using sponsorship details as data

Dear Philippa

Technically, you don't have the right to contact these people unless it's directly related in some way to the sponsorship they have already pledged/given. You have to think about the way they might consider their address details reasonably being used. So ideally all your sponsorship forms should have an opt-out on them

However, there are a couple of ways that you could contact them. One would be to ask them to Gift Aid their sponsorship, as this would be a contact in direct relation to their existing gift. You could take the opportunity in this communication to check on their consent to be contacted in future, and could tell them more about what their sponsorship has actually achieved. I don't expect many of them will be very aware of your charity's work, necessarily, as they will be sponsoring their friends/colleagues, not you specifically.

it would be considered best practice in any case to secure their consent preferences in future, so even if you don't ask them to Gift Aid, you might still want to tell them about your work and about how their gift has helped and see if they want to stay in touch with you. Nothing to stop you then putting a donation form into that mailing, or an ask at the end of the telephone call, or a link to online giving on the email. Just as long as the tone of the rest of the communication is clearly geared towards securing their consent and contact preferences, not asking for money straight out.

Hope that helps

Adrian

Adrian Salmon
Head of TPR Education
[email]adrian@tpreducation.co.uk[/email]

0871 663 1970