| Information we may collect about you… | What we use this information for |
| Introduction | To better serve each person’s individual and spiritual interests as they engage with the church we must collect and maintain a certain amount of information from you, including basic contact information so that we can get in touch and keep you informed. We may also collect additional “optional” information from you or third parties. We only use the information given to us by you (as set out in greater detail in this privacy policy) to: – Keep you informed about church news, events, ministries, and mission, – Provide you with appropriate pastoral care and support where this is requested, – – Provide suggestions to move you on in healthy Christian discipleship, – Help you build life-giving friendships within the church community, – Operate efficiently and effectively using the resources provided to the church. |
| Name | Your name is used to help identify you in the church’s database to users, and subject to your own privacy settings, also to other church members. We may address you personally by name or using your preferred title in our communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Optional name fields such as your middle name or middle initial are helpful where there are several people with the same name as you. You may also optionally prefer to be known by a formal name or former name. |
| Privacy settings | You can always manage your privacy settings, which determines whether any your contact details (name, email, mobile, telephone or address) can be seen by others in the church. The nature of church community is that people want to contact one another, especially if they’re serving as part of a team or they are in a small group together. By default, none of your contact details are visible to other church members. No further personal details can be seen by other church members. |
| Communication | You can always manage your communication preferences, choosing by which means the church is able to keep in touch with you – email, SMS, telephone or by post. |
| Sex | Your sex is used to help us understand the demographic makeup of the church, and to send you relevant communications about gender-related initiatives, for example a men’s/women’s event (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Your sex can be recorded as either male, female, or unspecified/unknown. |
| Date of birth | Your date of birth, used to calculate your age, is used to help us understand the demographic makeup of the church, and to send you relevant communications about age-related initiatives (if you have agreed to receive these from us). |
| Marital status | Your marital status is used to help us understand the demographic makeup of the church, and to send you relevant communications about relationship-related initiatives (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Your marital status is also used to correctly reflect your relationship status between linked family members such as your spouse/partner and children who are also in the database. |
| Profile image | In a growing church the pastors, staff, ministry/group leaders and fellow church members will find a profile image helpful to ‘put faces to names,’ making it easier to identify one another at services and events. Your profile image (if you have optionally provided this to us) is visible to the church’s database users and church members in the member-facing My Church Suite platform, to which you can have access. |
| Telephone and mobile | From time to time, we may need to be able to contact you quickly. Additionally, if you are part of a small group or serve on a rota, fellow group/rota members, or their leaders, may need to call you, for example, to organise a rota swap or to communicate a change to a rota or group meeting, or to circulate a request for prayer (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Some ministries send SMS rota reminders, and occasionally the church may also communicate a last-minute announcement by SMS (if you have agreed to receive these from us). |
| The church communicates primarily by email because it’s free and accessible to most people. Your email address is also used to send confirmation emails when you submit information to the church, for example, When signing up to an event or small group, When submitting contact details and areas of interest as a newcomer, When making an online donation, When checking in a visiting child through our child check-in system. We communicate about church announcements, news, events, and ministries (if you have agreed to receive these from us). From time to time our communications may also include information about another church’s event that we’re supporting or recommending. Your email address is used by you to log in to the church’s member- facing My Church Suite platform, within which you can manage all your contact details, privacy settings and communication preferences. | |
| Address | Without an address we won’t know where to send letters or forms used by the church (if you have agreed to receive these from us) – for example, parent consent forms, statements of donations. We use your postcode to understand the geographic makeup of the church and to better provide relevant information about events/ministries and initiatives in your geographic area, such as mid- week small groups. If you are a formal member of Hope Church, we are required to maintain a record of your address to know who is eligible to vote at the AGM. We are required by HMRC to maintain a record of your address and postcode in respect of Gift-Aided donations that you may make to us. |
| Site | Hope Church is a multi-site church, operating in multiple worshipping locations. We record the primary site you are part of against your contact profile. Your site is used to deliver site-specific communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us), and to help us better understand the demographics of each site. |
