Privacy Policy

Who we are

Nourish Community Foodbank (We/Us/Our) is a registered charity that provides people living in Tunbridge Wells, south Tonbridge and surrounding areas with a short-term emergency supply of food in a time of financial crisis.

The charity is registered in England and Wales (1154716) and is also a registered company limited by guarantee (8303764).

Address and registered office: Nourish Community Foodbank, Unit 5, Kingstanding Way, Tunbridge Wells TN2 3UP

Your acceptance of these Privacy Statement terms

By using any of the sites within our website network (“websites” or “website”) or our Services, you unconditionally agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy.
Nourish Community Foodbank is committed to protecting your privacy. Should we receive, or ask you to provide certain personal information by which you can be identified, then you can be assured it will only be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
From time to time, we add or change functions, features or products to our websites or services that may result in changes to this Privacy Policy. As a result, please remember to refer back to this Privacy Policy regularly to review any amendments.

Any questions regarding our Privacy Policy should be directed to: admin@nourishcommunityfoodbank.org.uk

Please read this policy carefully so you can understand:

1. Our legal reason for processing data
2. How we collect your personal information
3. What information we collect
4. How we use your information
5. Direct marketing
6. How we protect your information
7. Who we share your information with
8. How long we keep your information
9. Updating your details
10. Your rights regarding the information we hold
11. Cookies and website links
12. Changes to this Privacy Policy.

1. Our legal reason for processing data

The legal reason for processing your data will depend upon the circumstances in which it is being collected and used, but will in most cases fall into one of the following categories:

• Where you have provided your consent to allow us to use your data in a certain way (e.g. if you have contacted us to receive regular updates about our work)
• Where the processing is necessary to carry out a contractual relationship (e.g. as a referral agent, a client in receipt of our services or a contractor carrying out work on our behalf)
• Where it is in our legitimate interests to perform our functions (e.g. fundraising campaigns, processing donations or sending administrative or marketing communications where our legitimate interest is to raise funds and to deliver our charitable purposes). The legitimate interests of Nourish are the immediate benefits that the charity provides to individuals through its work supplying emergency food aid, and the wider benefits this brings to society. This aid helps people recovering from a crisis, letting them return to caring for their children or dependent relatives, finding somewhere to live, taking up work or resuming study.
• Where the processing is necessary in order for us to comply with a legal obligation (e.g. if as a volunteer you are giving us your data to allow us to undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check).

2. How we collect your personal information

We collect personal information in the following ways:

• When you give it to us directly. We collect and keep information about you whenever you engage with us. For example, when you make a donation to Nourish, fundraise on our behalf, register for an event or submit an enquiry, sign a contract with us as one of our contractors, apply to us for a volunteering opportunity, or otherwise give us any other personal information
• When you give permission to other parties to share it with us. We only provide our services through referrals. Our front-line referral partners will share information with us in order for you to access our services.
  We may receive your information from other organisations, e.g. via fundraising sites like Localgiving, CAF or GoFundme. These independent third parties will only do so when you have indicated that you wish to support a fundraising campaign and only when you have given them permission to share your information with us. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand how they will process your data.

3. What information we collect

Your personal details will only be used in a way you would reasonably expect, or have agreed to. The type and quantity of information we collect and how we use it depends on why you are providing it.

If you make a donation, volunteer, register to fundraise, sign up for an event, we will usually collect some, or all, of the following information:

• Your name
• Your contact details (address, email address, phone number)
• Your bank or credit card details.

If you are a referral agent or are referred to us for use of our services then we require the following information to allow us to provide an emergency supply of food:

• Your name
• Your contact details (postal address, email address, phone number)
• Reason for referral
• Duration of referral
• Personal details relevant to your situation, e.g. specific dietary needs, number of people in the family, age of children, etc.

