Last updated: 29 September 2026

The Veterans’ Foundation takes the protection of your personal information seriously. This notice explains how we collect and use personal information when you take part in the Armed Forces Pledge, use this website, make a donation or communicate with us in connection with the Pledge.

The Veterans’ Foundation is the data controller for the personal information described in this notice.

The Veterans’ Foundation is a registered charity in England and Wales (1166953), a registered Scottish charity (SC046571), and a company registered in England and Wales (10099309). Our registered office is Thistle Court (Room 5), 1–2 Thistle Street, Edinburgh EH2 1DD. 

What information we collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect:

• your name;
• your email address;
• your Armed Forces Pledge contribution and any message you choose to leave;
• whether you choose to make your Pledge contribution public;
• your communication and marketing preferences;
• records of your interactions with the Veterans’ Foundation, the Pledge and communications we send to you;
• information about donations you make, including the amount, date, frequency and payment status;
• information you provide when you contact us;
• records necessary to administer requests, complaints or the exercise of your data-protection rights; and
• technical information about your use of this website, where collected through cookies and similar technologies.

We aim to collect only the information we need for the relevant purpose.

You do not have to provide personal information to browse the public parts of this website. Certain information, such as your name and email address, is required if you want to add your name to the Pledge.

How we use your information

We may use your personal information to:

• record and administer your participation in the Armed Forces Pledge;
• send you confirmation that you have added your name to the Pledge and other necessary communications about your participation;
• display your name and Pledge message where you choose to make your contribution public;
• use selected public Pledge contributions to promote the Armed Forces Pledge and the Veterans’ Foundation’s charitable work;
• respond to enquiries and requests;
• moderate Pledge contributions and protect the website from abuse;
• process and administer donations;
• issue donation confirmations and receipts and deal with payment enquiries;
• maintain accurate supporter and communication-preference records;
• understand participation in and the effectiveness of the Pledge and our fundraising and communications;
• improve our campaigns, fundraising and supporter communications;
• where permitted by law, communicate with you about the Veterans’ Foundation’s charitable work and ways you can support it; and
• comply with our legal, regulatory, financial and governance obligations.

Our lawful bases for using your information

Under UK data-protection law, we must have a lawful basis for each way in which we use your personal information.

Legitimate interests

Where appropriate, we rely on our legitimate interests in:

• carrying out and promoting the charitable work of the Veterans’ Foundation;
• administering and measuring the Armed Forces Pledge;
• engaging with and understanding our supporters;
• administering our fundraising;
• maintaining accurate supporter records;
• improving our communications and campaigns; and
• maintaining the security and integrity of our systems and website.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the impact of the processing on your interests, rights and freedoms and whether our interests are overridden by yours.

Legal obligations

We may process personal information where necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, including requirements relating to financial records, accounting, taxation, charity governance and the prevention or detection of unlawful activity.

Consent

Where we ask for your consent for a particular activity, we rely on that consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that took place before you withdrew it.

Other lawful bases may apply in particular circumstances. Where they do, we will use your information only in accordance with data-protection law.

Your Armed Forces Pledge contribution

When you add your name to the Armed Forces Pledge, you can choose whether your contribution is published.

If you choose to make your contribution public, your name and the message you submit may be displayed publicly as part of the Armed Forces Pledge.

We may also select and reproduce public Pledge contributions to promote the Armed Forces Pledge and the Veterans’ Foundation’s charitable work. This may include use:

• on Veterans’ Foundation websites;
• on our social-media channels;
• in email communications;
• in digital and printed campaign and fundraising materials;
• in presentations, reports and publications;
• on screens and materials at events; and
• in press releases, media materials and other publicity relating to the Veterans’ Foundation and the Armed Forces Pledge.

We may make minor edits for spelling, length or formatting where necessary, but we will not deliberately change the meaning of your contribution.

We will not publish your email address or other private contact details as part of your Pledge contribution.

If you do not want your contribution to be public, please select the option not to publish it when you add your name to the Pledge.

If you later ask us to stop using your public contribution, please contact us. We will consider your request and stop future use where appropriate. We may not be able to recall material that has already been printed or distributed, shared by other people, or independently published by a media organisation.

Please take care with what you publish

Pledge messages are intended to be public messages of support. Please do not include sensitive personal information about yourself or another person, such as information about health, medical conditions or other private circumstances.

We may moderate or remove contributions that we reasonably believe are unlawful, abusive, offensive, discriminatory, misleading, contain inappropriate personal information, infringe another person’s rights or are otherwise inappropriate for the Pledge.

Keeping in touch and fundraising

Communications asking for donations or otherwise promoting a charity’s aims can constitute direct marketing. Where we use your personal information for direct marketing, we comply with UK data-protection law and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR).

Where permitted by law, we may contact you about:

• the work and impact of the Veterans’ Foundation;
• the Armed Forces Pledge and other Veterans’ Foundation campaigns;
• fundraising appeals;
• opportunities to support our charitable work;
• volunteering and events; and
• other activity intended to further the Veterans’ Foundation’s charitable purposes.

Depending on the circumstances, we may rely on your consent or, for electronic communications, the charitable-purpose soft opt-in where all of its legal requirements are satisfied.

