Privacy policy

Last updated: October 2026

We care about the people who are part of Venture Church, and that includes caring for your information. This policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with and the choices you have. If anything here is unclear, please get in touch and we will be happy to help.

Who we are

Venture Church (Milton Keynes) is a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 1119304) and a company limited by guarantee (no. 05982564). Our registered address is Venture Church, Strudwick Drive, Oldbrook, Milton Keynes MK6 2TG. We meet at Venture Oldbrook, Venture Kents Hill and online.

Venture Church is the "data controller" for the personal information described in this policy. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" means Venture Church.

For any question about your personal information, email hello@venture.mk, call 01908 670655 or write to us at the address above, marked "Data protection".

The information we collect

We only collect what we need. Depending on how you connect with us, this may include:

• Contact details: your name, email address, phone number and postal address.
• Church life: the Sunday location you attend, the groups, courses, events and teams you join, and your next steps such as baptism or a New Friends Lunch.
• Family details: if you register your children for Venture Kids, Venture Youth, a camp or an event, their names, dates of birth, school year and any medical, allergy or additional needs information you choose to give us so we can care for them safely.
• Giving: the gifts you make and, if you are a UK taxpayer and choose to Gift Aid your giving, your Gift Aid declaration.
• Pastoral care and prayer: anything you share with us when you ask for prayer, pastoral support or help from our Benevolence Fund. This can include sensitive information, such as details about your health or circumstances.
• Serving: the teams you serve on, your availability and, for some roles, the results of safeguarding checks such as a DBS check, references and training records.
• Messages: what you tell us when you fill in a form, email, call or message us.
• Website use: how you use this website, if you allow analytics cookies, and the questions you type into our site search.

Because Venture Church is a church, the fact that you are connected with us can show something about your religious beliefs. The law treats this, and information about health, as "special category" information, and we take extra care with it.

How we use your information

• To welcome you, answer your questions and help you take your next step.
• To run Sunday services, Venture Kids, groups, courses, events and teams, and to keep in touch with you about them.
• To care for you, pray for you and offer pastoral or practical support when you ask for it.
• To keep children, young people and adults safe, including carrying out safeguarding checks for people who serve.
• To process your giving, thank you for it and claim Gift Aid from HMRC.
• To send you our weekly email, if you have signed up for it.
• To run, protect and improve this website.
• To meet our legal duties as a charity and an employer, and to keep proper records.

We will never sell your information, and we will never share it with anyone so they can market to you.

Our lawful reasons

Data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) says we must have a lawful reason to use your information. We rely on:

• Consent: for example, for our weekly email, analytics cookies and some photos. You can withdraw your consent at any time.
• Legitimate interests: to run the life of our church and keep in touch with people who are part of it, in ways you would reasonably expect.
• Legal obligation: for example, Gift Aid records, safeguarding and employment law.
• Contract: when you book something with us, such as a room, the Sensory Suite or a place on a trip.

For special category information, we rely on the condition that allows a not-for-profit body with a religious aim to process information about its members, former members and people in regular contact with it, as long as it is not shared outside the church without consent. Where you share health or other sensitive details with us for pastoral care, we will ask for your explicit consent. For safeguarding, we rely on the conditions that allow us to protect children and adults at risk.

When you use this website

• Cookies and analytics: we use Google Analytics to see how many people visit and which pages help them, but only if you allow analytics cookies. You choose in the cookie banner and can change your mind at any time. Our cookie policy lists the cookies we use.
• Search with AI answers: when you search this website, your question is sent to Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, so it can write a short answer from the pages on our website. Please do not type personal details into the search box. We do not record who asked a question. Questions and answers are kept for up to three days so the same question can be answered quickly, and your internet address is turned into an anonymous code for one hour to stop the search being misused.
• Find a group near you: if you type your postcode, your browser sends it to postcodes.io, a free postcode lookup service, to find the nearest groups. If you choose "Use my location", your location stays on your device. We do not store your postcode or location. Maps are provided by OpenStreetMap.
• Forms and sign-ups: most of our forms, including Plan your visit, events, groups, giving and serving, are provided by ChurchSuite, our church database. Our email sign-up is provided by Mailchimp. Some contact forms on this website are protected from spam by Google reCAPTCHA.
• Videos and other services: talks and services are shown using YouTube and Church Online, and our website fonts come from Adobe Fonts. These services receive your internet address when they load and may set their own cookies.

Photos, filming and livestreams

Our Sunday services are streamed online and recorded, and we sometimes take photos and video at services and events to share what God is doing at Venture. If you are in the room, you may appear in the background. If you would rather not appear in photos or video, please speak to a member of our team.

Who we share your information with

We use trusted organisations to help us run the church. They only use your information on our instructions and must keep it safe. They include:

• ChurchSuite: our church database, for contact details, groups, events, children's check-in, rotas, forms and giving.
• Planning Center: rotas and planning for our worship and production teams.
• Mailchimp: our weekly email.
• Google: website analytics, reCAPTCHA spam protection and YouTube.
• Anthropic: AI answers in our website search.
• CookieYes: remembers your cookie choices.
• SiteGround: hosts this website.
• The Safeguarding Company: receives concerns raised through our safeguarding form.

We may also share information when the law requires it, for example with HMRC for Gift Aid, with the Disclosure and Barring Service for safeguarding checks, or with the police or social services if someone is at risk of harm.

Information sent outside the UK

Some of the organisations we use, such as Google, Mailchimp, Planning Center and Anthropic, store information in the United States. When information leaves the UK, we make sure it is protected by safeguards approved under UK law, such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

How long we keep it

We keep your information only for as long as we need it, and we review our records regularly. Some records must be kept for set periods. For example, Gift Aid declarations and giving records are kept for at least six years, as HMRC requires, and safeguarding records are kept in line with thirtyone:eight guidance, which can mean many years. If you ask us to remove you from our records, we will do so unless we need to keep something by law.

Keeping it safe

Only the staff and volunteers who need your information can see it. Our systems are password protected and our website uses a secure connection.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete your information;
• ask us to limit how we use it, or object to us using it;
• ask us to pass it to you or another organisation in a usable format;
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To use any of these rights, contact us using the details above. There is no charge, and we will reply within one month. You can update your own details and email preferences at any time through your ChurchSuite account, or by using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails.

If you are unhappy

Please talk to us first, and we will do our best to put things right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the way we use information changes. The date at the top shows when it was last updated.