| Membership status | The church maintains a list of its members. We designate you as either ‘member in attendance,’ ‘non- member in attendance’, ‘mission partner’ or ‘friend’. Membership is not a requirement for being part of Hope Church, although certain roles, ministries and events may be member–only activities. Membership status is also used as a basis for receiving appropriate member-related communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us). As the church considers new initiatives and opportunities in the future, we may begin to collect further optional information about you in our database. We will let you know about such initiatives, and the purpose for collecting your additional information before this happens. You can then choose whether that is information you wish to share with us. |
| Roles | As a church that emphasises ‘every member ministry’, we may identify certain roles against your record, eg. Children’s worker, musician, deacon, elder etc. |
| Key dates | We maintain a timeline of certain key dates, milestones, anniversaries, and events throughout your involvement with the church. This begins with the key date you first connect with the church, but will subsequently include other key dates, such as your participation in certain events and ministries. For example, we’ll record a key date when you join/leave a serving ministry or small group or attend a newcomer event or discipleship course. Knowing these key dates helps us stay organised and is a useful basis for sending appropriate communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us), for discipleship, and for pastoral care. For example, we may invite married couples to a ‘marriage refresher course’, but only if they’ve previously participated in a marriage course within the last two years, which would be designated by a ‘marriage course’ key date. We also use the absence of certain key dates too. For example, we would like to invite those without a ‘newcomer event’ key date to the next newcomer event. Some key dates are maintained for safeguarding purposes, such as the date your DBS Check is taken, so that we know when to renew it. The key dates we maintain about you are only visible to authorised users of our admin-facing database. |
| Tags | We use tags to categorise and group people together in our database. Like key dates, tags help to keep us organised and are a useful way or directing communications to the right groupings of people (if you have agreed to receive these from us). While some of the tags we create are based on the presence or absence of information you have provided to us, no automated decisions are made using tags; and a human being is always involved in decision-making or communications concerning you and your data. |
| Notes | From time to time, we may add notes against your contact details in the church’s database. These might be a note about a conversation we have had with you or something you have asked us to do for you. Notes ensure that things don’t get forgotten. We only retain notes for as long as they are relevant and then they are deleted from the system. |
| Communication history | We maintain a record of all communications sent to you by us. Where your email software returns an “open/read” response to our email system, our communications history shows the date and time the message was opened. We periodically review email open rate statistics to better understand the reach and effectiveness of our communications. If you sign up to an event run by us, we will maintain an historic record of the sign-up information you provide us, including your name, email address, telephone number, and details of any tickets selected, and payments made. We do not keep a record of payment card details used to purchase any tickets. Some events may have additional questions on the sign-up form that are relevant to the event – for example, details of dietary needs for an event with catering. Your question responses help us with event management. We’ll send you a sign-up confirmation email. That confirmation will serve as your receipt if there are tickets and payments. The confirmation also serves as the event ticket and may be required for entry to the event. Your sign-up details are used by the church’s designated event overseers, those responsible for running the event. We often welcome people who may be considered vulnerable, at risk and children at church events. For safeguarding purposes, we may record attendance at these events. We may communicate with you before and after the event, and we may communicate with you about other similar events or initiatives (if you have agreed to receive these from the church). Your participation (or absence) from an event you have signed up for may also form the basis for future event invitations – for example, in follow up to attending a newcomer event we may notify you about some helpful next steps with the church and things you might like to get involved in. Similarly, if you’ve signed up for an event and are later absent – we may contact you as a courtesy or to offer you an alternative event if that is possible. |
| Small group membership and attendance | In addition to weekend services, many people find their primary place of belonging is expressed through being part of one of our small groups. Small groups are also where people primarily receive pastoral care within the church and are a great place to find deeper friendships, to receive prayer support, discipleship, form accountable relationships, and encouragement in your spiritual journey. We record the date you join (or leave) a small group, and we will add your name to the member list that the group’s leaders maintain within our database for their group. We’ll remove you from the group member list when you leave the group. Since small group membership reflects a deeper level of church engagement, small group members are an important audience for many church communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us). By nature, we often welcome people who may be considered vulnerable, at risk and under eighteens into our small groups. For safeguarding purposes, we record attendance at small groups, especially events specifically for under eighteens. Additionally, we use small group attendance data to produce statistical reporting on the number of unique individuals attending groups, which may be different to the group’s