Privacy Statement

Who we are

The Grassmarket Mission, a charitable Trust, was originally established in 1886 and now operates according to the Variation of Trust Deed of 2011 with the stated objectives of:

  • The relief of those in need
  • The advancement of citizenship and community development
  • The advancement of the Christian religion and the promotion of religious harmony on a non-denominational basis.

These aims are met by providing grants to charitable projects in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, and nearby, that assist those that are vulnerable, homeless or in need because of poverty, loneliness, hunger, substance-abuse, ill-health or any other reason.

In order to do this we process a limited amount of personal data and this privacy statement explains how we collect, use and retain personal data. It is important that you read this privacy statement together with any other information we may provide so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your personal data.

Contact details

The Secretary
The Grassmarket Mission
c/o Whitelaw Wells
9 Ainslie Place
Edinburgh EH3 6AT

email: enquiries@grassmarketmission.org

What personal data do we collect?

We collect the personal data of the representatives who work for the charitable projects that we support. This contact information will only be used to communicate with the charities who have applied for funding.

How and why we collect your personal information

Applicant Charities

Individuals will provide us with personal data when they contact us on behalf of a charitable application and when they complete application forms on behalf of charitable projects.

We will sometimes request some information about trustees, the board, employees, volunteers or relevant stakeholders or this may be provided in your progress reports.

On occasion, we may seek an additional organisational reference, but would only do so with the permission of the charity applicant.

The applicant charity should ensure that anyone whose data is shared with us is made aware of this privacy notice.

Retention: your application and associated emails will be held in our database or secure filing cabinets, for one year from the point of application for unsuccessful applicants and for three years from the end of the funded period for successful applicants. 

Trustees and other volunteers

The Trust holds the personal information and contact details of its Trustees and any volunteers or assessors. This is to ensure the efficient administration of the Trust.

Lawful basis and change of purpose

Data protection laws requires us to have a lawful basis to process your data.

We rely on the fact that we have a legitimate interest to process personal data in order to comply with our stated purposes and further our charitable aims. This means we will use your personal data to ensure grants are allocated to appropriate recipients, to ensure that grant funding we have provided is used in accordance with the terms of the grant award, to manage our processes, to keep our records up to date and for the administration of the Trust. We do not consider that this will have a significant or detrimental impact on you. If you disagree then please get in touch using the contact details above.

We will only use your personal data for the reasons we have told you about. If we need to use it for a different purpose, we will contact you and explain why the law allows us to do this.

Please help us keep our records updated by letting us know of any changes to your e-mail address and other contact details.

Sharing your personal information

Please note, on exceptional occasions we may use your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required or allowed by law. This could be to professional advisers, regulators or even the police. We would only do this in compliance with the law.

Storage of your personal data

We use an IT system (cloud back-up) that is managed by third parties with servers mainly within the EU or on occasion the US. The UK/EU third parties have confirmed that they are GDPR compliant and those in the US are certified by the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework which provides a similar level of protection.

Your rights

Under data protection laws you have the following rights:

  • Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for a copy of your personal data and for further information about how we use your information. This notice should answer most of your questions but you should contact us if you have further queries.
  • Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal data you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
  • Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to delete your personal data in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

Exercising your rights

Please contact us if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

You will not normally have to pay a fee to access your personal data or to exercise any of the other rights.

In some circumstances, we may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you to clarify your request.

We will do our best to respond without undue delay and within one month of receiving your request. However, if the request is complex we can extend that by another two months but if we do need more time, we will let you know why.

Please make any requests using the contact details above.

External web links

Our website contains links to other websites that are outside our control and not covered by this Privacy Policy. If you access any of these websites using the links provided please note that they have their own Privacy Policies and you should check these before submitting any personal data. We cannot accept responsibility or liability for these external policies.

Changes to our privacy statement

We keep this privacy statement under regular review and will post updated versions on our website www.grassmarketmission.org.

This privacy statement was last updated on 27 September 2023.

Complaints

We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF
Web: www.ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113