Privacy Statement

We prioritise making sure your personal information - as a donor and supporter - is treated with the utmost confidentiality and security

Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement applies to the Mater Foundation trading as the Mater Hospital Foundation and summarises how we obtain, use, and manage personal data.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement or our Data Protection polices, you can contact us at:

Data Protection Officer: dataprotection@materfoundation.ie

This statement relates to our privacy practices in connection with this website and our fundraising activities. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. Some technical terms used in this statement are explained at the end of this page.

Who We Are

We are the Mater Foundation, trading as the Mater Hospital Foundation, an Irish Registered Charity – CHY9768, Reg No 4770995L, RCN 20024505. We were established in 1985 as the official fundraising body of the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital. Funds raised through our activities are used to purchase state-of the art equipment, enhance facilities, develop special programmes and invest in medical research. The Mater Hospital Foundation is committed to the Charities Institute of Ireland Statement on Guiding Principles for Fundraising. This statement offers donors and potential donors clarity on what to expect when giving to charities and outlines guidance on how fundraising should be approached and organised.

Contacting Us

Our Postal Address: 53-54, Eccles Street, Dublin 7, Ireland

General Contact: contact@materfoundation.ie

Data Protection Queries: dataprotection@materfoundation.ie

General statement

The Mater Hospital Foundation fully respects your right to privacy and will not collect any personal information about you on this website without your clear permission or a valid basis for processing that information. Any personal information which you volunteer will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with recognised international standards and good practices.

The Mater Hospital Foundation adheres to compliance with National and European Data Protection Laws, namely the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR, which entered into force across EU Members States  automatically in May 2018.

Collection and use of personal information

The Mater Hospital Foundation uses personal data of our Donors and Supporters for a variety of reasons that are directly related to our fundraising to support delivery of healthcare services. You can opt-out of any use of your data at any time by contacting our Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@materfoundation.ie

Fundraising Appeals

We conduct fundraising appeals by direct postal mail, by email, and by telephone. We also conduct direct recruitment campaigns through door to door and fixed locations to acquire donors to support our work with a regular monthly donation by means of direct debit.

If you have provided us with your postal address, we will contact you by post in relation to fundraising unless you opt-out.

When you provide your telephone number or email address, we will ask you if we can send you fundraising materials by email or SMS, or phone you. This may be by way of a tick box or it could be by giving you an optional field you can fill in if you want to. You can opt-out of phone or email contact at any time either by following the instructions in the communication, or by contacting our Data Protection Officer.

If you have given us your email address we will also use it to match you against statistical profiles in Facebook or other services in a practice known as remarketing so you will be more likely to see information about the Mater Hospital Foundation Appeals in your Facebook Timeline, and so people who share your characteristics on those platforms will be more likely to see our fundraising calls to action as well.

To have your email address excluded from this processing, you should contact the Data Protection Officer.

Tax Reclaim

If you have personally given €250 or more in a calendar year your donation(s) may be eligible for tax reclaim from the Revenue Commissioners of up to an additional 45% of the total value at no cost to you. We will contact you by post with information that will allow us to submit a claim unless you opt-out.

  • If you have given us your email address for the purposes of sending you fundraising information, we may send tax reclaim details to you until you tell us you have changed your mind (opted-out).
  • If you have given us your phone number for the purposes of contacting you about fundraising, we may call you about tax reclaim details until you tell us you have changed your mind (opted-out).

Raffles

From time to time, we may run raffles and similar promotions to help raise funds.

  • If you have provided us with your postal address, we may contact you by post about raffles unless you chose to opt-out.
  • For telephone and email contact, we will specifically tell you at the time you are giving us your information whether you are being signed up for raffle related communications. You will be able to opt out at any time by following the instructions in any message you receive or by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

When signing up for a raffle, we will tell you about any other purposes we might want to have for your information (such as adding you to our fundraising contact list or newsletter mailing list) and give you the opportunity to opt-in or opt-out as appropriate.

Events

We occasionally run events to raise awareness of how our fundraising helps patients in the Mater Hospital and to raise much needed funds. If you have given us your email address, postal address, or telephone number we may use them to let you know about events and remind you about them if:

  • For postal addresses, you are not opted-out of receiving postal communication about events.
  • For telephone and email addresses, if you are opted in to receiving messages about events.