weekly attendance count as people may attend with varying frequency. This attendance data informs our decision-making of when to multiply or plant new groups, and to identify groups that have available capacity to accept new people. We also want to care for you well – our experience is that group membership is not necessarily the same as group participation! Our elders and group leaders may periodically refer to small group attendance and reach out to you if you’ve been absent from the group for any period. In this regard, be assured that our desire to reach out comes from an attitude of genuine care for you. You are free to not be known as a group member (to opt out) and you may attend the group simply as a visitor if you wish. You will then be excluded from the group’s member list and your attendance will only be noted when you visit; but no contact will be made if you are absent or if you choose not to visit the group. Small group attendance helps us understand each group’s demographics, enabling us to better direct newcomers to appropriate groups they may wish to try, based on those who are already members of the group. |
| Ministry serving commitments, roles, past, active, and future rotas, unavailability. | Serving on a team is more than just meeting a need within the church; teams are a helpful place to make friendships and enjoy discipleship. We produce rotas for those who serve on teams in the church’s ministries. For those serving on a ministry/team, we record the date you join (or leave) that ministry and we add your name to the ministry’s member list that the ministry’s overseers maintain within our database about their ministry. We’ll remove you from the ministry member list when you leave the ministry. To distribute rotas, send timely rota reminders, facilitate rota swaps, and communicate changes or important information about the rotas you serve on, we need to contact you. This will usually be done by email but may also be by SMS (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Your name and your contact details are made available to other rota members, and your name and any roles assigned to you are shown on the rota. Regrettably, we may be unable to include you in a serving rota if you choose to opt out of receiving communications. Since serving on a team reflects a deeper level of church engagement, and because we place a trust in people when they serve, ministry members are an important audience for many church communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us). It’s possible that people who are vulnerable, at risk and under eighteen’s may be serving on rotas too. For safeguarding purposes, we will maintain an historic record of past rotas you may have served on. Additionally, we use serving rotas to produce statistical reporting on the number of unique individuals participating in serving teams. This serving data informs our decision-making of when we need to recruit for vacancies, when we need to make changes to rotas and when we may start new serving opportunities in the church. We also want to care for our serving team members, including providing training when appropriate, and to communicate about social and other team events. Our pastors and ministry overseers may periodically refer to past and active rotas to consider whether it is appropriate to reach out to you if you’ve been absent from the rota for any period. In this regard, be assured that our desire to reach out comes from an attitude of genuine care for you. You may optionally provide us with dates of unavailability. This helps us with advance rota planning and avoids us assigning you to rota dates when you are not available, reducing the need for unnecessary rota swaps/changes. Your serving involvement and serving patterns helps us understand each ministry’s demographics, enabling us to identify serving opportunities for others and to ensure you are not overstretched or serving in roles that may not be appropriate for you. |
| IP address and device type | If you access the church’s My ChurchSuite member-facing platform, for security reasons we will log your IP address and the type of device you use to log in. We will use this information to reach out to you if we notice any unusual activity on your account, from a new IP address or unrecognised device. A valid email address is a requirement for you to be able to log in to the church’s system, should you wish to. We may also monitor login history to report on levels of engagement with the member-facing My ChurchSuite platform, including if your login has been inactive for a period. We can also determine the strength of your password and the date your password was last changed. We may request you increase your password strength or suggest you renew your password. When you submit information to the church via our website, your IP address is recorded at the point of submission. |
| Information we may collect about your children… | What we use this information for |
| Introduction | If your child (aged under 18) is participating in groups, events or ministries run by the church, we will collect certain information about you (as parent/guardian) and about your child. Some information is required for legitimate interests and safeguarding purposes, and some information is collected with your consent so that we can better serve your family and communicate with you, and where appropriate, with your child too. Children details are not visible to other church members within the member-facing My ChurchSuite platform, except where your child serves on a rota or is a member of a small group; in which case their name only is visible to fellow rota and group members and group/ministry overseers. If they have signed up to an event their sign-up contact details will be visible to the event’s overseer(s). Your child’s name is used to help identify them in the church’s database to users, and to others on any rotas, small groups, or events they participate in. We may address them personally by name in our communications (if you have agreed you/they receive these from us). Optional name fields such as their middle name or middle initial are helpful where there are multiple children with the same name. You may also prefer your child to be optionally known by a formal name. |