The law says that some types of personal data, known as “special category data”, are particularly sensitive; for example, details about a person’s health. We take particular care with this type of personal data and only collect it where it could help to deliver tailored services, such as where:

• Clients need particular types of food to maintain their health, or
• Volunteers have health problems that could restrict the work they may be able to do.

We will only collect this information if there is a clear reason for doing so and with explicit consent. You are under no obligation to provide this information, but if you do not then we may not be able to provide you with the tailored support you need.

4. How we use your information

How we use the information will largely depend on your relationship with us and why you are providing it. We may use the information you provide to:

• Fulfil your requests and to give you the information, support or services you ask for
• Keep a record of your relationship to us, details of any contact or communication which we have with you and to comply with our administrative duties and financial regulations
• Process donations and other financial payments, including sending thank you letters and receipts
• Make claims for Gift Aid on your donations with HM Revenue and Customs (if your consent has been provided)
• Anonymised data are used to compile annual figures, e.g. number of children supported, proportion of people referred for specific reasons, such as benefit changes, domestic violence
• Carry out statistical analysis in order to develop organisational strategy and help us to understand how we can improve our services and meet the needs of people that require our help
• Investigate and respond to complaints, legal claims or other issues. At times, we may need to use your personal information to prevent fraud or to identify misuse of our services
• Monitor and record information on contractors and volunteers for the purpose of recruitment, payment for contractual services, safety and performance management
• We may also use your personal information for other purposes which we specifically notify you about and, where appropriate, obtain your consent.

We understand many donors like to make donations anonymously so we will not release their names unless we have the donor’s permission to do so.

5. Direct marketing

Continued support to Nourish Community Foodbank helps thousands of people in crisis in Tunbridge Wells, south Tonbridge and the surrounding areas get access to vital emergency provisions at a time when they need it most. With your consent, we would like to keep you informed of our news, information, fundraising events and campaigns so we can continue to raise income and awareness of the charity.
We offer you the option to tell us what type of information you would like to receive and how you prefer to hear from us; by post, email, phone or SMS. If you choose for us to contact you by email, every message we send will include a link to enable you to change your preferences or to opt out of receiving future marketing messages.

You can also change your preferences or opt out of marketing communications by calling us on 01892 548892, or by email to admin@nourishcommunityfoodbank.org.uk or writing to our Operations Director at the contact address below.

6. Who we share your information with

We never sell any of your personal information to any organisation for any reason. We do not pass your personal data on to any other country or international organisation. We do not use your data in any automated decision-making or automated profiling activities.

Who we may share your information with largely depend on your relationship with us and why you are providing it. We may share your information with:

• HM Revenue and Customs, to enable us to make Gift Aid claims on donations (if your consent has been provided)
• Banks and payment providers – to authorise and complete payment transactions
• Carefully selected partners who provide specialist services we request. This may include IT and Database Consultants who support our I.T systems and have agreed to non-disclosure agreements which prevent them from using your data for anything other than the clearly defined purpose relating to the service they are providing
• Event organisers who operate events and activities which we have elected to join and which you have chosen to participate in
• Trading companies who operate a lottery which we have elected to join and which you have chosen to participate in
• Our financial and legal advisers in the event we need to obtain advice and protect or defend our legal rights
• Our appointed Contractual Law and Health and Safety Specialists, Financial Accountants and HM Revenue & Customs for the purposes of administration for our appointed contractors or potential contractors before entering into a contract
• Law enforcement bodies in order to comply with any legal obligation or court order, or which we reasonably believe that we need to disclose your information to for such purposes
• Other organisations for the purposes of fraud prevention, misuse of our services, money laundering or safeguarding.

We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

7. How long we keep your personal information

How long we keep your personal information will depend on your relationship with us and the reason why you are providing us with your data.

