2. How do we use your data?
Communications:
We use your information to keep you informed about the University, and to provide opportunities for you to continue to be involved in the life and activities of the University. This includes providing you with services you have requested, for administration purposes, processing and recognising your donations and furthering our charitable and educational aims including fundraising, volunteering, event invitations and newsletters.
If you provide us with contact details for a particular method of communication, we may update your record and communicate with you using this method of communication unless you tell us otherwise.
If you request to be added to our WhatsApp groups, we will do so with the mobile number you have provided for this purpose.
Fundraising and engagement:
Fundraising is a key part of DART’s work, and we are committed to working in a transparent, ethical, responsible and honest way. To reflect this commitment, we are registered with the Fundraising Regulator and committed to the Regulator’s Code of Practice.
Our fundraising and engagement activities are managed in-house and through third-party suppliers and may include direct mail (both postal and electronic), direct debit processing (managed by Access Group), email, social media, events, telephone and face-to-face visits. There are a number of data processing activities we may undertake in this context to help us to understand you better. This will help us:
- Ensure our communications are relevant to you and your interests.
- Assess your potential interest in - and ability to - make donations to the University.
- Identify alumni volunteering opportunities you may be interested in.
- Avoid sending you inappropriate or unwelcome communications.
Research:
To make sure we do not make inappropriate fundraising requests or send irrelevant communications to you, we may undertake research to understand more about your capacity and likelihood to make gifts to the University and/or how you may like to be involved with us. Additional research (sometimes referred to as wealth screening) could be conducted in-house or through approved and trusted third-party providers and always within a contract. When using third parties; data processing is limited to specified wealth screening processing and data is disposed of once completed.
Research helps us to identify people and organisations who may be able to support the institution through a significant gift. It also helps to identify other individuals or organisation that the University would like to engage with for purposes other than philanthropy. For example, Council member nominations, honorary graduate nominations, preparation for meetings with senior individuals by University leadership or events etc.
The information gained allows us allocate resources of our staff efficiently. Donor research is not excessive in nature; it is conducted if relevant to your current or potential relationship with the University at the time of research and guided by our findings as our research unfolds. The information we use in our research comes from publicly available sources and subscription tools. This can include:
- LinkedIn
- ‘X’ (formerly Twitter)
- iWave
- Alma Connect
- GlobalData
- BoardEx
- Xapien for Diligence for due diligence purposes
- Reliable News and Press reports
- Companies House and other business-related resources including company website
- The Charity Commission and other websites relating to charitable trusts and foundations
- Sunday Times Rich List and other rich lists
- The Kings’s Honours Lists
- AI tools are sometimes used to review and aggregate information in the public domain.
This research can include reviewing/updating your contact details; biographic details; areas of interests for philanthropy; financial capacity for philanthropy (based on assessment of visible assets); and inclination ratings for giving. Research briefings and profiles may include details on:
- Geographic/Demographics
- Biographic both personal and career
- Connections
- Asset/capacity related data.
We use publicly available information to identify alumni who might be interested in volunteering for the University of Liverpool, such as speaking or mentoring students. We research career history and positions on platforms like LinkedIn and may record LinkedIn handles and career information in our database.
If you would prefer us not to use your data in this way, please email alumni@liverpool.ac.uk.
Due diligence
We may undertake due diligence for prospective donors, volunteers and honorary degree recipients in line with the University’s Donation Acceptance Policy. The purpose of the due diligence is to identify any potential ethical and reputational risks associated with philanthropic support from an individual, trust, foundation or corporation and to ensure legal compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.
Recognising your support
We are very grateful for the support of our donors, and we like to recognise this support, to both show our gratitude and to encourage others to donate. If you donate to the University and do not wish your donation to be publicly recognised, you can choose to give anonymously. This means we will record your donation on our systems but will not publicly acknowledge or publish your name on donor lists or other materials both online and in written publications. We sometimes publish fundraising and volunteering case studies online, on social media and in our magazines. We will always ask for permission from those involved before publication.