| Name | Your child’s sex is used to help us understand the demographic makeup of the church, and to send relevant communications about gender-related initiatives based on your child’s sex (if you/they have agreed to receive these from us). Your child’s sex is recorded as either male, female or unspecified/unknown. |
| Date of birth | Your child’s date of birth, used to calculate their age and school year, is used to help understand the demographic makeup of the church, and also to send relevant communications about age- related and school year-related initiatives for your child (if you/they have agreed to receive these from us). Your child’s date of birth is also used to determine their eligibility for the correct age-appropriate groups at our weekend services and mid-week groups and clubs. As you child gets older, we will use their date of birth to process them up into their next age-appropriate group(s). |
| Site | Hope Church is a multi-site church, operating in multiple worshipping locations. We record the site your child is part of against their profile. Their site is used to deliver site-specific communications (where you/they have agreed to receive these from us), and to understand the demographics of each of site. |
| Child’s image | You may optionally upload a profile image for your child. In a growing church the pastors, staff, ministry/group leaders find a profile image helpful for identification. The profile image displays in the contact profile in the database. |
| Linked parent name(s) and relationship to child | If you, as parent/guardian, are part of Hope Church to and your details are in our database (see previous section), we will link your child to your contact profile in the database. In doing so, your child will also be linked to any spouse/partner that you are also linked to in our database, linking family members together. |
| Unlinked parent name(s) | If you as parent are not part of Hope Church, we will still need to know some of your information, including your name, emergency contact details and your relationship to the child. This information is required for safeguarding purposes, to enable us to address you by name should we need to contact you about your child, and to communicate with you church news, events, and information (if you have agreed to receive these from us). |
| Child address | Without an address we won’t know where to send letters or forms used by the church as part of caring for your child and for safeguarding e.g. consent forms. We may use your child’s postcode to understand the geographic makeup of the church members and to provide relevant information about events and initiatives in your child’s geographic area, such as mid-week small groups and clubs. |
| Parent telephone and mobile | From time to time, we may need to contact you quickly, and your telephone or mobile number will be used for that purpose. Additionally, where your child is participating in church events, groups or ministries, the leaders may be provided with your telephone and/or mobile contact details so that they can contact you in the event of an emergency, or to communicate any changes or important information that you need to know that affects your child. |
| Parent email | The church communicates primarily by email because it’s free and accessible to most people. Your email address is also used to send confirmation emails when you submit information to the church, for example, When signing up your child to an event or small group, When checking in a visiting child through our child check-in system. We communicate about church announcements, news, events, and ministries (if you have agreed to receive these from us). From time to time our communications may also include information about another church’s event that we’re supporting or recommending. Ordinarily we primarily communicate with a child’s parents. Where we have a young person’s email we may communicate with older children (youth) directly, but we will endeavour to copy you in on those communications so that you know what has been sent to your child. In the absence of a child’s own email address, we can use your email address e.g. for the purposes of sending rota reminders for your child. |
| Additional parent contact telephone or mobile | You may wish to provide us with an alternative contact parent mobile number which will be used for communication to a second parent/guardian that is not the spouse/partner we have linked to you in the church’s database e.g. where parents are separated or divorced. This information enables us to contact them in the event of an emergency and to keep additional parents equally informed about information, news and events concerning their child. |
| Additional parent contact email | You may wish to provide us with an alternative contact parent email address which will be used for communication to a second parent/guardian that is not the spouse/partner we have linked to you in the church’s database e.g. where parents are separated or divorced. This information enables us to keep additional parents equally informed about information, news and events concerning their child. |
| Child email | The church communicates primarily by email because it’s free and accessible to most people. Your child’s email address is also used to send confirmation emails when you/they submit information to the church, for example, When signing your child up to an event or small group, When checking in a visiting child through our child check-in system. If your child serves on a rota, they’ll receive rota reminder and rota- related emails to their email address. If your child is a member of a small group, they’ll receive group-related emails to their email address. |
| Child mobile | From time to time, we may need to be able to contact your child quickly. Additionally, if they are part of a mid-week small group or serve on a rota, their fellow group/rota members or leaders may need to call them, perhaps to organise a rota swap or to communicate a change to a rota or group meeting, or to circulate a request for prayer. Some church ministries also send SMS rota reminders. Occasionally the church may communicate a last-minute announcement by SMS (if you/they have agreed to receive these from us). |
