Your data, plainly explained

01 Who we are

Help The Poor Initiative is a charitable organisation registered in Nigeria, working in food and nutrition, clothing and essentials, healthcare assistance, mobility aids, environmental sustainability and emergency relief.

For the purposes of data protection law we are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide what is collected and why, and we are accountable for looking after it.

02 What we collect

We collect only what a particular action requires. If you simply read this site and never fill anything in, we do not collect anything that identifies you.

We do not ask for special category data — health, religion, ethnicity, political views — through this website. Please do not include such details in a message unless they are genuinely necessary for us to help you.

03 Why we use it

Each piece of information has one purpose, and we do not repurpose it quietly.

• To reply to you. If you write to us, we use your contact details to answer, and to follow up if the matter needs it.
• To process and receipt a donation. Including issuing the receipt you need for your own records, and managing a recurring gift.
• To assess a volunteer application and to contact you about it.
• To send updates you asked for — and only if you asked. We do not add donors to a mailing list automatically.
• To meet our legal and accounting duties, including the audited accounts we publish in our annual reports.
• To keep the site working and secure, and to investigate misuse.

Where the law requires a lawful basis, ours is your consent (for updates), the performance of a contract or steps you asked for (donations and applications), our legitimate interests in running the organisation safely, and legal obligation for financial records.

04 Payment information

When you give, our payment provider returns only what we need to reconcile the gift: a transaction reference, the amount and currency, whether it succeeded, and the payment method used. We store that alongside your name and email so we can issue a receipt and answer any query about it later.

Payments are handled by a licensed third-party processor, which is responsible for the security of the card data it holds. Their own privacy policy governs that part of the transaction, and we recommend reading it.

05 Who we share it with

We do not sell, rent, trade or otherwise release your personal information for anyone else's marketing. There is no exception to that and there is no arrangement under which it could happen.

We share data only with:

• Service providers who work on our behalf — our payment processor, email delivery service and website host. They may use your data only to provide that service to us.
• Our auditors and professional advisers, where needed to examine the accounts.
• Authorities, where we are legally required to disclose, or where there is a genuine safeguarding concern.

We do not publish donor names, amounts, or any identifying details of the people our programmes serve without their explicit, informed permission.

06 How long we keep it

We do not keep things indefinitely just in case.

07 Your rights

You can ask us at any time to:

• Show you what we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong or out of date.
• Delete your data, where we are not legally required to keep it — donation records being the usual exception.
• Stop using it for a particular purpose, including withdrawing consent for updates.
• Send you a copy in a portable format.
• Object to processing we have based on legitimate interests.

Email info@helpthepoorinitiative.africa or use the contact form and choose “Raising a concern or complaint”. We will respond within 30 days, and we will not charge you or ask why.

08 Cookies and tracking

The first time you visit on any device, we ask what you are comfortable with. Your answer is kept on that device only, so a new phone or a new browser will ask again. You can change it at any time using the Cookie Preferences link at the bottom of every page.

There are three categories, and this is the whole of what each one covers:

• Strictly necessary — always on, and not something we can switch off. A security token that stops another website submitting our contact, volunteer or donation forms on your behalf; the staff login for our admin area; and a record of the choice you make here, so we do not ask again on the same device.
• Functional — optional, and off unless you turn it on. Remembers that you had our assistant panel open as you move between pages. It is cleared when you close your browser.
• Analytics — optional, off by default, and not currently used at all. We run no visitor statistics today. The switch exists so that if we ever add them, it is already off unless you have deliberately turned it on, and nothing is set before you say yes.

The only external request the site makes is to Google Fonts, to load the typefaces the pages are set in. Your browser contacts Google’s font servers to fetch those files, which means your IP address is visible to Google in the process. Nothing else about you is sent, and this happens whatever you choose above — it is how the pages are rendered, not a way of identifying you.

Declining the optional categories costs you nothing. Every page, form and donation route on this site works exactly the same either way.

09 Security and storage

Data is transmitted over an encrypted connection and stored on access-controlled systems. Only the small number of staff who need a record to do their job can reach it.

Some of our service providers — our payment processor and email service in particular — may process data on servers outside Nigeria. Where that happens we rely on providers who commit contractually to an equivalent standard of protection.

No system is perfect. If a breach ever occurs that puts your rights at risk, we will notify the relevant authority and tell you directly, promptly and in plain language — not in a footnote months later.

10 Changes, questions, complaints

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use data you have already given us, we will tell you rather than rely on you noticing.

Please raise anything with us first — we would far rather answer an awkward question than have you quietly stop trusting us. If we cannot resolve it, you have the right to complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), or to your local supervisory authority if you are outside Nigeria.