Newsletters

The Mater Hospital Foundation send out occasional newsletters to keep our supporters and donors updated about how we are supporting the development and delivery of healthcare provision in the Mater Hospital. These Newsletters are sent by post or by email.

  • If you have given us your postal address, we will send you a newsletter by post unless you tell us you don’t want to receive them (opted-out).
  • If you have given us your email address for the purposes of sending you an email Newsletter, we will send them to you until you tell us you have changed your mind (opted-out)

From time to time newsletters may contain information about how you might donate or otherwise support the Mater Hospital Foundation.

Conducting Surveys of Donors and Supporters

We like to know how well we are doing meeting your expectations. From time to time we engage in surveys of donors and supporters. These surveys are also a great opportunity for us to make sure we have correct and up to date information on donors and supporters.

If you don’t want to receive surveys from us you can opt-out at any time by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

Leaving A Legacy

From time to time we will communicate with existing donors and supporters about the benefits of leaving  legacy and remembering the Mater Hospital Foundation in their Will. This is a type of fundraising appeal and we will use your email address, postal address, or telephone number where appropriate to contact you for that purpose.

We may also use postal addresses obtained from third party agencies to send letters letting people know about the options for legacy giving.

You can opt-out of receiving information about leaving a legacy at any time by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

Community Fundraising

We are grateful for our network of volunteers who work in the community to fundraise on our behalf. If you contact us to get involved in community fundraising, we will use your postal address, email address, and phone number to contact you about community fundraising activities and to send you fundraising materials, advice, and any guidance on our standards and codes of conduct for fundraisers (such as information on our Data Protection policy and “Do’s and Don’t’s”.

You can ask to be removed from our contact list for Community Fundraisers at any time by contacting the Marketing team or the Data Protection Officer.

Saying Thank You

We’re also grateful for our sponsors and donors. That’s why we like to send thank you letters by post or email every so often to remind our sponsors and donors how much we value their time and their contributions.

You can opt-out of receiving Thank You letters by emailing dataprotection@materfoundation.ie

Ensuring we communicate with you appropriately and efficiently

It is the generosity of our supporters that allows us to support the lifesaving work of the hospital and its medical staff. So, it is vital that our fundraising activity is as effective as possible, while fully respecting your rights as an individual.

To help us ensure our fundraising campaigns are efficient, effective, and not annoying to people, we may conduct anonymised statistical analysis of donors using a variety of demographic profile data obtained from third parties such as the CSO and Facebook. This helps us identify how to use our resources as efficiently as possible and also how to minimise the annoyance to our donors and supporters that can be caused by too frequent requests for support.

This analysis is carried out on anonymised data sets and donors and supporters are then matched to specific categories called “segments”.  These segments are used to help support fundraising campaign planning and execution.

You can ask to be excluded from this type of analysis by contacting our Data Protection Officer but you may receive a greater number of fundraising requests than otherwise or you may receive communications from us that might not be relevant to you or your lifestyle and donation history.

To help us understand supporter interests and to determine whether it is appropriate to communicate with you about opportunities to support our work in a philanthropic capacity, we may research information about you from publicly available sources. This allows us to be more efficient and cost-effective with our resources, and also reduces the risk of someone receiving information that they might find irrelevant, intrusive or even distressing.

The Mater Hospital Foundation does not carry out automatic decision-making for this research and we only use reputable sources, where someone would expect their information may be read by the public. As we are a small team with limited resources, we engage a trusted third party to carry out this work in an efficient and respectful manner by researching information from publicly available sources, such as charity websites and annual reviews, corporate websites, newspapers, public social media accounts, the electoral register and Companies Register. We avoid any data that we believe has not been lawfully or ethically obtained, and we do not use information sources which have not been broadcast or made public.

We’re committed to putting you in control of your data and you’re free at any time to opt out from this activity or if you wish to update your contact preferences, please email us at dataprotection@materfoundation.ie, call us on 01 830 3482 or write to us at Mater Foundation, 53/54 Eccles Street, Dublin 7.

When will we process your data?