If you are providing information to us as a client, we will keep your data for no longer than 6 years. The reason for this is that Nourish is set up to provide emergency food aid – to get people through a crisis until they can support themselves or until they receive the help of other agencies – and our volunteers and donors provide their support to us on this basis. It is not our purpose to provide continuing support over long periods. We therefore need to store clients’ information for this time to know whether they are returning to us repeatedly over a period of months or years; if so other agencies are better placed to step in and help them.
If you are providing information to us as a volunteer or corporate supporter, we will keep your data for as long as you continue to give us your time and support. If you decide that you are no longer able to volunteer with us or provide us with your support, then we will delete your personal data no later than 6 months after we receive notice that you are withdrawing your support.

If you are providing us with your personal data as a financial donor, we will keep your data for as long as you continue to give us your financial support and as required to operate our services in accordance with legal, tax and accounting requirements. This will be a period of not longer than 7 years. Where your information is no longer required, we will ensure it is disposed of in a secure manner.

8. How we protect your information

We place great importance on keeping your information secure, accurate and up-to-date.
We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. While we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur while it is under our control, we use our best efforts to try to prevent this.

Unfortunately, transmission of information over the internet is never completely secure. While we do our best to protect the security of your information we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur whilst data is being transferred, so any transmission is at the user’s own risk.

Any credit or debit card details provided via online payment systems remain with our payment partner(s) and do not reach us.

9. Your rights regarding the information we hold

The law requires that the processing of any personal information is always carried out in a fair and balanced way that does not overly impact the rights of the person concerned.
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and details of how we use that information (called a Subject Access Request). If you think any of the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, you may also request that it is corrected. You also have a right, in certain circumstances, to require us to stop processing your personal information and for us to erase the data we hold about you.
For more information about your rights please go to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights please email admin@nourishcommunityfoodbank.org.uk or write to the Data Protection Officer at the contact address shown below.

10. Updating your details

If you want to update any of the information we hold for you, or you think any information we have about you is incorrect or incomplete, please email admin@nourishcommunityfoodbank.org.uk or write to the Data Protection Officer at the contact address below, or call us on 01892 548892.

11. Cookies and links

Our website uses cookies which are small text files that are placed onto your device and collect information about the way in which you navigate and use our websites and the internet. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. You can change your browser to prevent this, but this may mean you cannot get all the benefits of using a website. First party cookies are specific to the server that created them and cannot be accessed by other servers, so they cannot be used to track your movements around the web. Third party cookies are added by scripts added to the website, such as Facebook.
Cookies do not collect information which allows us to identify individual users, nor do they identify a user’s computer or passwords. Credit card information is not stored in cookies.

We use the following cookies:

• Google Analytics to help us collect information on the number of visitors to our site, which pages they have visited and for how long. This is collected as anonymised information and helps us improve the site to make it more appealing to users.
• Facebook cookies allow us to store the language and country you are browsing from, Facebook likes and security to ensure your Facebook login is not being misused. If you do not use Facebook then we do not place these cookies on your device.

To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
When you visit our website, we automatically log your IP address (the unique address which identifies your computer on the internet) which is automatically recognised by our web server. We use IP addresses to help us administer our website and to collect broad demographic information for aggregate use. We do not link IP addresses to personally identifiable information.

We may automatically collect non-personal information about you such as the type of internet browsers you use or the site from which you linked to our website. You cannot be identified from this information and it is only used to assist us in providing an effective service on our website. We may from time to time supply the owners or operators of third party sites from which it is possible to link to our website with information relating to the number of users linking to our website from their sites. You cannot be identified from this information.
Nourish Community Foodbank’s website may contain links to other sites, not owned or managed by us. Once you have clicked on a link you are entering another site. We cannot be held responsible for the privacy of information collected by websites not managed by us so we encourage you to read the privacy statements of these linked websites as their privacy policy is likely to differ from ours.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time if we make any significant changes in the way we handle and treat your personal information, or to reflect any changes to legislation. If our policy changes we will post the changes on this page and they will apply from the time we post them.

This Privacy Policy is currently under review (March 2024).