Privacy Notice

Last updated: June 2026

1. Introduction

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (registered charity number: 1103836; company number: 04791958) ("SWT UK", "we", "us", or "our").

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use and protect your personal data when you use our websites, including sheldrickwildlifetrust.org, herdofhope.com, helloinelephant.com, elephantorphans.com and daphnesheldrick.com (together, the "Website"), and when you interact with us through our products, services and social media pages (together with the Website, the "Services").

SWT UK is the data controller of personal data collected through the Website and Services from individuals in the United Kingdom and European Economic Area, and is responsible for ensuring that such processing complies with the UK General Data Protection Regulation ("UK GDPR"), the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("EU GDPR") and the Data Protection Act 2018.

SWT UK works in close partnership with The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (registered in Kenya, PIN: P051097749N), The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA (EIN: 30-0224549), and Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Canada (registration number 739215754 RR 0001). These organisations share our charitable mission and may, in limited circumstances, access or use supporter data to support communications and operational coordination connected to that shared mission. Where this occurs, it is described further in Section 4 (Data Sharing) and Section 6 (International Transfers) below.

Please read this Privacy Notice carefully. By using this Website and providing us with your personal data, you acknowledge that your data will be used as described here.

2. How we collect personal data

We collect personal data in the following ways:

•     Directly from you, when you make a donation, adopt an orphan animal, sign a petition, correspond with us, or otherwise engage with our Services.

•     From third-party fundraising platforms, where you have raised funds on our behalf through platforms such as JustGiving, Crowdrise, Facebook, Instagram or Enthuse, and those platforms share your data with us with your permission.

•     From publicly available sources, in very limited circumstances, to support our work with high-net-worth individuals.

•     Indirectly, through cookies and similar technologies used on our Website, as described in Section 7 (Online Privacy and Cookies) below.

We do not purchase mailing lists or share supporter data with other charities or organisations for their marketing purposes.

3. What personal data we collect and why

We collect and process personal data that is necessary to administer your relationship with us and to carry out our charitable activities. The personal data we hold may include:

•     Your name and postal address.

•     Your email address, if provided. We will only send you marketing emails if you have asked to receive them. Emails relating to orphan adoptions are provided as part of that service and are described further in Section 9 below.

•     Your telephone number, if provided.

•     Your date of birth, if provided.

•     Details of donations you have made, including date, amount, source code, and payment method. We have a legal obligation to retain certain financial records for at least seven years.

•     Gift Aid declarations, where applicable, to enable us to reclaim tax from HM Revenue & Customs on eligible donations.

•     Details of regular payment and direct debit instructions.

•     Details of orphan animal adoptions, including, in the case of gift adoptions, details of the gift recipient (we will seek the gift recipient's consent to use those details).

•     Records of communications we have sent to you and of contact you have had with us.

Our lawful bases for processing

We process your personal data only where we have a valid lawful basis for doing so. The bases we rely on are:

Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR): We process supporter personal data on the basis of our legitimate interests in administering supporter relationships, processing donations and adoptions, providing supporter communications, and coordinating charitable activities in furtherance of our mission. We have assessed that these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. You have the right to object to processing on this basis at any time – see Section 10.

Contract performance (Article 6(1)(b) UK GDPR): Where you have entered into an arrangement with us, such as an orphan adoption, we process your personal data to fulfil that arrangement.

Legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c) UK GDPR): We process certain financial records to meet our legal and regulatory obligations, including Gift Aid and audit requirements.

Consent (Article 6(1)(a) UK GDPR): Where we rely on your consent, for example for certain marketing communications, we will make this clear at the point of collection. You may withdraw consent at any time.

4. How we share your personal data

We do not sell personal data or supporter lists to any other organisation.

We may share your personal data in the following circumstances:

•     With payment and accounting service providers, for the processing of donations, direct debits, and Gift Aid claims.

•     With logistics and mailing providers, where we use specialist companies for the printing, packing and delivery of postal communications. Such companies are vetted, act under written agreement, receive only the data required for the communication, and are required to delete it once the service is completed.

•     With event organisers, where you register to take part in a fundraising event (such as a marathon or sponsored challenge) and we provide your details to secure your place.

•     With our partner SWT charities – The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (Kenya), The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA, and Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Canada – to a limited extent, where necessary to support coordinated supporter communications connected to our shared charitable mission. Any such sharing is governed by appropriate data sharing arrangements.

•     Where required by law, including providing information to HMRC in connection with Gift Aid, or to law enforcement where required.

Any personal data shared with third parties is limited to what is necessary for the relevant purpose. We require all such parties to handle your data in accordance with applicable data protection law.

Some third-party platforms collect data on our behalf and share it with us in accordance with their data protection policies and based on your consent. Examples include JustGiving, Crowdrise, Facebook, Instagram, Enthuse, Charities Trust, and Payroll Giving in Action.

Online and telephone donations are processed through secure payment gateways including PayPal, Braintree, CAF, DonorPerfect and Stripe. We do not store or manage credit or debit card details.

