Chawton House – Privacy Policy

At Chawton House, we care about the privacy of our supporters who use our services. We are aware of our legal responsibilities under privacy and data protection laws and are committed to keeping your personal information secure. This policy applies whether you are a supporter of Chawton House (a Friend, a donor, a volunteer, a visitor, a visiting academic, a library reader) or use any of our services, visit our website, email, call or write to us.

This page explains how we use any personal information we hold about you and your rights as a consumer.

About us

We are Chawton House, a charitable organisation that promotes study and research into early women’s literature. The organisation is also responsible for the development, interpretation and conservation of the outstanding collection of women writers, and for ensuring open access to these collections, to the historic house and its own collections, the gardens, the surrounding estate and parklands for the benefit of the public and for education. Our registered charity name is Chawton House Library and our registered Charity Number 1026921,

Chawton House (Reg. Co. Number 2851718) organises a range of events and exhibitions related to the collections, house and gardens throughout the year – as well as running an award-winning schools programme in partnership with Jane Austen’s House Museum. In partnership with the University of Southampton, we have developed an internationally recognised Visiting Fellowship programme for academic researchers – and we have hosted numerous international conferences. As a UK-registered charity we are solely reliant on donations and grants provided by our supporters, trusts and foundations – together with income generated across activities/events and as a visitor destination open to the public. Our registered address is: Chawton House, Chawton, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 1SJ.

About you

In the course of interacting with us, personal data is collected and used by us. We only collect the personal data that we need.  This includes any information which identifies you, or which can be identified as relating to you personally, for example, name, address, telephone number, email address. We have collected this data if you have done one or more of the following:

  • Used our website which is currently at www.chawtonhouse.org
  • Subscribed to our mailing list
  • Filled in a gift aid form
  • Completed a feedback form
  • Filled in our guestbook
  • Contacted us via email, via the contact form on our website or otherwise
  • Interacted with us on social media, either directly or indirectly
  • Donated money via JustGiving, cheque, cash or services in kind
  • Contacted us regarding the library or carrying out research here
  • Contacted us regarding the use of our venue for private hire, such as weddings
  • Attended one of our workshops or events.

The information we may hold about you

Personal date is created when you are involved with our activities or when you interact with us. Information we hold about you might include:

  • Information you send to us by email, via the contact form on our website or otherwise (e.g. using the library resources)
  • Communications with us (for example, using the contact form on our website, by email, or notes of phone calls)
  • Details of tickets you have requested from us and/or your attendance at our talks, workshops or other events
  • Information you provide us in an online or paper form (for example, your name and contact details, postcode, age, feedback about our work)
  • Information about your purchases, donations, event attendance and interactions with our communications – including the information available through the services we use to do this, currently: MailchimpJustGiving, Donorfy, Eventbrite and PayPal
  • Your publicly available social media activity or analytics on you provided by social media platforms e.g. Twitter handle, posts and location.

Volunteers

If you are a volunteer then we may collect extra information about you (e.g. references, criminal records checks, details of emergency contacts, medical conditions etc.). This information will be retained for legal or contractual reasons, to protect us (including in the event of an insurance or legal claim) and for safeguarding purposes.

How we use information about you

We only collect personal data and hold information about you that we need. This can be used to:

  • Record who has given money or services to us so that we can tell them how their money has helped us – and where possible, to claim Gift Aid
  • Develop our relationship with you as someone who may want to support us
  • Personalise your experience of our website and/or communications you receive from us
  • Manage our organisation effectively and continually improve what we do
  • Inform future programming of events – including better understanding of specific lecture/activity subjects for working with targeted audiences.
  • Encourage bookings for our events and donations to various campaigns – according to what marketing communications you have agreed to:
    • To communicate with you about ourselves, our work, future events/activities, interesting news, and opportunities to support us
    • To communicate with you about upcoming fundraising appeals
    • To communicate with you about relevant academic opportunities or special events.

As we have said, we will only use personal data that we need, and this will be done on relevant lawful grounds as permitted by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (from 25 May 2018) /UK Data Protection Act and Privacy of Electronic Communication Regulation.