| Child’s school | Knowing a child’s school, if you choose to share this information with us, can help us connect your child with other children in the church at the same school. |
| Check-in barcode | The church may occasionally operate a child check-in system for certain events. If you wish, we can provide you with a unique check-in barcode that you can optionally use to quickly locate your children in the church’s check-in system. We record your family’s barcode against each of your children in our database. |
| Dietary needs and medical | We currently maintain the following required fields of information about your child in our database with the following purposes… Dietary needs – Food and refreshments are often provided at events your child is participating in. You are required to inform us of your child’s special dietary needs and to keep this information up to date. Medical information – We maintain a record of relevant medical information you share with us about your child, including allergies, dietary requirements, and medical conditions that we may need to know about for your child to participate safely in the events, services, and activities of the church. It is always the parent’s responsibility to keep us informed of medical information changes. A shortened version of your child’s medical needs e.g. ‘allergic to nuts’, will be printed on your child’s check-in name badge, so that group leaders are aware of this information when your child is attending a group or event that they are checked in to. Additional needs – We maintain a record of additional and special needs you share with us about your child. This information is used to ensure those responsible for caring for your child when they are in our care are aware of your child’s special needs. It is always the parent’s responsibility to keep us informed of changes in special needs. Doctor – You may optionally provide us with doctor contact details for your child. In the event of a medical emergency involving your child we will contact you, but we may also need to seek advice from the child’s GP using these details, if provided by you. Usually, this information is only requested when you child is participating in a residential event run by the church. The easiest way to update this information is via My Church Suite. |
| Key dates | We maintain a timeline of certain key dates, milestones, anniversaries, and events throughout your child’s involvement with the church. This begins with the key date they first connect with the church, but will subsequently include other key dates, such as their participation in certain events and ministries. For example, we’ll record a key date when they join/leave a serving ministry or small group or attend a newcomer event or discipleship course. Knowing these key dates helps us stay organised and is a useful basis for sending appropriate communications (if you/they have agreed to receive these from us), for discipleship, and for pastoral care. We also use the absence of certain key dates too. For example, we would like to invite those without a ‘newcomer event’ key date to the next newcomer event. Some key dates are maintained for safeguarding purposes, such as the date your child’s DBS Check is taken, so that we know when to renew it. The key dates we maintain about your child are only visible to authorised users of our admin-facing database. |
| Tags | We use tags to categorise and group together children in our database. Like key dates, tags help us stay organised and are a useful way or directing communications to the right groupings of people (if you have agreed to receive these from us). While some of the tags we create are based on the presence or absence of information you have provided to us, no automated decisions are made using tags; and a human being is always involved in decision-making or communications concerning you and your data. |
| Notes | From time to time, we may add notes against your child’s contact details in the church’s database. These might be a note about a conversation we have had with you/them or something you/they have asked us to do. Notes ensure that things don’t get forgotten. We only retain notes for as long as they are relevant and then they are deleted from the system. |
| Photo/Video consent preferences for internal and external presentation | We sometimes use still photos and video footage taken during our weekend services and events run by the church for publicity purposes. By default, your child will not be included in photo/video used for internal (shown at weekend services) or external (on flyers or the church website) presentations. We maintain a record of any photo/video consent you give for your child to be included in internal and external presentations. Where permission has been given, we will also endeavour to show you the photos/videos being used prior to use or publication. However, if permission is subsequently withdrawn, we cannot guarantee to be able to retract the past use of photos/videos already in circulation. |
| Child’s group(s) | We maintain a record of your child’s participation in the children/youth groups that we run at weekend services, mid-week and at certain events. For safeguarding purposes, we maintain attendance records. Groups are a great place for your child to build deeper friendships in the church, to receive and extend prayer, for discipleship, to form accountable relationships, and to receive encouragement in their own journey of faith. We will record the date your child joins (or leaves) a group and we will add their name to the member list for that group. We’ll remove them from the group member list when they leave the group. Since group participation reflects a deeper level of church engagement, group members (and their parents) are an important audience for many church communications (if you/they have agreed to receive these from us). Additionally, we use group attendance data to produce statistical reporting on the number of unique individuals attending groups (which may be different to