Privacy policy

At City of Trees we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

The processing of your information is carried out by or on behalf of City of Trees Trust, Discovery Works, Unit 3, Third Avenue, Trafford Park, Manchester, M171BW. Registered in England no. 1202636.

This policy explains how we collect personal information from you, what type of information is collected, how is it used, who has access to it, where it is stored and other key information relating to your personal data.

We may update this policy to reflect changes in how we use your information. You may wish to check this policy each time you provide us with your information. Where appropriate, we will provide you with notice of any significant changes to how we use your information.

By visiting our website, you’re consenting to the practices outlined in this policy.

How do we collect information from you?

You may provide us with information by filling in forms on our website, including making a donation as well as registering to receive our e-newsletter.

We may also receive information from you if you apply for a job or volunteering position.

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, postal address, email address, and other personal details such as your date of birth.

We may also collect your IP address, and information regarding what pages you access on our website and when.

If you make a donation online your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, Stripe. You can read Stripe’s Privacy notice on their website.

How is your personal information used?

Where we use your information, it may be because you have consented to us doing so or because we consider we have a legitimate interest to do so.

Where we rely on legitimate interest, a legitimate interest assessment will be made to ensure that such processing isn’t overridden by your rights or interests.

We may use your information to:

process a donation that you have made;
deal with entry into a competition;
send you communications which you have requested – namely our regular newsletter which contains news, updates, events, fundraising activities and campaign information
process a job or volunteer application
deal with an enquiry you have made via our website contact form
send targeted communications based on your past engagement, for example donation history or event attendance. This is referred to as profiling.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations (for example the collection of Gift Aid). We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

Who has access to your information?

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes unless we have explicit consent to do so, for example if you take part in a project that is being jointly delivered with another organisation.

How is your personal information used?

Working with third parties

We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations and send you mailings). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service.

When you are using our secure online donation pages, your donation is processed by a third party payment processor, Stripe. You can read Stripe’s Privacy notice on their website.

You can also fundraise for City of Trees through JustGiving which will process your payment and other personal details. You can read JustGiving’s privacy notice on their website.

Where we store your personal information

The information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored in, a country outside the European Economic Area (EEA). The laws in some countries may not provide as much legal protection for your information as in the EEA. By submitting your personal information, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

We currently use Mailchimp to send our regular newsletter. Mailchimp is registered under the Privacy Shield agreement. You can read Mailchimp’s privacy policy on their website.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk.

Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Your rights

We recognise that your personal data belongs to you and we don’t want to use it in ways that you don’t want us to.

You can control whether you receive marketing emails from us by unsubscribing from mailings at any time. You can also change your marketing preferences by emailing communications@cityoftrees.org.uk or calling 0161 872 1660.

You can also exercise a variety of rights regarding our use of your data. These include

be informed
The right of access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to data portability
The right to object
Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling

You can see more about these rights on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

We will try to respond to your request within one month of receiving it although it may take longer for particularly complex or multiple requests. Also, note that you have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.

Third Party Links

Our website contains links to the websites of partners as well as signposting to other sites for information purposes. These websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these. Please check these policies before you submit any personal information to these websites.

Children: Aged 16 or below

We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in February 2024.