5. How long we keep your data

We will not keep your personal data for longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it is used. Our retention periods are as follows:

•     Financial donors: at least seven years after your last financial contribution, to meet Gift Aid audit requirements (UK) and IRS requirements (USA).

•     Active supporters with no financial record (e.g. marketing email subscribers): at least 24 months after your last interaction or consent. At that point we will ask whether you wish to continue hearing from us. If you do not renew your consent, your personal data will be removed.

•     Legacy supporters: seven years after the legacy case is closed, with a maximum retention of 100 years.

•     Orphan adopters: at least seven years from the date of your last financial donation to adopt, or for multi-year adoptions, at least four years after the end of the active adoption period.

At the end of these periods your personal data will be deleted or anonymised. We retain anonymised statistical records of supporter interactions to help us understand the effectiveness of our fundraising and improve it over time.

6. International data transfers

As a global charitable organisation, personal data collected through our Website may in limited circumstances be accessed by or transferred to our partner SWT charities in Kenya, the United States of America, and Canada, where this is necessary to support coordinated charitable activities and supporter communications.

We will only transfer personal data internationally where we have ensured that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with UK GDPR requirements. These may include standard contractual clauses approved by the UK Information Commissioner, or reliance on an adequacy decision where applicable. You may request details of the safeguards we have in place by contacting us using the details in Section 14.

7. Online privacy and cookies

We may collect technical information about your device and browsing activity on our Website, including IP address, operating system and browser type. This information is used for system administration and to help us understand how visitors use our Website, so that we can improve it. It does not identify you as an individual.

We use Hotjar to help us understand how visitors use our Website. Hotjar uses cookies and similar technologies to collect information about user behaviour and devices, including IP address (processed during your session and stored in pseudonymised form), device type, browser information, and country-level location. Hotjar is contractually prohibited from selling data collected on our behalf. Further information is available on Hotjar's support site.

Please see our Cookies Notice for full details of the cookies we use and how to manage them.

8. Security of personal data

We take the security of your personal data seriously and maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect against loss, misuse, unauthorised access and alteration.

All personal data is stored on secure servers. Electronic financial transactions processed through our Website are protected by encryption technology. We limit access to your personal data to staff and contractors who have a genuine need to access it.

Credit and debit card details provided via our payment systems are held by our payment partners and do not reach us.

You acknowledge that transmission of information over the internet is never entirely secure. If you use a shared or public computer to access our Website, we recommend clearing your browsing history and closing your browser at the end of your session.

9. Marketing, fundraising and campaigning

We may wish to contact you by post, email, telephone or SMS to update you on our work, campaigns, appeals and events. We will only send you marketing communications where you have asked to receive them, or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so and you have not objected.

You can tell us at any time that you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us and we will stop. Our marketing emails include an unsubscribe link. You can also update your communication preferences through the MyAccount section of our Website or by contacting us directly.

If you have adopted an orphan animal in our care, you will receive monthly email updates on your adopted animal as part of that adoption arrangement. These emails are provided in fulfilment of your adoption and are not marketing communications. You may ask us to stop sending them at any time, on the understanding that doing so means you will no longer receive updates on your orphan. This does not affect your adoption, and you may ask us to resume sending updates at any point while the adoption remains active. Adopters will not receive marketing communications unless they have separately opted in to receive them.

10. Your data protection rights

Under UK GDPR you have the following rights:

•     Right to be informed about how your personal data is used.

•     Right of access to the personal data we hold about you (a Subject Access Request). Please send requests to [email protected]. We will respond within one month. We may ask you to verify your identity before responding.

•     Right to rectification if your personal data is inaccurate or incomplete.

•     Right to erasure (the right to be forgotten) where there is no compelling reason for us to continue processing your data.

•     Right to restriction of processing in certain circumstances.

•     Right to data portability in certain circumstances.

•     Right to object to processing for direct marketing purposes, which is absolute — we will always comply with such a request.

•     Right to object to processing based on legitimate interests under Article 21 UK GDPR. Where you object, we will stop processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, or the processing is necessary for legal claims. In practice, we will generally stop processing on request.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [email protected], providing enough information to identify yourself and describing the right you wish to exercise.

Further guidance on your rights is available from the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

11. Children

Our Services are not directed at children under the age of 16 and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe we have inadvertently collected data from a child, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

12. Third-party websites

Our Website may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites and encourage you to read their privacy notices before providing any personal data to them.

13. Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The date at the top of this notice will reflect when it was last revised. Where we make significant changes, we will publicise them on our Website or notify you directly. Your continued use of our Services following any update constitutes your acknowledgement of the revised notice.

14. Contact us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or the way we handle your personal data, or if you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us:

•     Email: [email protected]

•     Post: Sheldrick Wildlife Trust UK, 1 Oak Place, Rosier Commercial Centre, Coneyhurst Road, Billingshurst, RH14 9DE

15. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please contact us in the first instance at [email protected] and we will do our best to resolve your concern.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection, at any time: ico.org.uk.