the group’s weekly attendance count, since different people attend at different times or frequency). This attendance data informs our decision-making about when to multiply or add new groups, and to identify groups that have available capacity to take further children. We also want to care for your child well – our experience is that group membership is not necessarily the same as group participation! Our pastors and group leaders may periodically refer to children group attendance to consider whether it is appropriate to reach out to you or your child if they’ve been absent from the group for any period. In this regard, be assured that our desire to reach out comes from an attitude of genuine care for your family. You are free for your child to not be known as a group member (to opt out), and they may attend some groups simply as a visitor if you wish. They will then be excluded from the group’s member list and their attendance will only be noted when they visit; but no contact will be made if they are absent and choose not to visit the group. Group attendance data helps us understand each group’s demographics, enabling us to better direct newcomers to appropriate groups, based on those who are already members of the group. |
| Child event attendance | When you sign up your child to participate in an event, we will maintain an historic record of the sign-up details provided, including your name and/or your child’s name, email address, telephone number, and details of any tickets selected, and payments made. We do not keep any record of payment card details used to purchase any tickets. Some events may have additional questions on the sign-up form that are relevant to the event – for example, detail of dietary needs for an event with catering. Your question responses help us with event management. We’ll send a sign-up confirmation email. That confirmation will serve as their receipt if there are tickets and payments. The confirmation also serves as the event ticket and may be required for entry to the event. Event sign-up details will be accessible to church’s designated event overseers who are responsible for running the event. By nature, we often welcome those who may be considered vulnerable, at risk and children at church events. For safeguarding purposes, we may record attendance at events. We may communicate with you and/or your signed-up child before and after the event, and we may communicate with you both about other similar events and initiatives (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Your child’s participation (or absence) from an event you have signed up for may also form the basis for future event invitations – for example, in follow up to attending a newcomer event we may notify you about some helpful next steps with the church and things you and your child might like to get involved in. Similarly, if you’ve signed up for an event and are later absent – we may contact you as a courtesy and may offer you an alternative event if that is possible. In addition to weekend services, many people find their primary place of belonging is expressed through being part of one of our small groups. Small groups are where people primarily receive pastoral care within the church and are a great place for your child to find deeper friendships, to receive prayer support, discipleship, form accountable relationships, and encouragement in their spiritual journey. We record the date your child joins (or leaves) a small group and we will add their name to the member list that the group’s leaders maintain within our database about their group. We’ll remove your child from the group member list when they leave the group. Since small group membership reflects a deeper level of church engagement, small group members are an important audience for many church communications (if you have agreed to receive these from the church). By nature, we often welcome people who may be considered vulnerable, at risk and under eighteens into our small groups. For safeguarding purposes, we will record your child’s attendance at small groups. Additionally, we use attendance data to produce statistical reporting on the number of unique individuals attending groups, which may be different to the group’s weekly attendance count as different people attend at different times with varying frequency. This attendance data informs our decision-making of when to multiply or plant new groups, and to identify groups that have available capacity to accept new people. We also want to care for your child well – our experience is that group membership is not necessarily the same as group participation! Our pastors and group leaders may periodically refer to small group attendance and reach out to you if your child has been absent from the group for any period. In this regard, be assured that our desire to reach out comes from an attitude of genuine care for your family. You are free for your child to not be known as a group member (to opt out), and they may attend the group simply as a visitor if you wish. They will then be excluded from the group’s member list and their attendance will only be noted when they visit; but no contact will be made if they are absent and choose not to visit the group. Small group attendance also helps us understand each group’s demographics, enabling us to better direct newcomers to appropriate groups they may wish to try, based on those who are already members of the group. |
