a service called Have I Been Pwnd to ensure that it has not been exposed through a data breach elsewhere on the internet. No personally identifiable data is sent to Have I Been Pwnd.
When you register your charity on BigGive.org, we may ask you to enter the following information related to you: name, job title, email address, address, date of birth, and proof of identity where required by our Payment Processor. We may also ask you to enter the following information related to your charity: name, general email address, postal address, proof of address, telephone number, Companies House number, trustee information (name, email address and date of birth), proof of charity registration, bank details (account holder, account number, sort code and bank statement). You can also enter the name, role and email address of your charity’s employees who you wish to have access to Big Give platform. To complete your charity’s registration, we ask you to create a password so you can gain secure access to your account in the future.
Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone and notify us in the event you become aware that someone has had access to your password.
We ask you to provide the information detailed in section 2.1 so that we can verify your charity’s registration and bank details, ensure a safe payout of your online donations and match funds, contact you about your charity’s registration with us and any of your past or upcoming campaigns on our platform.
Visitors to your campaign page will not see the name and role of your charity’s employees and trustees (registered on Big Give), your charity’s telephone number, email address and postal address.
Your job title, email address, address, date of birth and proof of identity are collected to enable us and the Payment Processor to verify that you represent the charity registering on Big Give platform. We collect your email address to enable you to access your Big Give account, and for Big Give to manage your account and keep you updated about the progress of your activities on Big Give platform (such as the outcome of your application to the Christmas Challenge).
Your charity’s information and trustee information (name, email address and date of birth) are collected to enable Big Give and Payment Processor to conduct due diligence on your account.
We also collect your contact details to manage your queries and get in touch with you about your account’s activities.
Your charity’s bank details (account holder, account number and bank statement) are collected to enable us to verify that the bank details provided to us are linked to the charity, and to pay your match funds to you. Moreover, the Payment Processor requires your bank details to pay out your collected donations. We may also process your personal information for the following purposes:
- To verify that you represent a legally registered charity and conduct due diligence on the bank details of the charity you provide to us
- To enable you to access your Big Give account to view your charity’s activity and run campaigns
- To send you direct marketing communications (including email marketing and fundraising communications)
- To offer you support and advice on running a successful match funding campaign
- To contact you if we have not heard from you for a certain amount of time
- To invite you to provide feedback, assist with surveys and input into consultation exercises
- To provide you with administrative information and/or service announcements and updates (including changes to our policies and terms)
- To ensure our records are accurate and up-to-date
We process your personal information and the personal information of your charity’s trustees for the above mentioned purposes for the performance of the contract we have with you (to apply our Website Terms and Conditions); under our legitimate interests identified above, except where these legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms; and for the compliance with our legal obligations.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive and may be updated from time to time as Big Give’s business needs and legal requirements change.
Most commonly we communicate with you by email; occasionally we call charities as a courtesy for additional support at critical times during a campaign. If you do not wish to hear from us, you can unsubscribe from our emails at any time by following the “unsubscribe” link in the email footer or by raising a case on our website.
Our Payment Processor
All donations made on Big Give are processed by our Payment Processor. For your charity to receive donations via Big Give, your account will be verified by the Payment Processor and Big Give. You are also required to register your charity’s bank details by submitting the following information:
- The name and contact details of the charity representative
- The names, dates of birth and email addresses of all of your trustees
- Your bank account details and a bank statement dated within the last 3 months, which contains your charity’s name and address
Our Champions
If your charity applies to a match funding campaign run by Big Give e.g. the Christmas Challenge, the Green Match Fund, etc., your charity’s contact details will be made available on request to the organisations or individuals (“Champions”) in our philanthropy network. The Champions may contact you directly. Sometimes Champions wish to disperse match funds directly to you. In this case, we may share your bank details with the Champion using a safe data transfer method.
We will not share your details with any third parties unrelated to Big Give, except where we are under a legal obligation to do so, or in order to enforce or apply our Website Terms and Conditions.
To access the information we hold about you and your charity, log in to your Big Give account and navigate to the ‘My Profile’ and ‘My Account’ option on the right-hand side.
Alternatively, please feel free to get in touch with us to request this information by raising a case on our website or writing to us at Dragon Court, 27-29 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5LX.
