Privacy Policy

Velafrica and its supporting foundation, Sinnovativ, are committed to informing you about how we handle your personal information and the precautions we take to ensure the confidentiality and security of your data. In this privacy policy, we explain how we collect and process personal data. Personal data refers to any information relating to a specific or identifiable individual.

This Privacy Policy is designed in accordance with the revised Swiss Data Protection Act (‘revDSG’) and where applicable, data processing is carried out in compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Velafrica places great importance on the careful and confidential handling of your personal data and requires all its employees, volunteers, and civil servants to adhere to this commitment. Velafrica complies with applicable data protection regulations and also meets the ZEWO standards and the Ethical Guidelines for Fundraising set by Swissfundraising, the Swiss fundraising association.

RESPONSIBILITY

The entity responsible for the data processing herein described is the Sinnovativ Foundation headquartered in Liebefeld, Bern, along with its related association Velafrica Deutschland. If you have any data protection concerns, you can contact us at the following address. This applies to all companies within the Sinnovativ Foundation (Wege Weierbühl, Drahtesel, Velafrica):
Sinnovativ Foundation
Waldeggstrasse 27
3097 Liebefeld
datenschutz@sinnovativ.ch

WHEN DO WE OBTAIN PERSONAL DATA?

We process data that you or individuals authorized by you or acting on your behalf, provide to us. Where permitted, we also gather certain data from publicly- accessible sources (such as debt registers, land registers, commercial registers, the internet) or receive such data from other entities within the Sinnovativ Foundation, authorities and other third parties. We process the following personal data:

  • Name and surname
  • Residential address, postal code, city/town
  • Date of birth and age
  • Gender
  • Other household members
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • Information regarding subscribed newsletters or postal mail from Velafrica
  • Donation information (including donation date, location and time; type, quantity, and value of the donation made; payment methods used; donation history)

We collect your personal data when we establish contact with each other or when you visit our website. This particularly includes the following circumstances:

  • You make an in-kind or monetary donation to Velafrica
  • You commission Velafrica for a service (such as paid property pickups)
  • You sign up for mailings or the eNewsletter from Velafrica
  • You participate in an event organized by Velafrica or come into contact with Velafrica at third-party events
  • You participate in a competition or contest hosted by Velafrica
  • You place an order in our online shop
  • You interact with us or third parties through our website, mobile device apps or social media
  • You get in touch with us via a communication channel (phone, fax, email, instant messaging)

Where you have given us consent to process your personal data for specific purposes (for example, when signing up for the newsletter), we process your personal data within the scope of this consent. Given consent can be withdrawn at any time, but this will not affect data processing that has already occurred. Additionally, we process personal data of beneficiaries for impact measurement purposes. Data processing involving minors is conducted with the consent of their legal guardians and the utilizations are anonymized.

FOR WHAT PURPOSE DO WE OBTAIN PERSONAL DATA?

Primarily, we collect personal data to fulfill contracts with customers, donors, funders, employees and business partners (processing and collection partners, logistics partners, project partners) and to meet our obligations. If you are acting on behalf of such a business partner, then you might also be affected by the data processing in this capacity through your personal data.
We mainly process personal data for donation processing. When you make a donation to Velafrica, we inform you by mail about our ongoing projects. The processing of data serves the following purposes:

  • Administration and execution of donation and customer communication by mail and electronic communication channels (email)
  • Information about ongoing projects via mail and email
  • Processing and management of donations; sending acknowledgments and donation receipts by mail or email
  • Execution of orders in the online shop
  • Ensuring the operation of our website and improving our offerings
  • Evaluation of system security and stability
  • Anonymous impact measurement to expand and improve our offerings
  • Business communication via mail and through telephone, fax, email, voice messages, text messages (SMS), multimedia messages (MMS), video messages or instant messaging.

FORMS ON OUR WEBSITE

On our website, you can use contact forms to register for various services, such as receiving postal mail or registering your bicycle donation. For this purpose, we only ask for the personal data that is mandatory and necessary to process the request.
All data provided to us via our website (e.g., when registering a bicycle donation) is transmitted to us securely through an encrypted connection. The security protocol used (SSL – Secure Sockets Layer) corresponds to the usual standard.
Online donations are also easy and secure through our website. We utilize the Swiss payment platform Payrexx for this purpose. All transactions are securely transmitted using 256-bit SSL. The data you provide in connection with the donation, including the amount, purpose of donation and your address, is stored in our donation database and treated confidentially. Payrexx ensures data protection and does not use the data for its own purposes. You can find more information about this in Payrexx’s privacy policy.

E-MAIL AND E-NEWSLETTER

Velafrica regularly informs subscribers via email about current topics and sends out donation appeals. We only send our eNewsletter if you have given us your consent (for instance, through the registration form on our website). You can unsubscribe from our eNewsletter at any time using the unsubscribe link included in each newsletter. Signing up for our newsletter is done through the Double-Opt-In procedure, meaning you will receive an email to confirm your registration. This allows us to establish your consent.


MailChimp
We distribute our email newsletters through MailChimp, a marketing platform provided by the US-based company Rocket Science Group. MailChimp is part of the Intuit Group of Companies with its parent company being Intuit Inc.
Velafrica shares the necessary data for sending newsletters with MailChimp. The email addresses and names of our newsletter recipients are stored on MailChimp’s servers in the USA. MailChimp uses this information for sending and assessing newsletters on our behalf. MailChimp reserves the right to use this data to optimize or improve its own services. MailChimp does not use the data of our subscribers to contact them independently or share it with third parties. The platform complies with GDPR regulations. You can find MailChimp’s privacy policy here.
In some cases, we embed visible and invisible image elements in our newsletters, allowing us to determine if and when the email was opened. This enables us to analyze whether our communication has been read and is relevant to you. You can block this feature in your email program. You can find more about MailChimp’s cookie policies here.

