Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to information we, Optimise Foundation (Registration Number 1208831), who own and operate www.optimisefoundation.org, collect about individuals who interact with our organisation. 

It explains what personal information we collect and how we use it.

Optimise Foundation is the data controller of any personal information that we collect about you. We are committed to protecting your privacy and keeping your personal data safe.

If you have any comments or questions about this notice, please contact us via leza@optimisefoundation.org .

1. Personal data that we process

Information that we obtain from you

When you make a donation, request information, sign up for a workshop, fill in a survey, volunteer with us, or interact with us in any other way, we may process the following types of personal information about you:

  • Name

  • Contact details (e.g. email address, phone number, physical address)

  • Your interactions with Optimise, such as your correspondences with us, your donation history, how you heard about Optimise and why you are supporting us, events or workshops you have signed up for, and volunteering you have done with us

  • Financial information (e.g. bank details for donations) and other donation related data (e.g. gift aid declarations, donation amount, date and purpose, etc.)

  • Whether you are affiliated with a sports club or a school interested in Optimise’s educational resources and, if so, your role at the organisation

  • You may choose to provide us with details that help us to ensure that you only receive information from us that is relevant to you (e.g. your areas of interest related to Optimise’s work, your age group, gender and location, whether you have daughters interested in sports, etc.)  

  • If you apply to volunteer with us or to act as a Trustee or Advisory Council member: your educational and employment history, your area of expertise/interest, and potentially a DBS check (if you will work directly with minors), as well as data arising from your involvement with Optimise (e.g. volunteer agreement, training records, conflict of interest statements, board meeting minutes, etc.). For Trustees only, we also require National Insurance Numbers.

  • If you enter into a contract with us (e.g. for service delivery or sponsorship): contract, bank details, invoices, and any other documents relevant to the contract

  • If you interact with us on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, X, Bluesky, Tiktok or LinkedIn, we may also obtain some personal information about you. The information we receive will depend on the privacy preferences you have set on each platform and the platform’s privacy policies. 

We do not usually ask you for sensitive or ‘special category’ personal data, such as details of any disabilities that you have, your religion or belief, or your sexual orientation, unless there is a clear reason for us to do so. We may ask for information about your health, nutrition and exercise routine, for example in workshop related questionnaires, but we store this information in an anonymised format, so that it cannot be linked personally to you. There are some exceptions where we may temporarily store personally identifiable health data, for example if you take part in a focus group, as outlined in section 7 below. In these cases, we will clearly inform you about how and why we collect, use and store your information, and we will obtain your explicit consent for the data processing. 

We may also use cookies to collect information related to your visits to our website, for example the pages you viewed and how you navigate the site. Please see section 6 below for further details.

Information about you that we obtain from third parties

We may collect personal information about you from service providers, the press, search engines, social media (e.g. LinkedIn) and reputable public data sources (e.g. Companies House, BoardEx, the Charity Commission, Land Registry).  Personal information we may collect via these channels may include your job title, directorships, contact information, demographic data (including estimated income and property value), date and size of previous donations to other charities, details of philanthropic activities you engage in, etc. 

We may use this information to build a profile of you (i.e. your interests, preferences, demographics and level of potential donations) to enable us to tailor fundraising efforts and communications based on your circumstances and interests and how likely you are to support Optimise’s work. 

This helps us understand our supporters better and make appropriate requests for support or gifts to supporters who might be able and willing to give more than they already do, which ensures that we are making the best use of our resources.

We may combine information we have obtained about you from these third party sources with other information that we hold about you for this purpose and for the purposes described below.

If you are under 16 years old

If you are under 16 years old, you must get your parent’s or guardian’s permission before you provide any personal information to us.

2. How we use your data

We will only use your data in a manner that is appropriate considering the purpose for which that data was collected..