Please refer to section 6 ‘Data Subject Rights’.
Big Give works with a variety of philanthropists including trusts and foundations, corporations, high-net-worth individuals and statutory bodies, who we call ‘Champions’. The Champions provide some of the match funding to double online donations to charities participating in our campaigns.
Since 2008, our Champions have helped to raise more than £245 million for thousands of charity projects.
We are extremely proud to work with such a unique and exclusive group in the philanthropic world, and we take the security of Champions’ information very seriously.
All Champion correspondence with Big Give is managed by the Director and the Philanthropy Lead. It is tailored to your preferred communication style, whether that be email, telephone, post or face-to-face meetings. If you wish to stop hearing from Big Give, it is easy to opt out at any time by sending this instruction to the Director or Philanthropy Lead via any communication channel.
We respect your privacy and will never approach individuals with whom we have had no prior contact to become a Champion. However, we are excited to share our match funding model with charitable funding organisations, companies, statutory bodies, etc. who we feel might benefit from our match fund offering. Our prospect research only involves using information that can be found in the public domain
To be able to achieve our purpose of inspiring people to give to causes that matter most to them through match funding, it is necessary for Big Give to process Champion information. We use legitimate interests or consent as the lawful basis for processing your information (this would have been made clear at the point of us acquiring your information) to be able to provide the following services to you:
- To help you find charities that align with your philanthropic interests – there are over 10,000 charities registered with BigGive.org. Big Give is also a member of several large charity networks meaning we can curate applications from charities that meet your objectives
- To offer you advice on conducting any in-depth due diligence on charity applications for a Big Give match funding campaign and helping you to select charities to support
- To facilitate the distribution of your Champion funds following a campaign
- To offer you any other administrative support to provide a hassle-free way of grant-making & philanthropy
- To invite you to provide feedback, assist with surveys and input into consultation exercises on improving Big Give platform
- To provide administrative information and/or service announcements and updates (including changes to our policies and terms)
- To ensure our records are accurate and up-to-date
- To be able to store your information securely
- To comply with our legal obligations or to enforce or apply our Website Terms and Conditions.
Please note this list is not intended to be exhaustive and may be updated from time to time as Big Give’s business needs and legal requirements change.
We will not share your personal information with any third parties unrelated to Big Give, except where we are under a legal obligation to do so, or in order to enforce or apply our Website Terms and Conditions.
Please refer to section 6 ‘Data Subject Rights’
When you pledge to a charity on Big Give, we ask you to enter the following details: your title, name, email address and telephone number.
Your title, name and email address are required and are automatically passed on to the recipient charity, who will contact you regarding this pledge. If you choose to provide your telephone number, it will not be shared with the charity. Big Give will only use your telephone number to follow up about your pledge if we cannot get a hold of you by email.
Before completing your pledge, you are given the option to opt-in to updates from the charity and from Big Give. If you opt-in to receive Big Give updates, we will email you from time to time with news about other campaigns on Big Give. You can unsubscribe from this list at any time by following the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our emails.
As you are providing personal information directly to the recipient charity, please make sure you carefully read and understand the charity’s privacy policy and the way in which the charity will use your personal information (including the ways and purposes for which the charity may contact you). We are not responsible for the way any charity uses the information which it collects via a pledge form.
Please note that when you pledge to a charity in a Big Give match funding campaign, you agree to the following as part of our Campaign Terms and Conditions: Big Give reserves the right to contact Pledgers following the conclusion of the campaign (regardless of whether they have opted in to receiving information from Big Give) informing them of the amount they owe their charity.
We collect your details when you pledge in the event that we need to inform you of the amount you owe the charity following the match funding campaign. We will only contact you if the charity to which you pledged is unable to get in touch with you or to resolve a query regarding your pledge.
Any information submitted via the pledge form will not be displayed publicly and we will not share your information with any third parties unrelated to Big Give, except where we are under a legal obligation to do so, or in order to enforce or apply our Website Terms and Conditions.
Please refer to section 6 ‘Data Subject Rights’
By applying for a role with Big Give, it is understood that you are actively soliciting contact from us. By applying for a role with Big Give through a recruitment site, it is understood that you are agreeing to the terms set out on those websites’ privacy statements.
We may ask you for your first name, last name, email address, telephone number, address, job history, proof of identity, proof of your right to work in the UK.
