Australian Communities Foundation (ACF) is committed to protecting the privacy of our donors, supporters, directors, staff and other individuals who deal with us. This Privacy Policy sets out more about your rights and our policy on the handling of your personal information.
This policy is based on the following principles, which seek to ensure that ‘personal information’ (as that term is defined in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)) is:
- Used fairly and lawfully
- Accurate
- Handled according to the Australian Privacy Principles, and
- Safe and secure
The security and confidentiality of your personal information is important to us and we aim to apply robust practices to ensure privacy is protected and respected. Privacy management is a continuous and evolving process and we regularly update our practices to accommodate changes in technology, the organisation’s function and legislation.
What sort of personal information do we collect and hold?
We may collect and hold personal information about you such as:
- information collected when you are referred to us, contact us, donate or establish a sub-fund. This includes your name, address, date of birth, contact details and other personal details
- financial information that you submit
- the content of any correspondence, messages, feedback or comments that you send us
- information about your preference for services and products we offer from time to time and about your dealings with us
- grantmaking history, and
- from time to time, we may also collect information that you submit when you participate in any surveys or research which we conduct.
- Scholarship applicant details plus information through funding agreements. This information includes name, contact details, and identification details.
If you apply for a position with us, we may also collect information about your qualifications, experience, character and screening check results (including health, reference, background, directorship, financial probity, identity, eligibility to work, vocational suitability and criminal record checks). This information is not kept if you are not successful in obtaining the position.
Other personal information we collect about staff is pursuant to the laws such as the Fair Work Act, Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act, the Income Tax Assessment Act and other tax laws, Corporations Act, occupational health and safety acts and workers compensation acts.
If we collect sensitive information about you, such as information about health, religion, ethnic origin or criminal record, we will do so only where you consent, provide the information to us voluntarily or we are otherwise authorised by law.
How do we collect personal information?
Where practicable, information is collected directly when you contact us, when you submit or post information via the Australian Communities Foundation Community Hub, or when we contact you by telephone, mail or email in response to your request, comment or feedback.
For example, when you apply to use our services such as establishing a fund with us, buying our services, donating to us, browsing the website, providing feedback or contacting us on our website or by phone, subscribing to our newsletters or responding to our surveys, emails or event invitations.
Financial advisers, lawyers and other professional advisers may also refer you to the Australian Communities Foundation in order that we may contact you to discuss our products and services.
How is personal information used and disclosed?
ACF collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information to facilitate your support with us and to conduct our operations. This includes:
- for the purposes for which it was collected and for related secondary purposes that you would reasonably expect
- where you have consented to the use or disclosure
- where we are permitted, authorised or required to do so by law
- to assist us in effectively providing services and products to you
- to enable us to confirm your identity when dealing with you and generally to maintain our relationship with you
- to assist in the proper functioning and development of our operations, for example, to ensure we act within requirements relating to risk management, trustee, fiduciary and any other legal obligations
- for Australian Communities Foundation’s research and planning purposes such as administering, managing and developing our services and products, and
- to inform you on an ongoing basis about services and products we think might interest you unless you opt out or we are otherwise prevented by law.
We may also disclose your information to other persons or organisations:
- where they are a related company or entity;
- where we have contracted an external person or organisation to provide investment management and operating support services (such as third party suppliers, service providers providing investment, accounting, archival, printing and posting, consulting, technology and security services, mailhouses, and our advisers, agents and representatives) (Service Providers), and that Service Provider has agreed to observe our privacy standards;
- as permitted, authorised or required by law to do so; and
- where you have authorised us to contact your advisers or representatives, including financial and legal advisers.
Your personal information will not be shared, sold, rented or disclosed other than as described in this Privacy Policy.
Direct Marketing
From time to time, we may send you direct marketing communications and information about products and services offered by us and project partners, which we think may be of interest to you. This includes our education programs and events. These communications may be sent in various forms including by mail, telephone, multimedia messaging, instant messaging and other electronic messaging, email or text message in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).
Anonymity
Please advise us at any stage if you choose to be anonymous. You have the right:
- to choose anonymity when making a grant;
- to not receive online communications from us; and
- to express your views in the public arena without being personally identified.
How is personal information held?
We keep personal information in physical and electronic records, at our premises and the premises of our third-party service providers, which may include storage in the cloud.
Security of personal information
We use a range of measures to protect the security of your personal information from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Those measures include – depending on the circumstances – electronic access controls, premises security and network firewalls. We may hold your information in either electronic or hard copy form.
User-generated content including grant proposals. By submitting content to the ACF website, you consent to its display and publication on this website and for related online and offline promotional uses. ACF reserves the right to edit or delete submissions that it, in its sole discretion, are deemed to be abusive, defamatory, obscene, in violation of copyright or trademark laws, or are otherwise unacceptable.