| Child’s ministry serving commitments, roles, past, active, and future rotas, unavailability | Serving on a team is more than just meeting a need within the church; teams are a helpful place to make friendships and enjoy discipleship. We produce rotas for those who serve on teams in the church’s ministries. For those serving on a ministry/team, we record the date you join (or leave) that ministry and we add your name to the ministry’s member list that the ministry’s overseers maintain within our database about their ministry. We’ll remove you from the ministry member list when you leave the ministry. To distribute rotas, send timely rota reminders, facilitate rota swaps, and communicate changes or important information about the rotas you serve on, we need to contact you. This will usually be done by email but may also be by SMS (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Your name and your contact details are made available to other rota members, and your name and any roles assigned to you are shown on the rota. Regrettably, we may be unable to include you in a serving rota if you choose to opt out of receiving communications. Since serving on a team reflects a deeper level of church engagement and because we place a trust in people when they serve, ministry members are an important audience for many church communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us). It’s possible that people who are vulnerable, at risk and under eighteen’s may be serving on rotas too. For safeguarding purposes, we will maintain an historic record of past rotas you may have served on. Additionally, we use serving rotas to produce statistical reporting on the number of unique individuals participating in serving teams. This serving data informs our decision-making of when we need to recruit for vacancies, when we need to amend rotas and when we are starting new serving opportunities in the church. We also want to care for our serving team members, including providing training when appropriate, and to communicate about social and other team events. Our pastors and ministry overseers may periodically refer to past and active rotas to consider whether it is appropriate to reach out to your child if they’ve been absent from the rota for any period. In this regard, be assured that our desire to reach out comes from an attitude of genuine care for your family. You will also have the opportunity to advise your child’s serving unavailability. This helps us with advance rota planning and avoids us assigning your child to rota dates when they are not available, reducing the need for unnecessary rota swaps/changes. Your child’s serving involvement and serving patterns helps us understand each ministry’s demographics, enabling us to identify serving opportunities for others and to ensure they are not overstretched or serving in roles that may not be appropriate for them. |
| Information we may collect about you if you make financial donations to the church… | What we use this information for |
| Introduction | The church is also a registered charity and as such we are required to maintain accurate records about all donations made to us. Where your donation can be identified as coming from you (perhaps because of the donation method, like a cheque, or because you have explicitly identified yourself with the donation), we are required to maintain a certain amount of information about you and your donation(s). If you Gift Aid any of your donations, we will share certain information about you with HMRC, including your name, address, postcode, and donation amount(s). We keep financial records for six years from the end of the financial year in which your donation was made. |
| Giver’s name | Your name is used to help identify you in the church’s database to finance team users. We may address you personally by name in our communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us). |
| Giver’s site | Hope Church is a multi-site church, operating in multiple worshipping locations. We record the site you are part of against your giver profile. Your site is used to deliver site-specific communications (if you have agreed to receive these from us), and to understand the demographics of each of our sites. |
| Address | Without an address we won’t know where to send letters or forms used by the church e.g. Gift Aid declarations, statements of donations or financial reports on church income. Your address and postcode are required by HMRC in respect of Gift- Aided donations that you may make to us. |
| Telephone and mobile | From time to time, we may need to be able to contact you quickly about a donation you have made. |
| The church communicates extensively by email because it’s free and suits the church to most effectively keep people informed about news and events (if you have agreed to receive these from us). Your email address is also used to send confirmations when you make an online donation, and when sending you an annual statement of donations. | |
| Tags | We use tags to categorise and group people together in our database. Like key dates, tags help to keep us organised and are a useful way or directing communications to the right groupings of people (if you have agreed to receive these from us). For example, we maintain tags to indicate whether you have a current Gift Aid declaration. While some of the tags we create are based on the presence or absence of information you have provided to us, no automated decisions are made using tags; and a human being is always involved in decision-making or communications concerning you and your data. |
| Notes | From time to time, we may add notes against your contact details in the church’s database. These might be a note about a conversation we have had with you or something you’ve asked us to do for you. Notes ensure that things don’t get forgotten. We only retain notes for as long as they are relevant and then they are deleted from the system. |
| Giver reference | When you first make a donation, we will create a giver profile for you and assign you a unique giver reference number. Your giver reference allows us to run anonymised reports about donations made to the church in a way that doesn’t directly identify you as the giver. |
| Bank reference(s) | If you make a donation to us from your bank account, by standing order, the donation appears on our bank statement with your bank reference, which we use to match the donation to your giving records. We record that bank reference against your giver profile to automatically match future donations against your giver record when we import donations from our bank statements. |
| Whether the giver is a ‘couple’ giver | Where you have made a donation on behalf of yourself and a partner/spouse, we can optionally set your giver profile as a ‘couple’ giver so that Gift Aid is correctly claimed for each individual based on the Gift Aid split you will have previously advised us on your Gift Aid declaration. |