We will not use your personal information for any other purpose, such as marketing.
For successful candidates, we will ask for your P45, references for previous roles, bank account details.
We require this information to process applications, decide eligibility for the job(s) that you have applied for, and undertake our legal obligations to you and under UK law. We do this in order to take steps prior to entering into a contract with you and to comply with our legal obligations.
The data of successful candidates is passed to Reed.co.uk who provide HR services to Big Give.
Please refer to section 6 ‘Data Subject Rights’.
The (UK) GDPR provides the following rights for individuals:
- The right to be informed – Big Give is committed to being clear and transparent on what and how we process the information you provide by including a fair processing statement at every point of data collection
- The right of access – If you would like to know which and how your information has been processed, then you can submit a Subject Access Request. Big Give has one month (30 Calendar Days) to comply with the request for access to your information upon proof of identification
- The right to rectification – You have the right to have the information we hold about you corrected if we possess inaccurate/outdated information; this might include things such as a new postal address or email address
- The right to erasure – You can request that your information be removed from all our systems and databases, with which we will do our best to comply. If we are unable to comply, we will inform you of the reasons for this
- The right to object/restrict processing:
- You can request that we cease or do not begin to process your information
- You can request at any moment that we cease or do not begin to process your information for marketing purposes. The right to withdraw consent – If your personal information is processed on the basis of your consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time
- The right to data portability – If you wish to access your information in infomrationin an intelligible format (i.e. a structured, commonly used and machine-readable form), we will provide it
- Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling – If we are profiling your information with system driven logic, you can request that we cease or do not begin to do this.
- The right to lodge a complaint – You have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority
In some cases, these rights are subject to certain conditions and limitations set out in law. If you would like more details about these rights or to exercise any of your rights, please contact our Chief Operating Officer at:
Big Give, Dragon Court, 27-29 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5LX
Or raise a case on our website.
Any request received will be processed within one calendar month of Big Give accepting your request.
To help us identify the personal information you are referring to, please include any details that will enable us to locate the relevant personal information.
In order to be sure that your personal information is disclosed to the correct individual, we may require you to provide us with proof of identity before any action is taken.
The security of your information is extremely important to us. Access to your personal information is only provided to our staff and third parties who help us to process data and, in order to help with the donation process, to charities that you have specified. We use industry-standard security technology to prevent the interception, misuse and/or loss of personal information.
However, no internet-based site is 100% secure and we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control. For more information, please read our Website Terms and Conditions.
The personal information that we collect from you and that we, our Payment Processor and our third-party service providers process, may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the United Kingdom (UK) and/or the European Economic Area (EEA), including transfer to the United States. It may also be processed by staff operating outside the UK and/or the EEA. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your personal informationis treated securely and in accordance with this Statement, irrespective of the standards in the country where your personal informationmay be transferred. This includes entering into data transfer agreements with our Payment Processor and service providers that integrate the standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission or the UK data protection authority, to require them to adopt standards that ensure an equivalent level of protection for data as those we adopt.
For charities registered on Big Give, we retain your information as described in this Section 7.2 and 7.2.1. When you create a campaign on Big Give’s platform, it will be displayed publicly on the site for individuals interested in giving. If your charity ceases operation or you wish to terminate your use of Big Give, you must end all of your campaigns on our platform and contact Big Give to request for your account to be deactivated. This means that you will no longer be able to access your account and you will not be able to receive donations via the platform. The best way to get in touch is by raising a case on our website. Alternatively, you can write to us at Dragon Court, 27-29 Macklin Street, London, WC2B 5LX.
For individuals that have made donations, redeemed vouchers, or pledged via Big Give, we retain your personal information for no longer than what is strictly needed for the purposes set out in this Statement. In some cases, we may retain personal information for longer periods where this is required by law (e.g., tax purposes for processing Gift Aid or other legal obligations relating to financial accounting). We do this to keep a record of all gifts made via Big Give and a note of whether or not you would like to receive updates from the charity/charities to which you have donated or from Big Give.
For individuals that have not donated, but have signed up to Big Give mailing lists, we will keep your information for one year after the last time that an email sent from a Big Give mailing list was opened or has bounced back three times. After this point, we will unsubscribe the email address from our mailing lists and delete your information from our systems.