ACF reserves the right to only publish personal stories on this website that are original and based on a real-life experience. Submissions submitted that are overtly promotional or are used to promote a product or service may not be published. We reserve the right to modify or edit stories and articles.
Overseas disclosure
In some circumstances, we may disclose your personal information overseas, for instance where we use service or software providers that may process and store your personal information overseas. However, we will only do so if we reasonably believe that the overseas entity is subject to the same or similar privacy laws to those in Australia, if such use or disclosure is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or if you have consented to us disclosing your personal information to that overseas entity.
Our website
We do not seek to collect personal information about you when you visit our site unless you choose to provide such information to us. Providing such information is strictly voluntary. We analyse our website logs to constantly improve the value of the content available on our website. Information in our website logs is not personally identifiable and we make no attempt to link that information with the individuals that browse our site.
ACF’s website may use Google services from time to time, such as Google Analytics. We use these services to understand more about traffic on our website and to manage, improve and secure our website. For more about how Google collects and processes data, and for opt-out instructions, please see Google’s privacy policy at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.
Like many other websites, our website may use cookies from time to time. A cookie is a piece of information that allows our system to identify and interact more effectively with your device. The cookie helps us to maintain the continuity of your browsing session and remember your details and preferences when you return. While you can disable cookies using your web browser, this may limit your experience of our site.
In some cases, third parties may use cookies and other technologies such as web beacons on our website in connection with online services like website analytics and surveys. This may allow them to collect information about your use of our website (including your computer’s IP address) which they may store in the United States or other countries. The use of these technologies allows them to deliver customised advertising content, measure the effectiveness of their advertising, evaluate users’ use of our website and other websites and provide other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Those third parties may also transfer the information they collect to others where required to do so by law, or where those others process the information on their behalf. The services we may use from time to time include Google Analytics, Adobe Creative Cloud, Mailchimp, Survey Monkey, and Microsoft Office 365. You can find more details in the privacy policies for those services, including information on how to opt out of certain conduct.
Where our website contains links to other websites we are not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of those third-party websites. We encourage you to examine each third-party website’s privacy policy and make your own decisions regarding the accuracy, reliability and correctness of material on that website.
Credit card and online transactions
Australian Communities Foundation uses Bambora Payment Gateway and STRIPE. These platforms provide security measures to protect your card details during an online transaction. Australian Communities Foundation agrees not to use your card details for any purpose other than to facilitate the specific donation or other financial transaction for which you supply the details.
You agree not to use an invalid or unauthorised card. Once a donation is made, the transaction is final and not subject to refund or dispute unless unauthorised use of your card is proved. If you become aware of fraudulent use of your card, or if it is lost or stolen, you should notify your card issuer in accordance with its reporting rules.
Australian Communities Foundation is committed to ensuring that your card details are secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. Australian Communities Foundation does not store credit card details.
Our online donation portal is also secured by GeoTrust. GeoTrust protects donors’ sensitive financial data with encryption and strong organization identity validation. SSL encryption turns details into an unintelligible string of characters and symbols and makes it virtually impossible to decipher. In addition, if a message is somehow tampered with, SSL technology will detect the tampering and reject the message.
How do we handle requests to provide access to, or correct, information?
You may request access to or corrections to personal information we hold about you. To help us deal with requests appropriately, we ask that all such requests be made in writing. Please provide as much detail as you can about the information you seek, as this will help us to retrieve the information. It is our policy to process your request within a reasonable time. There is no charge for requesting access to your information. However, we are entitled to charge for the reasonable cost of acting on your request. In some circumstances, there may be reason why we will not act on a request, such as where it would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others or we may not be permitted to do so by law.
Notifying us promptly when any of your personal details change or where you realise that any information we are holding about you is incorrect will assist us in ensuring the information we hold is as accurate as possible. We endeavour to meet with our subfund holders in person every year to update any personal information.
How to contact us regarding this privacy policy
If you have any queries or concerns about the way that we handle your personal information, please let us know and we will endeavour to promptly resolve your enquiry or concern. We may request additional details from you regarding your concerns, and may need to engage or consult with other parties in order to investigate and deal with your issue.
Contact: Privacy Officer
Telephone: 03 9412 0412
Email: admin@communityfoundation.org.au
Address: Level 6, 126 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne 3002 VIC
If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint you can make a formal complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner via their website at https://www.oaic.gov.au/, by emailing enquiries@oaic.gov.au or calling 1300 363 992.
Australian Communities Foundation Ltd CAN 077 830 347
Application of and updating of this Privacy Policy
Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit our obligations or permitted handling of personal information under the range of privacy laws to which we are subject. Changes may be made to this policy from time to time.
Last updated: June 2020