Our supporter promise
We’re so grateful to everyone who supports us – from donating to taking part in events, organising a fundraiser to leaving a gift in their will. All of this support helps us move forward together, to provide advice, information and support to the 1 in 4 people in the UK who have experienced a mental health problem.
We have achieved so much, but there is still so much more we can do. And we couldn’t do that without you, our supporters.
As such, we pledge to make the following promises to you:
- We will always abide by fundraising regulation to ensure that we have the highest standards of fundraising we can.
- We will never sell your data to another organisation. In addition, if we ever need to send data to a third party we will make sure the company we use has signed a data processing agreement with us so that they are bound to take care of your data in the same way we do.
- We will only contact you by phone, SMS or email if you have expressly ‘opted-in’ to being contacted via those channels, and we won’t contact you by mail if you have ‘opted-out’ of that channel.
- If you contact us to say you no longer want to hear from us, we will update our records within three working days.
- We will never call you unless you have expressly given us permission to do so.
- You can contact us at any time at [email protected], so you can tell us what we are doing well, tell us what we aren’t doing so well, or to change your opt-in preferences.
- Sometimes we work with carefully selected external suppliers to help us deliver communications and fundraising activities because our team simply isn’t big enough. We work with them to make sure they understand the issues we work with, adhere to our policies and comply with regulations. We may need to share your data with them for processing, but never for their marketing purposes, and will ensure their use of your data meets all regulations required under data protection legislation. We will only work with professional organisations that meet our high standards and will train and monitor them in order to meet those standards. We will act quickly if they do not meet those high standards.
- We won’t target vulnerable* people for fundraising, though we do find that people closest to the cause, like friends and family, are among our most treasured supporters. If you or someone close to you is considered vulnerable, we will do our utmost to ensure that all our interactions with you are done as sensitively as possible, and we’ll listen to what you do and don’t want. We want to always ensure that our supporters, whether in vulnerable circumstances or not, feel able to make an informed decision about how you support us, and don’t feel pressured in any of your interactions with us.
- If we need to purchase a list of postal or email addresses to fundraise from, we will ensure we only buy a list where we can see there are clear permissions for the use of the person’s details. We will also ensure that we follow all data protection regulations regarding using these lists.
- We will never ask under 18s for a donation where it is reasonable to assume that we knew their age.
* Within our existing mix of donors and other supporters and beneficiaries – family, friends, workmates of those living with mental health problems, some may live with a mental health problem themselves that we may or may not know of, or be vulnerable in some other way. Mental health problems are not a constant, lifelong state for everyone, but we must consider that all our donors might at any time be considered vulnerable in one way or another, through mental capacity, age, disability, financial circumstance or other means. So we must treat every donor or prospect with respect and clarity, listen and act appropriately.
Others will see us through mass marketing techniques like posters, online, direct mail or press adverts. It’s inevitable that some of these people are vulnerable so we must make all of our communications clear, legible and honest.
Last updated August 2019