Privacy policy

Unit Foundation ("the Foundation", "we", "us") is a nonprofit registered with the Registrar-General's Department, Ghana under number CG048220726, based in Accra. We provide communication services and platforms free of charge to registered foundations, NGOs and charities. We are the data controller for the information described in this policy.

For anything in this policy, including any request about your data, write to admin@ctrunit.org.

When you apply for access

The application form asks for information about your organisation and about you as its representative:

• Organisation details: registered name, country of registration, registering authority, registration number, team size, a description of your work, what you would use the platform for, and your website and social media handles.
• A copy of your registration certificate, which you upload as a PDF or image.
• Contact details for the person applying: name, role, email address and phone number.

We also record the IP address the application was submitted from and the time it was submitted. This is used only to detect and limit automated abuse of the form.

When you contact us

The contact form opens your own email application with a message prepared. It does not send anything through this website. We then hold whatever you chose to write to us, in our mailbox.

How you found us

If you agree to it, we use Google Analytics to see how many people visit, which pages they read, which country they are in, and whether they go on to apply. We also measure whether visits that came from a Google advert led to an application, because the Google Ad Grants programme that funds those adverts requires us to. This tells us which of our pages actually help organisations apply, and which are wasting their time.

There is no account to create on this site, so there is no password and no login here.

This is worth stating plainly, because it is unusual and it shapes everything else in this policy: this website has no database. When you submit an application, it is sent as an email , with your certificate attached, to the Foundation's mailbox, and a copy of the confirmation goes to the email address you gave us. Nothing is written to storage on this website.

Your application therefore lives in our email system, and it is read by the officers of the Foundation who make grant decisions.

The first time you visit, we ask whether you agree to analytics. Until you choose, and if you decline, no analytics or advertising cookie is stored on your device and Google receives no information that identifies you or your browser. This is Google's Consent Mode, set to deny every category by default.

If you accept, the following are set:

• Google Analytics (GA4). Cookies that count you as one returning visitor rather than several, and record which pages you saw, roughly where you are, and which site or advert sent you. We do not receive your name, email address or precise location from this.
• Google Ads conversion measurement. Records that a visit arriving from one of our adverts ended in an application. We use this only to judge whether the advertising is worth running.

Google acts as our processor for this and processes the data on its own infrastructure, which is outside Ghana. Your choice is remembered in your browser's local storage. To change it, clear this site's data in your browser and the question will be asked again, or write to us and we will explain how.

We do not use these tools to build advertising profiles of the people who visit an NGO grant page, and we do not share the data with anyone beyond Google as processor.

• To assess your application. We verify your registration with the authority you name and read what your organisation does. Without this information we cannot make a decision.
• To contact you about it. To confirm receipt, ask follow-up questions, and tell you the outcome.
• To set you up if you are approved. Your contact details are used to create your workspace on the Unit platform and to arrange training with your team.
• To protect the form from abuse. The IP address and timestamp are used solely for rate limiting.
• To see whether any of this works. Analytics and advertising measurement, and only where you have agreed to them.

Our lawful basis is your consent, given when you submit the form, together with our legitimate interest in running a grant programme responsibly and verifying that public-benefit organisations are what they say they are. You may withdraw consent at any time by writing to us, though we cannot continue assessing an application without the information in it.

We do not sell your information, and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing. It is shared only:

• With the officers of the Foundation who review applications.
• With our email provider, which transmits and stores the messages on our behalf.
• With Google, as our analytics and advertising-measurement processor, and only if you agreed to it.
• With the Unit platform team, and only for organisations we approve, in order to create and configure the workspace.
• With a registering authority, if verifying a certificate requires us to confirm a registration number with them.
• Where we are required to by law, or to establish or defend a legal claim.

Our email provider may process data outside Ghana. Where that happens we rely on the provider's own safeguards for international transfers.

• Approved applications are kept for as long as the organisation holds a grant, plus two years, because they are the record of why the grant was made.
• Declined applications are kept for twelve months, so that we can explain a decision if you ask and recognise a re-application.
• General enquiries are kept for twelve months.

You can ask us to delete sooner, as described below. We will do so unless we are required to keep a record.

You may ask us to:

• Give you a copy of the information we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong or out of date.
• Delete it, subject to the retention periods above. There is a dedicated page for this at ctrunit.org/data-deletion.
• Stop using it, or restrict how we use it.
• Withdraw a consent you previously gave.

Write to admin@ctrunit.org and we will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information, you may complain to the Data Protection Commission of Ghana, or to the data protection authority in your own country.

The site is served over HTTPS, so what you type into the application form is encrypted in transit. Uploaded certificates are checked for type and size, held in memory only for as long as it takes to attach them to the email, and never written to disk on this website. Access to the Foundation mailbox is limited to the officers who need it and protected by strong authentication.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information and creates a real risk to you, we will tell you and the relevant authority without undue delay.

This site is intended for adults applying on behalf of organisations. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, write to us and we will delete it.

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. Where a change materially affects applicants whose information we still hold, we will email them.