However, it is essential, when using personal data of members and supporters for commercial purposes, to ensure that such use is lawful.
Data is a precious asset for organisations and can be monetised to create new revenue streams to support an organisation’s continued growth. The most typical types of data that are open to monetisation are an individual’s social media posts, location data and search engine enquiries.
For charities, data monetisation can be particularly useful when it comes to fundraising. By collecting data from various sources, a charity can understand and learn about particular donors, such as their occupation, household income and internet usage to better target their communications to donors in an effort to build relationships and increase donations.
A charity can sell its database to other partners in the charity sector or field that it works in using an algorithm to understand supporting databases. While that may feel 'alien' to some charities, it can help beneficiaries as well as charitable causes. Once the data is collected and collated against conventional databases the value of the data increases, giving it the potential to be used for research and discovery, targeted marketing, societal purposes and improvements, and achieving commercial and business objectives.
Just because you have access to certain data, that does not mean that you own the data or can use it in particular ways. When buying or selling personal data from another organisation, you must ensure to meet your obligations under the UK GDPR. Before embarking on a new project involving monetisation of personal data we recommend that you consider the following: