Privacy Notice

When you begin or submit an application, we collect the information you choose to provide in the application form — for example your name, city and state, field of work, and the answers to the application questions — together with any documents you upload.

We also record your email address when you sign in, and we keep a reference number for your application so it can be identified without using your name.

The public website itself sets no advertising or tracking cookies. It does not profile visitors.

Your information is used for one purpose only: to assess your application for the fund's annual award and to communicate with you about it.

It is never sold, rented, or shared for advertising. It is never used to train artificial intelligence systems. The fund does not use automated decision-making: no software selects, rejects, or scores applicants. Every decision is made by people, with written reasons recorded.

Access is strictly limited by role. Only the fund's administrators can see all applications. A reviewer can see only the applications they have been assigned, and only while they are assigned. Auditors can see decision and governance records, not the contents of applications.

Other applicants can never see your application. Your documents are stored privately and are never available at a public web address.

Every access rule above is enforced by the database itself, not merely by the website.

Your information is stored in an encrypted managed database, and your uploaded documents are held in private storage that can only be reached through authorised, signed-in access.

Every consequential action — submitting an application, assigning a reviewer, recording a decision — is written to an append-only audit record that cannot be altered or deleted. This protects both applicants and the integrity of the fund.

The database is backed up regularly, and access is reviewed as part of the fund's stewardship practice.

Applications are kept for as long as they are needed to run the cycle fairly, answer questions about it, and keep the record the fund is accountable for. The retention period for each cycle is stated in that cycle's published terms, and retention actions are scheduled and recorded internally so they are never forgotten.

If you would like your draft application and its documents deleted before submission, you can do this yourself while it is still a draft, or write to us and we will do it for you.

You can ask what information we hold about you, ask for a correction, or ask for it to be deleted by writing to the address below. We will respond honestly and plainly.