For Champions who work with Big Give, we retain your information as described in this Section 7.2 and 7.2.1. As to your personal information, we will retain it for no longer than what is strictly needed for the purposes set out in this Statement. In some cases, we may retain personal information for longer periods where this is required by law. We do this to keep a record of our communications with previous, current and prospective Champions and the history of the match funds contributed to our campaigns.
For Job Applicants, application and interview records for unsuccessful applicants for roles at Big Give, we will retain 6 months after notifying unsuccessful candidates (Sex Discrimination and Race Relations Acts).
If you exercise your right to be forgotten and request for the data we hold on you to be deleted, we will anonymise your information so that it does not personally identify you. This action can only be taken once we are no longer legally required to store the information i.e. tax purposes for processing Gift Aid or other legal obligations relating to financial accounting.
7.2.1 Information that needs to be kept by law
There are various legal requirements and professional guidelines about keeping certain kinds of records – such as information needed for audit purposes.
Files that must be retained by law applicable to Big Give are listed in the table below:
Data | Retention period | Sensitive personal data? | Additional information |
Name and address for a Gift Aid declaration | Up to 7 years (legal obligations) | No | https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gift-aid-declarations-claiming-tax-back-on-donations |
All other financial records | 6 years from creation (Companies Act 1985) | No | https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/part/15/chapter/2 |
All other HR & personnel records | See here | Yes | See here |
7.2.2 Reviewing the data held by Big Give
In line with best practice recommended by the ICO, we will undertake a full review of all personal information held by Big Give every 2 years. This will include:
- Reviewing the purposes for which we hold personal informationagainst the original purposes for which it was obtained – if these do not align or the information is no longer needed or it is out-of-date, it will be archived or securely deleted (depending on if there are any legal requirements to retain the information)
- Where necessary, we will inform any third parties we share the information with of the data being deleted. For example, our payments processor for out-of-date charity data
We use the following third-party providers to deliver part of the services we provide to you:
- Stripe, for the purposes as described in section 1.3.
- MailChimp, for the purposes of creating, adding to and maintaining our mailing lists which we use to communicate with charities and donors about our upcoming match funding campaigns, past match funding campaigns and Big Give news & activities.
- FormAssembly, for the purpose of facilitating legal agreements between Big Give and champions, gathering feedback through surveys from charities and donors on our match funding campaigns and Big Give platform, and improving our understanding through surveys of how and why people give to charity.
- GetSiteControl, for the purpose collecting feedback from donors above Big Give’s platform.
- Eventbrite, for the purposes of inviting you to online or offline events hosted by Big Give or by organisations related to Big Give.
- Salesforce, for the purposes of storing donors’, pledgers’, champions’ and charities’ data.
- Reed.co.uk, for the purpose of processing payroll, PAYE contributions, pensions.
These third-party service providers have their own privacy statements addressing how they collect, store or use data, which can be found on their websites. We have read and agreed to the Terms and Conditions of the third-party providers we use and have appropriate Data Processing Agreements in place.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive and may be updated from time to time as Big Give’s business needs and legal requirements change.
From time to time, we collect information from public sources, including information available on the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, and OSCR to make initial contact with organisations who are eligible to participate in a Big Give match funding campaign. We process prospective charity data under legitimate interests. If we have not acquired your information from a public source, we will not contact you without your consent.
You can unsubscribe from this communication at any time by either following the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our emails or by raising a case on our website.
To tailor your Big Give journey and help charities fundraise more effectively, we use an algorithm to show and prioritise causes we think you’ll be interested in. As an example, if you have donated to charities supporting vulnerable children living in poverty in London via Big Give, our algorithm may guess that you care about this cause and may show a similar charity at the end of your donation journey in our match funding campaigns.
Additionally, Big Give undertakes some non-automated profiling (which has human intervention), consisting of the following:
- Tailoring marketing communications to donors in our match funding campaigns – delivered through email – to ensure you receive information about participating charities that may interest you
- Social; accessing publicly available information from Social Network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others to ascertain engagement with specific causes/interests/groups etc.
There are no significant consequences of this automated decision making or profiling. These decisions are only suggestions and don’t force you to take any actions. Under the GDPR, you have the right to refuse automated decision making and profiling. For more information, see section 1.5.