This notice explains how the The College of New Jersey (“TCNJ” , “College”, “we”, or “our”) handles and uses the personal data it collects about our alumni and our past, current and future supporters, whether donors, volunteers or participants in membership groups that we run (“you” and “your”). Developing a better understanding of our alumni and supporters allows us to keep in touch with you, in order to keep you apprised of our activities and developments, to provide services to you, and to identify ways in which you can support us, through donations or other forms of financial and non-financial support.
We are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold. The following notice sets out how the College uses your personal data for fundraising and alumni relations purposes.
Personal data held by the College
We may hold information relating to you from a number of sources. A significant proportion of the information we hold on alumni is that which you provide to us (for example, you may give us information by filling in forms on the College’s website, or by corresponding with us by telephone, email or otherwise). If you are a student or studied at TCNJ, some of your personal data is transferred from your student record to the College’s alumni database.
Personal data held by the College may include:
- details of your education (e.g. your institution(s), degree received, , dates of study)
- unique personal identifiers and biographical information (e.g. student number, date of birth)
- your contact details (and we update these whenever you let us know that they have changed)
- details of your interactions with the College, including:
- your affiliation of clubs, societies, and alumni groups
- your attendance at TCNJ events
- other contact with us or our partners (as listed below)
- details of benefits and services provided to you, including those set out at https://alumni.tcnj.edu
- your relationships with other alumni or supporters of the College
- details about your family (e.g. your marital status, the name of your partner or spouse)
- personal data provided by you for a specific purpose (e.g. disability and dietary preferences for event management purposes)
- your communication preferences, to help us provide tailored and relevant communications
- financial information relating to you, including:
- your history of donations made to the College
- your philanthropy and other giving, including donations to other organizations and other support that you provide (e.g. details of volunteering roles)
- your career highlights and other life achievements
- information about your areas of interest and extra-curricular activities
- Public sources for companies (in order to find personal data of those companies’ employees, etc.)
- Public sources for charities (in order to find personal data of those charities’ employees, trustees, etc., and to find information about donations and support)
- Public sources for individuals:
- Who’s Who
- Property websites
- National change of address services
- LinkedIn, to check business details
- Press sources
How your data is used by the College
Your data is used by us for a number of interdependent purposes in support of alumni relations, supporter communications and fundraising. These include:
- sending you publications (e.g. TCNJ magazine and updates about the College)
- conducting surveys, including research on when and whether particular donations or funding appeals may be of interest to you
- providing services, including access to College facilities and alumni email accounts
- sending you tailored proposals, appeals and requests for donations
- sending you details of volunteering opportunities
- inviting you to alumni and other College events
- the promotion of other opportunities and services available to you (e.g. offers and opportunities available through the College’s network of alumni groups)
- internal record keeping, including the management of any feedback or complaints
- administrative purposes (e.g. in order to process a donation you have made or to administer an event you have registered for or attended)
Before seeking or accepting major donations we are required to conduct due diligence, including reviewing publicly available personal data relating to the donor’s criminal convictions and offenses.
Communications to you may be sent by post, telephone or electronic means (principally by email), depending on the contact details we hold and the preferences expressed by you about the types of communications you wish to receive.
If you have concerns or questions about any of these purposes, or how we communicate with you, please contact us using the details listed below.
We may use automated or manual analyses to link data together to help us identify your potential for supporting the College, to provide you with an improved experience, to send you communications which are relevant and timely, to identify volunteering opportunities or opportunities for providing support which may be of interest to you, and to avoid approaching you with opportunities which are not of interest. We always seek to ensure that any opportunities we present are aligned with your interests, based on the information that we compile.
We will always respect a request by you to stop processing your personal data, and in addition your statutory rights.
When the College shares your data with others (our partners)
We share the above categories of data on a considered and confidential basis, where appropriate, with:
- affiliated organizations and individuals which support and provide services to alumni and supporters, such as:
- The TCNJ Foundation
- volunteer partners closely related to us (e.g. development and advisory board members, alumni societies and alumni group representatives)
- educational trusts associated with the College that awarded you a scholarship
- third parties engaged by the College to provide fundraising related services, such as:
- third party agencies who provide us with data about alumni and supporters
- consultants advising us on individuals’ capacity to donate
- other contractors providing services to you on our behalf or services to us
- selected companies who provide College-branded or College-endorsed products and services
How we protect your data
We ensure we have appropriate data sharing agreements in place before sharing your personal data.
We do not sell your personal data to third parties under any circumstances, or permit third parties to sell on the data we have shared with them.
We also facilitate communication between individual alumni, but in doing so we do not release personal contact details without prior permission.
Further information
We always handle your personal data securely and minimize its use. In addition, there is no statutory or contractual requirement for you to provide us with any personal data.
Our Privacy Officer is responsible for monitoring compliance with relevant legislation in relation to the protection of personal data, and can be contacted at privacy@tcnj.edu. Please contact us at privacy@tcnj.edu if you have any concerns or questions about the above information or you wish to ask us not to process your personal data for particular purposes. Where you have specific requests relating to how we manage your data, we will make every effort to resolve these, but please note that there may be circumstances where we cannot comply with specific requests.
We will retain your data indefinitely in support of your lifelong relationship with the College or until you request us to do otherwise. We will publish on our website any changes we make to this privacy notice and notify you by other communication channels where appropriate.