WEBSITE AND COOKIES

To continuously improve our website, we use cookies, which are text files stored on your computer that enable the analysis of your website usage. To manage the cookies and similar technologies (tracking pixels, web beacons, etc.) and related consents, we employ the Consent Tool “Real Cookie Banner.” Details about the functionality of “Real Cookie Banner” can be found here.
The legal basis for processing personal data in this context are Art. 6 para. 1 lit. c GDPR and Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR.
Providing personal data is neither contractually required nor necessary to conclude an agreement. You are not obligated to provide personal data. However, if you do not provide the data, we cannot maintain your consents.
We may use cookies for the following purposes:
Identifying when you visit and navigate our website
Displaying relevant advertisements for you
Analyzing the usage and performance of our website and services
We also engage certain service providers who use cookies for the purposes mentioned above:

Google Ads
Google Ad Grants is a Google advertising program that allows us, as a non-profit organization, to advertise on Google search result pages for free. Advertisements displayed are relevant to our content, providing wider visibility for our non-profit activities. To improve and customize the ads, we use conversion tracking in our campaigns. A cookie is stored on your computer or device when you click on one of our ads. These cookies expire after a certain period and do not contain personal data.

Google Analytics
To continue optimizing our offerings, we collect user data about our website. This information is collected and stored without personal references. For this purpose, we use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). You can find Google’s privacy policy and related companies here. Google Analytics uses “cookies.” The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. However, if IP anonymization is activated on this website, your IP address will be truncated by Google within member states of the European Union or other parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area before transmission. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and truncated there. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website, compile reports on website activity and provide other services related to website activity and internet usage to the website operator. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data. You can prevent the storage of cookies by adjusting your browser software settings; however, please note that if you do this, you may not be able to use all functions of this website to their full extent. Additionally, you can prevent Google from collecting and processing data generated by the cookie related to your website use by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link. The current link is here: Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on Download Page
Here, you can read Google Analytics terms.

Google Web Fonts
On our website, we use web fonts provided by Google (Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA) for a consistent font presentation. When you visit our pages, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly.
To do this, the browser you are using establishes a connection to Google’s servers. Thus, Google is informed that our website was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web Fonts is in the interest of a uniform and appealing presentation of our online offerings. If your browser does not support web fonts, a default font is used from your computer.
Further information about Google Web Fonts can be found here. You can also find the Standard Contractual Clauses used by Google for data transfers to a third country here.

On our website, we embed YouTube videos. These YouTube embeds add cookies to the website, which are used to track visitor behavior across multiple websites.
Velafrica is also on Strava. You can find Strava’s privacy policy here.

TRANSMISSION OF PERSONAL DATA


We do not share your data with third parties. Velafrica does not rent, sell or exchange personal data. However, within the scope of our business activities and the processing purposes listed above, we collaborate with external service providers where permitted. All third-party data processors receive personal data only to the extent necessary for the provision of the service and for the required duration. These entities include:

  • Service providers appointed by us (banks, IT, human resources, accounting, printing companies, logistics companies, online payment platforms, marketing platforms)
  • Business partners (processing and collection partners in Switzerland)
  • Authorities, public bodies, or courts
  • Other service providers (website, online shop management, database, donation management)

Most of these entities are based in Switzerland or in member states of the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA). Data may be transmitted to countries outside Switzerland and the EU. In such cases, they may be transferred to a country with equivalent data protection measures. This determination is made in an adequacy decision by the relevant data authority.
If we intend to transfer data to a country that does not have adequate legal data protection measures, we ensure compliance with legally provided appropriate safeguards through contracts or rely on legal exceptions as required by law.

RETENTION PERIOD

We process and retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill our contractual and legal obligations as well as for data processing. This includes the entire duration of the business relationship, from initiation to termination of a contract, as well as complying with legal retention and documentation requirements. Data collected for analytical purposes is anonymized and stored in aggregated form for as long as necessary to conduct longitudinal analyses. Information collected with your consent for marketing purposes is retained for as long as necessary to conduct the marketing activities for which we obtained your consent. Once personal data is no longer needed for the aforementioned purposes, it is generally deleted or anonymized to the extent possible.

SECURITY MEASURES

All employees, volunteers, and civil servants handling data are responsible for complying with data protection regulations. They ensure that only authorized individuals have access to personal data. Data processing is carried out proportionately, collecting and processing only data about our clients and employees that is suitable and necessary to fulfill our respective duties. Our employees are granted access rights strictly necessary for performing their roles.
Personal data is protected against unauthorized access and unauthorized processing through organizational and technical measures. Only authorized individuals have access to our premises. We lock our devices when leaving our workstations. Analog materials are physically protected against unauthorized access.

YOUR RIGHTS?

You have the right to access and correct your personal data. Additionally, you can request the restriction or deletion of your data at any time, unless contractual obligations or legal reasons contradict such actions. Upon request, you can obtain information about the data we store about you free of charge by contacting info@velafrica.ch.
We reserve the right to invoke legally provided restrictions ourselves, for instance, if we are obliged to retain or process certain data or if we require it to assert claims.
You can enforce your rights through legal means or file a complaint with the competent data protection authority. In Switzerland, the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner is responsible for this.

CHANGES

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time without prior notice. The current version published on our website will be considered applicable.

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