We may use any feedback you give us in public communications. But we will not do so in such a way that people would know it was from you – unless we obtain your permission.

If we share information about you with other organisations that help us deliver services to you this will always be under the same conditions as we are bound by under this privacy policy.

We may share information about you with law enforcement agencies or other organisations or individuals if the law obliges us to.

Use of anonymised data

The information about you we use to demonstrate the impact and reach of our work to funders is anonymised. So we will not share anything that identifies you personally.

We use a third party provider, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behavior patterns, for example, what you look at or access, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, information about your computer, including – where your browser provides this – your IP address, operating system and browser type. This information is anonymised, and we will make no attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website

We use a third party provider, MailChimp, to deliver our e-newsletters. Through MailChimp we gather statistics around email opening and clicks, which are not personally identifiable.

Marketing

If you explicitly give us permission to hear from us, we would like to communicate with you about ourselves, our work, future talks, other pertinent subjects we think you might find interesting and opportunities to support us. We won’t add you to our mailing list if you just give feedback or contact us through the contact form.

You have the right to opt out at any time. If you no longer want to be contacted for marketing purposes send us an email or click ‘unsubscribe’ within the email we have sent you.

If you wish to stay on our mailing list, please go to our sign up page.

Storage and retention

We will only store your information in services within the EEA, or in services signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield.

We will keep your information for as long as is required for us to provide you with the service you have requested from us. Where your information is no longer required, we will ensure it is disposed of in a secure manner.

Fundraising, donations and legacy pledges 

As Chawton House is a charitable organisation that depends on its supporters, we may invite you to make a donation, or become involved in fundraising activities/campaigns. This will only be done where we have your permission to do so.

Occasionally, we may invite some supporters to attend special events to find out more about the ways in which donations and legacy gifts can make a difference to specific projects and to our cause. We will also send you updates on the impact that you make by supporting us in this way, unless you tell us not to.

If you make a donation, we will use any personal information you give us to record the nature and amount of your gift, claim Gift Aid where you have told us that you are eligible and thank you for your gift. If you interact or have a conversation with us, we will note anything relevant and store this securely on our systems.

If you tell us you want to fundraise to support our cause, we will use the personal information you give us to record your plans and contact you to support your fundraising efforts.

Charity Commission rules require us to be assured of the provenance of funds and any conditions attached to them. We follow a due diligence process which involves researching the financial soundness, credibility, reputation and ethical principles of donors who have made, or are likely to make, a significant donation to Chawton House.

As part of this process we will carry out research using publicly available information and professional resources. If this applies to you, we will remind you about the process when you make your donation.

Contacting us, access to your information and right of correction

We want you to remain in control of your personal data, and as such, you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.

If you would like a copy of some or all of the information we hold about you – or otherwise want to contact us, please email or write to us.

As we want to make sure that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date, please contact us at any time to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies. They are placed by software that operates on our servers, and by software operated by third parties whose services we use.

The ePrivacy directive – more specifically Article 5(3) – requires prior informed consent for storage or for access to information stored on a user’s terminal equipment (ie, you must ask users if they agree to most cookies). However, some cookies are exempt from this requirement and we consider that applies to the cookies set on our website.

You can prevent their use through your browser settings, but you will then not be able to use all the functionality of our website.

We provide more information about the cookies we use in our cookie policy.

Other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. If you follow links to other websites, you should read their privacy policies to see how they use information about you.

Changes

We intend to keep our privacy policy under regular review and will place any updates on this website. This is the first publication of our privacy policy.

Things that could change in the future without us coming back to you to get your agreement or permission again:

  • We could move our website to a different address
  • We could change the services we use to sell tickets or to conduct mailings.

Contact

This is the external aspect of our privacy policy and as such, does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of Chawton House’s collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed.

If you have any questions about this Policy or feedback on this Policy, or would like to exercise your rights with respect to your personal information, please contact us via: info@chawtonhouse.org or write to Chawton House, Chawton, Alton, GU34 1SJ.