For example, we may use your personal information to:

  • provide you with information or services you have asked for

  • handle donations, gift aid claims, or other transactions that you have initiated

  • build a picture of your interests and preferences so that we can tailor our services and communications to suit you

  • share information or questionnaires related to events or workshops you have signed up for, both before and after the event or workshop has taken place

  • where you have specifically agreed to this, send you marketing communications regarding our work which we think may be of interest to you and information on how you can support us

  • understand how you interact with Optimise (e.g. via our website) and monitor and evaluate our activities (e.g. our workshop delivery) to enable us to make improvements

  • develop new educational resources and services based on your input and feedback

  • administer and help diagnose problems with our website, compile broad statistical data, and improve and maintain our website

  • comply with legal and regulatory requirements, ensure Trustees meet their obligations to Optimise, and protect against fraud

  • reach contractual agreements and execute contracts you have entered with us

  • recruit volunteers, Trustees and Advisory Board members with suitable skill sets and manage their involvement with Optimise

  • raise funds and further our charitable aims

As mentioned above, we may occasionally, based on our legitimate interests, use personal information to conduct profiling of our current or potential future supporters. This helps us target communications in a more focused, efficient, and cost-effective way, reducing the chances of supporters receiving inappropriate or irrelevant communications. You can object to such use of your personal information for profiling at any time by contacting us.

Your information is only processed if we have a legal basis to do so, which might be because you have provided consent or signed a contract, we have a legal or regulatory obligation to do so, or it is necessary to allow us to deal with a request or enquiry you have made, to deliver our services and activities, to financially sustain Optimise, to protect our assets and reputation, to recruit and interact with volunteers, Trustees, and Advisory Board members, or to further our charitable aims.

3. When we share your data

We will only pass your data to third parties in the following circumstances:

  • you have provided your explicit consent for us to pass data to a named third party;

  • we are using a third party purely for the purposes of processing data on our behalf and we have in place a data processing agreement with that third party that fulfils our legal obligations in relation to the use of third party data processors; 

  • we consider it necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Optimise; or

  • we are required by law to share your data.

Note that, when you make a donation to us, subscribe to our mailing list, sign up for a workshop, event or our online portal, or if you apply for a volunteering role we are advertising, your information will be collected by the third party digital platforms we use for these purposes and accessed by us via these platforms.

We will only pass data to third parties outside of the EU where appropriate safeguards are in place as defined by Article 46 of the General Data Protection Regulation.

4. How long we keep your data

We take the principles of data minimisation and removal seriously and have internal policies in place to ensure that we only ever ask for the minimum amount of data for the associated purpose and delete that data promptly once it is no longer required. If you would like to know more about how long we keep what type of data, please contact us using the details provided above.

Where data is collected on the basis of consent, we will  keep consents under review and refresh them at appropriate intervals.

5. Rights you have over your data

You have a range of rights over your data, which include the following:

  • Where data processing is based on consent, you may revoke this consent at any time and we will make it as easy as possible for you to do so (for example by including ‘unsubscribe’ links at the bottom of all our marketing emails).

  • You have the right to ask for rectification or deletion of your information.

  • You have the right of access to your information.

  • You may also be able to restrict how we use your information, to object to processing, and, in certain circumstances, you have the right to data portability.

  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner if you feel your rights have been infringed.

A full summary of your legal rights over your data can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website here: https://ico.org.uk/

If you would like to exercise the rights listed above, or any other legal rights you have over your data under current legislation, please get in touch with us.

6. Cookies

Cookies are text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser.

As most other online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function as expected, and they do not collect any personally identifiable data about you. Third-party cookies on our website are mainly used to understand how the website performs and how you interact with it, to keep our services secure, and to provide you with a better user experience. The table below lists the cookies we are currently using. We will update the table if we add any further cookies in the future.

You can change your cookie preferences by selecting the relevant option on the website cookie banner. In addition, you can use your browser settings to block or delete cookies. 

7. Policy modifications

We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time and will publish the most recent version on our website. If a modification meaningfully reduces your rights, we will notify you of these changes. 

This Privacy Policy was last updated in May 2025.