Do you profile my information for fundraising and marketing purposes?
Yes, we may create a profile of your interests, preferences and ability to donate. At Cats Protection our work is only made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters, so it’s vital that our fundraising efforts are as effective as they can be. By developing a better understanding of our supporters through researching them, including using publicly available sources, we can tailor and target our fundraising events and communications (including volunteering opportunities) to those most likely to be interested in them. This enables us to make appropriate requests to those who may be willing and able to donate more than they already do, or leave a gift in their will, and allows us to be more efficient and cost-effective with our resources and in the way that we raise funds. It also helps to ensure communications are relevant and timely and reduces the risk of someone receiving information that they might find irrelevant, intrusive, or even distressing, so that we can provide an improved experience for our supporters.
Our Fundraising team uses information that is already in the public domain (information that has been published in print or online) to identify high net worth individuals who may be interested in supporting our work with a major gift. This might also include estimating their gift capacity, based on their visible assets, history of charitable giving and how connected they are to Cats Protection.
The publicly available sources of information we use include Companies House, the electoral register, the phone book, the Charity Commission’s Register of Charities, Who’s Who, LinkedIn, company annual reports, Land Registry and articles in newspapers and magazines.
We also carry out research to identify existing supporters who may be able to become ‘major donors’. This is based both on publicly available information, and information our supporters have given us (for example, where a person lives, who they bank with, what their occupation is and their age). We may from time to time engage a specialist third party prospect research company to screen our database against their demographic database for this purpose.
We’re committed to putting you in control of your data and you have the right to op-out of your data being used for profiling purposes by contacting us at dataprotection@cats.org.uk
We are also legally required to carry out checks on individuals who give us large donations, to comply with our duties in respect of anti-money laundering legislation and the prevention of fraud.
Social media advertising
You may receive targeted advertisements through our use of social media tools. This will depend on your settings or the privacy policies for the social media platforms. For example, we use Facebook/Meta’s ‘Custom’ and ‘Lookalike Audiences’ programmes, which enable us to display adverts to our existing supporters or other people who have similar interests in organisations like us.
In order to use these tools, we may provide your data (including your name and email address) to Meta or the relevant social media platforms. This is to check if you have an account and to create a ‘lookalike’ audience so that we can advertise to potential new supporters. Our adverts may then appear when you use the social media platform.
We work only with social media platforms that provide a facility for secure and encrypted upload of data and immediately delete any records that do not match their own user base. For more information on the social media platforms we use, and to manage your social media ad preferences, please see:
Meta Custom Audiences Guides
Meta (including Facebook and Instagram) Data Policy
LinkedIn Privacy Policy
When we engage with Meta to identify you on their platform and provide you with our adverts, we are joint controllers of your personal information with Meta. Our agreement with Meta sets out our responsibilities to you, for example, we are responsible for informing you about this activity. Cats Protection and Meta are both responsible for keeping your information secure. You can exercise your privacy rights with either of us individually.
We do not collect remarketing data for users who have visited our advice and information pages.
If you do not want us to use your data for social media advertising you can opt-out by contacting us using the details set out at the top of this policy.
You may still see adverts related to us even if you have asked us not to use your information for targeted advertising because the social media platform or advertising network may hold information about you (such as your age, location or websites you have visited) that was not provided by us.
Data collected by us (such as the fact that you visited a Cats Protection page) may also be shared with Meta via our use of Meta Pixels. Meta uses this information to display our ads on your social media page and to create ‘lookalike’ audiences as detailed above. For more information about Meta Pixels and how you can opt in or out please see our Cookie Policy.
