Recent months have seen a big increase in the number of charities coming to us to have their gift aid donation envelopes reprinted to be ‘GDPR complaint’.
(GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation – new regulations which come into force May 25th 2018).
How does GDPR apply to Charities using Gift Aid Envelopes or Donation Envelopes?
1. The main change is you need to replace any ‘opt-out’ tick boxes with ‘opt-in’ tick boxes.
The traditional opt-out boxes, e.g. ‘Tick here if you do not wish to receive further information from us’ or similar, are not regarded favourably under the new GDPR rules. This is because these small tick-boxes could easily be missed, meaning that the donor could unwittingly sign-up to receive something they don’t want. Whereas if the user of the donation envelope ticks an ‘opt-in’ box, e.g. ‘Tick here to receive further information from us’ or similar, then it could be stated that they have consciously ‘signed-up’, i.e. requested that you contact them.
The opt-in box should include a short description of how the personal data will be used.
2. You need to save and file your opt-in information
This has led many to switch to ‘bangtail envelopes‘ or ‘extended flap envelopes’. These envelopes have a perforation tear-off section that can be easily saved and filed by the charity. Saving torn-open envelopes can be messy, but a small neat tear-off section is easy and tidy to file away…
In normal circumstances, the personal data should only be kept for 12months from the date of the last contact.