The charitable-purpose soft opt-in may allow us to send electronic marketing without consent where, among other requirements, we obtained your contact details directly while you were expressing an interest in or offering or providing support for our charitable purposes, the communication solely furthers our own charitable purposes, and we gave you a clear opportunity to opt out when we collected your contact details.

Where we rely on it, every subsequent electronic marketing communication will also provide a simple opportunity to opt out.

You can unsubscribe or ask us to stop sending you direct marketing at any time.

Understanding our supporters and measuring the Pledge

We may analyse how people interact with the Pledge, our communications and our fundraising so that we can understand how well our work is performing and improve it.

For example, we may distinguish between people who have:

• added their name to the Pledge;
• chosen to publish or not publish their contribution;
• made a donation;
• become a regular donor;
• opened or interacted with communications we have sent; or
• changed their communication preferences.

We may use this information to measure campaign performance, understand supporter engagement, make communications more relevant and use our charitable resources effectively.

We do not use the Pledge to make solely automated decisions about individuals that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

Donations and payments

If you make a donation through this website, we collect the information necessary to administer the donation and maintain appropriate financial and supporter records.

Payments through this Pledge website are processed using NationBuilder Payments, powered by Stripe. NationBuilder states that its integrated payment service is PCI compliant and that it does not store full payment-card numbers on its servers; secure payment data is handled within Stripe’s payment infrastructure. 

We may retain information about your donation, including your name, donation amount, date, frequency and payment status, for supporter administration, financial reporting and compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Who we share information with

We do not sell your personal information. We may provide personal information to organisations that provide services to the Veterans’ Foundation where this is necessary for them to provide those services.

For the Armed Forces Pledge, these may include:

• NationBuilder, which provides the Pledge website, supporter-management database, email and related technology;
• Stripe, in connection with NationBuilder Payments and payment processing;
• providers supporting our website, email, IT, analytics and security where applicable;
• professional advisers, auditors and other organisations providing professional services to us; and
• regulators, courts, law-enforcement agencies or other authorities where disclosure is required or permitted by law.

Where another organisation processes personal information on our behalf, we require appropriate arrangements to protect that information.

International transfers

Some organisations that provide technology and other services to us may process personal information outside the United Kingdom.

NationBuilder is based in the United States and states that information may be transferred to the United States and other countries in which it or its service providers operate. NationBuilder states that it participates in the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and also provides contractual mechanisms for restricted transfers through its Data Processing Addendum. 

Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we will ensure that an appropriate transfer mechanism or other safeguard required by UK data-protection law is in place.

You can contact us if you would like further information about safeguards relating to your personal information.

Cookies and similar technologies

This website uses cookies and may use similar technologies.

Some cookies are necessary for the operation and security of the website. Other technologies, such as those used for analytics or advertising, will only be used where permitted by law and, where consent is required, after you have made the relevant choice.

You can find further information and manage applicable choices through our cookie banner and cookie information.

How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only for as long as we reasonably need it for the purpose for which it was collected, including to meet legal, regulatory, accounting and reporting requirements.

The period will vary according to the type of information and why we hold it. In deciding how long to retain information, we consider:

• the purpose for which it is held;
• whether we continue to have a relationship with you;
• legal and regulatory requirements;
• relevant limitation periods;
• the sensitivity and volume of the information; and
• whether the information can instead be securely deleted or anonymised.

Where information is required to maintain a record that somebody has opted out of direct marketing, we may retain sufficient information to ensure that their preference continues to be respected.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis on which we process your information, you may have the right to:

• ask for access to personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
• ask us to erase your information in certain circumstances;
• ask us to restrict processing in certain circumstances;
• object to processing based on legitimate interests;
• receive certain personal information in a portable format where the right applies; and
• withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent.

These rights do not apply in every circumstance and may be subject to exemptions provided by law.

Your right to object to direct marketing

You have the right to object at any time to our use of your personal information for direct marketing. If you object, we will stop using your personal information for that purpose.

Changing your preferences or removing a Pledge contribution

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails using the unsubscribe link provided in the email.

You can also contact us if you want to:

• change your communication preferences;
• object to direct marketing;
• ask about the personal information we hold about you; or
• ask us to remove a public Pledge contribution.

We may retain sufficient information on a suppression record to make sure that we continue to respect a request not to receive marketing.

Contacting us

If you have a question about this privacy notice or how the Veterans’ Foundation uses your personal information, or you want to exercise one of your data-protection rights, please contact:

Veterans’ Foundation
Thistle Court (Room 5)
1–2 Thistle Street
Edinburgh
EH2 1DD

Email: [email protected]

Complaints

If you have concerns about how we use your personal information, please contact us so that we have an opportunity to address them.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data-protection regulator.

⁠Make a data-protection complaint to the ICO

Our wider privacy information

This notice applies specifically to the Armed Forces Pledge website and activity associated with the Pledge.

The Veterans’ Foundation’s wider Privacy Statement provides information about personal-information processing across the charity’s other activities.

⁠Veterans’ Foundation Privacy Statement

Changes to this notice

We may update this privacy notice if the way we use personal information changes or if there are changes to relevant law or regulatory guidance.

Where a change materially affects how we use your personal information, we will take appropriate steps to bring that change to your attention before beginning materially different processing where required.