Legal

Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATED: 28 AUGUST 2026

WildInvest is a UK registered charity (Charity Number 1076743). We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, and your rights in relation to it.

Please read this policy carefully. By using our website at wildinvest.org, you are accepting the practices described here.

1. Who we are

WildInvest is the data controller for the personal information we collect through this website. If you have any questions about how we handle your data, you can contact us at admin@wildinvest.org.

2. What information we collect

We collect personal information in the following circumstances:

When you contact us

If you complete our contact form or email us directly, we will collect your name, email address, and the content of your message. We use this information solely to respond to your enquiry.

When you subscribe to our newsletter

If you sign up for our Field Notes newsletter, we collect your name and email address. We use this to send you updates about our work, field dispatches, and information about WildInvest's projects. You can unsubscribe at any time by emailing admin@wildinvest.org, and we will remove you from the list.

When you make a donation

Donations are processed by third-party platforms, not by WildInvest directly. UK and international gifts are handled by PayPal. US gifts to our general fund and to the Patagonia expedition are handled by Charities Aid Foundation of America (CAF America) through our Friends Fund. US gifts to the Nicaragua project are handled by our partner Fauna & Flora. WildInvest never collects or stores your payment card details. Each platform is an independent data controller for the information you give it, and we encourage you to read the privacy policy of whichever platform you use. We may receive summary information about a donation (such as your name and the amount given) in order to acknowledge your gift and maintain our records as required by charity law.

Automatically collected information

Our website is hosted by Netlify. When you visit, Netlify's servers automatically record certain technical information, including your IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, and the date and time of your visit. This information is used to keep the site secure and running properly and to help us understand how it is used. It is not used to identify you personally.

When you use our forms

Our contact and newsletter forms are operated by Netlify Forms. Submissions are delivered to us and stored in our Netlify account, where we can view and export them. Netlify also applies automated spam filtering to form submissions.

3. How we use your information

  • To respond to your enquiries and requests
  • To send you our newsletter if you have subscribed (you can opt out at any time)
  • To process and acknowledge donations
  • To meet our legal obligations as a registered UK charity, including those under the Charities Act 2011
  • To improve our website and communications

4. Legal basis for processing

Under UK data protection law (UK GDPR), we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

  • Consent — where you have given us explicit permission (e.g. signing up to our newsletter)
  • Legitimate interests — where processing is necessary for purposes such as responding to your enquiries or improving our website, and these interests do not override your rights
  • Legal obligation — where we are required to process data to comply with charity law or other applicable regulations

5. How we share your information

WildInvest does not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. We may share your data with:

  • Our donation platforms — PayPal, Charities Aid Foundation of America, and Fauna & Flora — for processing charitable gifts
  • Netlify, which hosts our website and captures our contact and newsletter form submissions
  • Our newsletter provider, for sending our Field Notes updates
  • Regulatory bodies (such as the Charity Commission) where required by law

Any third parties we work with are required to handle your information in accordance with UK data protection law.

6. Sending information outside the UK

Some of the organisations we work with are based outside the United Kingdom, which means your personal information may be transferred to and stored in another country. This applies to Netlify, which hosts our website and stores form submissions in the United States, and to Charities Aid Foundation of America, which processes US donations.

Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on the safeguards permitted under UK data protection law — either a UK adequacy decision covering the destination country, or the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum approved by the UK government. If you would like more detail about the safeguards applying to a particular transfer, contact us at admin@wildinvest.org.

7. How long we keep your information

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy, or as required by law. The periods we apply are:

  • Donation records — seven years, in line with HMRC requirements
  • Contact enquiries — 24 months from our last correspondence with you, after which the enquiry and the copy held in our Netlify account are deleted
  • Newsletter subscribers — until you unsubscribe. We also remove subscribers who have not opened any of our emails for 36 months, so that we are not holding details for people who no longer wish to hear from us

8. Keeping your information secure

Our website is served over an encrypted HTTPS connection, and form submissions are transmitted securely. Access to the accounts holding your information is limited to the small number of people at WildInvest who need it, and is protected by strong authentication. Payment details are never handled by WildInvest — they are processed entirely by our donation platforms. No system can be guaranteed completely secure, but if a breach occurs that is likely to affect your rights, we will notify you and the Information Commissioner's Office as the law requires.

9. Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the following rights:

  • Access — you can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
  • Correction — you can ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information
  • Erasure — in certain circumstances, you can ask us to delete your personal information
  • Restriction — you can ask us to restrict how we process your information
  • Objection — you can object to processing based on our legitimate interests
  • Portability — where processing is based on consent, you can ask for your data in a portable format
  • Withdrawing consent — where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time, without affecting anything we did before you withdrew it

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at admin@wildinvest.org. We will respond within one month.

We do not make any decisions about you by automated means, and we do not use your information for profiling.

10. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.

11. Children's privacy

Our website is intended for a general adult audience. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us their information, please contact us at admin@wildinvest.org and we will delete it.

12. Donors in the United States

If you give to WildInvest from the United States, your gift is processed by Charities Aid Foundation of America or, for the Nicaragua project, by our partner Fauna & Flora. Those organisations act as data controllers for the information you provide to them, and their own privacy policies govern how they use it. Questions about a US gift can be directed to us at admin@wildinvest.org or to CAF America at friendsfunds@cafamerica.org.

13. Links to other websites

Our website contains links to external sites, including our donation platforms and third-party reports. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites and encourage you to read their privacy policies.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

15. Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your personal information, please contact us at admin@wildinvest.org.

WildInvest, Registered Charity Number 1076743.