The Mater Hospital Foundation will only process (use) your personal information if we have:

  • asked you and have a record of your specific and recent consent for us to do so;
  • a ‘Legitimate Interest’ to do so in order to support our charitable purposes. Our use will be fair and balanced and never unduly have an impact on your rights;
  • a contract with you that we can only fulfil by using your personal information, e.g. to send you a materials for a fundraising event you have registered for ;
  • a legal obligation to use or disclose information about you, e.g. for tax purposes, or if we are required by the Gardaí or other authorized bodies to disclose information

Use of Third Parties

In an ideal world, we’d be able to do all of this ourselves. However, to get the right technology, the best tools, and the right team helping us, the Mater Hospital Foundation engages the services of a variety of third party service providers.

These include:

  • Payment Processing Services (e.g. Realex and Paypal)
  • Marketing Agencies
  • Data Analytics and Market research companies
  • Email Service providers (e.g. Mailchimp)
  • Survey management tools (e.g. SurveyMonkey)
  • Postal Mail Marketing companies
  • Wealth Screening (Campaign Solutions)

Data Sharing with 3rd Parties

To execute our fundraising and donor management objectives we work with third party suppliers and often have to share personal data such as names and addresses or email addresses with them. This sharing is always undertaken

  • For specific purposes in a particular project or delivery of a specific service
  • Under strict contractual controls
  • In line with appropriate information security standards

Obtaining Data From 3rd Parties

In line with standard practice in marketing and fundraising, the Mater Hospital Foundation may, from time to time, acquire data from 3rd party brokers for the purposes of conducting fundraising campaigns. These brokers undertake and warrant to us in their contracts that they have obtained this data fairly and in compliance with Data Protection laws.

Transfers outside the EU/EEA

Some of the 3rd Party services or suppliers we use are based outside the EU/EEA. Transfers of data to these parties is conducted in line with the relevant Data Protection Laws and is kept under constant review.

For entities in the United States, we rely on either Privacy Shield or Model Contract Clauses as the basis for transfers. The Mater Hospital Foundation takes all necessary organisational and technical security measures to secure the personal data that we process.

Retention of Data

The periods for which we retain Donor and Supporter data are kept under regular review. Data is retained no longer than necessary in meeting the lawful purpose for which it is acquired and meeting legal obligations to  retain.

Exercising your Rights as a Data Subject

As a Data Subject you have a variety of rights under EU law. These include:

  • The Right to be told if data about you is being processed, and for what purpose
  • The Right to receive a copy of all data the Mater Foundation holds about you
  • The Right to object to your data being processed for a given purpose
  • The Right to object to your data being included in any form of data profiling
  • The right to have errors in the data we hold about you corrected
  • The right to have data about you deleted, except where we have a valid overriding reason for keeping it.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@materfoundation.ie

Data Protection Commissioner Ireland

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) is the national independent authority responsible for upholding the fundamental right of individuals in the EU to have their personal data protected. The DPC is the Irish supervisory authority for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and also has functions and powers related to other important regulatory frameworks including the Irish ePrivacy Regulations (2011) and the EU Directive known as the Law Enforcement Directive.

To learn more please visit their website: https://www.dataprotection.ie/

Collection and use of technical information

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Glossary of technical terms used

  • web browser  – The piece of software you use to read web pages. Examples are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Opera.
  • IP address  – The identifying details for your computer (or your internet company’s computer), expressed in “internet protocol” code (for example 192.168.72.34). Every computer connected to the web has a unique IP address, although the address may not be the same every time a connection is made.
  • cookies  – Small pieces of information, stored in simple text files, placed on your computer by a web site. Cookies can be read by the web site on your subsequent visits. The information stored in a cookie may relate to your browsing habits on the web page, or a unique identification number so that the web site can “remember” you on your return visit. Generally speaking, cookies do not contain personal information from which you can be identified, unless you have furnished such information to the web site.
  • Remarketing – The use of data provided by existing customers or supporters, in a pseudonymised or anonymised form, to develop statistical models for improved audience targeting in on-line advertising on platforms such as Google Adwords, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Patient Stories

We are privileged to meet some remarkable and inspiring patients. On many occasions, the treatment they received has saved their lives. Please take a moment to read their stories.

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