| Donation history, including dates, amounts, funds, method, and gift aid status. | We maintain detailed records of all donations made by you to us, including the date, amount, and the method by which you gave. We allocate donations against the funds you have specified at the time you gave, and we track the reclaim of any Gift Aid on your donations if they are eligible. We’ll maintain an historic record of your donations for at least six years from the end of the financial year in which a donation was made. |
| Gift aid declarations. | If you wish us to reclaim Gift Aid on your donations, and in compliance with HMRC requirements, we’ll ask you to complete a Gift Aid declaration, which we will keep retain with your giver profile. You may provide us with a paper declaration, which we will scan and record against your giver record in our system; or you may complete an electronically signed declaration within My ChurchSuite or when making an online donation to us. |
| Pledges | If you are giving to the church as part of a stewardship campaign, we will maintain a record of your financial pledge(s). Pledges are not legally binding, but help the church produce budgets based on pledged (anticipated) income from donations. You are not required to complete a pledge to become a member of the church. However, if you do make a financial pledge, we’ll periodically keep you informed on your pledge progress and let you know when you pledge has been completed. You may amend or cancel a pledge at any time. |
| Sent communication history. | We treat financial communications separately from the church’s general communications, and these are only accessible to certain authorised users. We maintain a record of all communications sent to you by us. Where your email software returns an “open/read” response to our email system, our communications history shows the date and time the message was opened. We periodically review email open rate statistics to better understand the reach and effectiveness of our communications. |
| Information we may collect about you if you are a user of the church’s admin- facing database… | What we use this information for | |
| Introduction | We maintain a list of all authorised active and archived users of our admin-facing church database. Each authorised user will create their own secure password that is used with their designated username to access the database securely. | |
| Username | We will assign you a unique username, which may identify you by name. Your username is used to identify your activity in the database system to other users. | |
| Password | You will create your own secure password. We are not able to view your password, although you/we can request a password reset. | |
| Name | Your name is used by Administrator users to identify you with your username. Your user profile may also be linked to your contact record within the church member Address Book. | |
| User email address | The church will provide you with your own email address to be used for church purposes. This will also be the user email address to which you’ll receive password reset emails when requested. | |
| User type and permissions | You will be assigned permission appropriate to your role and responsibility. This may mean that you do not have access to all areas of the system, and that your permissions may be different to those of other users. | |
| IP address and device | We will record the IP address and device that you use to log in to the church’s database. We use this information to identify unrecognised devices that may indicate that your user account has been compromised. | |
| Details of changes you make within the system. | Your user activity within the system is logged and may be periodically reviewed. This will include all content you add, remove, or change in the system. The system records the date, time, your username, and the details of the change you have made. Change logs cannot be edited or deleted and are maintained indefinitely. | |
| Details of communications you send from within the system. | We maintain a sent communications history for all outbound communications sent by you as a user to individuals or groups of people through the church database. Send communication logs cannot be edited or deleted and are maintained indefinitely. | |
| Information we may collect about you when you sign up for one of our events… | What we use this information for | |
| Introduction | When you sign-up to participate in an event run by us, we will maintain a certain amount of information about you for the purpose of event management. | |
| Name, email and phone number. | When you sign-up to an event, you will be required to supply your name, email address, and contact phone number. We will use this information to identify you as the person coming to the event, and to communicate with you if we need to contact you about the event, including sending you an email sign-up notification, which also serves as your payment receipt (for pay event tickets) and may also serve as your ticket to gain entry to the event. | |
| Tickets | We’ll maintain a record of any tickets you selected as part of the sign-up process, including the responses to ticket questions asked on the sign-up form. We do not retain a record of payment card details used to purchase ‘pay’ tickets, however we will maintain payment transaction details of ticket payments for the purpose of accounting and financial reporting. | |
| Email and telephone number. | In addition to communicating with you about the event, we may also communicate with you about church news or other similar events or initiatives (if you have agreed to receive these from us). For example, in follow up to attending a discipleship course we may contact you about some helpful next steps with the church and things you might like to get involved in. Similarly, if you’ve signed up for an event and are later absent – we may contact you as a courtesy and may offer you an alternative event if that is possible. | |
| Attendance | We often welcome people who may be considered vulnerable, at risk and children at events. For safeguarding purposes, we may record attendance at events. | |