Privacy & Cookies Policy
Last updated: 21 September 2026
At Founders Pledge ("we", "us", "our"), we value the protection and management of your personal information. This policy explains what personal data the Impact Model Portal (our modelling tool for comparing funding opportunities — the "Service") collects, why, who it is shared with, and what your rights are. It complements the Founders Pledge website privacy notice, which covers our other activities.
The short version
- We collect the minimum needed to run the Service: your Google account details (email address, name, picture), the content you create (projects, models, chat messages, results), and basic security records (sign-in sessions, IP address, browser type).
- We use no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking cookies, and we never sell your data.
- Messages you send to the AI assistant are processed by Anthropic (the maker of Claude) to generate replies. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, API content is not used to train their models.
- The Service runs on Google Cloud in Belgium, with its database in Germany — all within the EU. The main exception is the AI assistant, processed by Anthropic in the United States.
- Projects you mark as shared are visible to everyone in your organisation, including their chat history.
- You can ask us to access, correct, export, or delete your data at any time.
1. Who we are
The Service is provided by Founders Pledge Ltd, a charity registered in England and Wales (charity number 1162201) and a company limited by guarantee (company number 08565148). Founders Pledge Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. Founders Pledge Ltd is part of the Founders Pledge Group, which also includes Founders Pledge Inc. (United States) and Founders Pledge gGmbH (Germany).
- General contact: info@founderspledge.com
- Data Protection Officer: dpo.founderspledge@legalnodes.com
2. The data we collect
| Data | What it includes | When |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Email address, name, profile picture, and Google account identifier, as shared by Google when you sign in — or, if you sign in by emailed link, just the email address you enter; organisation membership and role | When you first sign in and as your organisation is managed |
| Sign-in and security | A session cookie; the sign-in tokens Google issues when you sign in, or a single-use link token that expires shortly after it is sent; a session log recording when you start using the Service after a break, with your IP address and browser type (written at most a few times a day, visible only to service administrators); an audit log of administrative actions | When you sign in and use the Service |
| Content you create | Projects (titles, descriptions, notes), models, messages you exchange with the AI assistant, and computed results | As you use the Service |
| Usage | Monthly totals of AI tokens and compute used, per user and per organisation | As you use the AI assistant and run computations |
| Organisation settings | Organisation name, approved email domains, quotas, and — if your organisation provides its own Anthropic API key — that key, stored encrypted (only its last four characters are ever displayed) | When an organisation is set up or configured |
| Technical logs | Standard web-server request logs (IP address, requested page, browser type, timestamp), kept by our hosting platform for a short period | Automatically, on every request |
| Error reports | If something breaks, an error report may include your user ID, email address, IP address, browser and request details | When an error occurs |
We collect all of this directly from you, from your use of the Service, and from Google when you sign in with a Google account. We do not buy or collect data about you from anyone else.
There are two ways to sign in. With your Google account, in which case we only ask Google for your basic profile (name, email address, picture) — we do not request access to your Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, or any other Google data. Or with a single-use link sent to your email address, for people whose email is not hosted by Google; in that case we hold only the address you give us and a short-lived sign-in token, and our email provider (Resend) sees the address in order to deliver the message.
3. What we don't do
- No analytics or behavioural tracking of any kind.
- No advertising and no advertising cookies.
- No selling or renting of personal data — to anyone, ever.
- No automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
4. How and why we use your data
| Purpose | Data used | Legal basis (UK/EU GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Providing the Service — accounts, projects, models, AI chat, computations | Account, content, organisation settings | Performance of a contract |
| Keeping the Service secure — restricting sign-ins to approved users, detecting misuse, auditing administrative actions | Sign-in and security records, technical logs | Legitimate interests (security) |
| Enforcing fair-usage quotas | Usage totals | Legitimate interests (running a shared service) |
| Fixing errors and keeping the Service reliable | Error reports, technical logs | Legitimate interests (service quality) |
| Complying with the law | Any of the above, if required | Legal obligation |
5. The AI assistant and your content
When you use the chat assistant, your messages — together with a summary of your model and the assistant's configuration — are sent to Anthropic (the provider of the Claude models) to generate replies. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, this content is not used to train their models, and Anthropic keeps it only briefly (currently up to 30 days) for trust-and-safety purposes before deleting it, unless the law requires longer.
If your organisation has configured its own Anthropic API key ("bring your own key"), your chat requests are processed under your organisation's own Anthropic account instead of ours. We store such keys encrypted (AES-256-GCM) and never display them after entry.
Chat conversations are saved with the project they belong to, so you and (for shared projects) your colleagues can pick up where you left off.
6. Who can see your data
- People in your organisation. Projects marked as shared with the organisation are visible to every member of that organisation — including the project's models, results, and chat history. Private projects are visible only to you. Organisation owners and admins can manage projects and membership.
- Service administrators. A small number of platform administrators at Founders Pledge can see organisation membership, email addresses, usage totals, quota settings, and recent sign-in records (including IP addresses) in order to run and support the Service. Their privileged actions are logged.
- Google Drive (only if your organisation uses export). If you export a model to Google Sheets, the exported spreadsheet is created in your organisation's folder on Founders Pledge's shared Google Drive and shared with your organisation's members via their email addresses.
We disclose personal data outside these cases only if the law requires it.
7. Service providers (subprocessors)
We use a small number of providers to run the Service. They process data only on our instructions:
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud EMEA Limited (Google Cloud) | Application hosting, storage of computed results, secrets management, request logs | Belgium (EU) — region europe-west1 |
| Neon, Inc. | Database (accounts, projects, chat) | Frankfurt, Germany (EU) |
| Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) | Error monitoring | EU data region (Germany); reports kept ~90 days |
| Anthropic, PBC | AI assistant (Claude) | United States |
| Google Cloud EMEA Limited (Google Workspace) | Google sign-in, and export to Google Sheets (optional) | Global |
| Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) | Delivering sign-in links by email | United States; email and delivery logs kept ~30 days |
8. International transfers
Our hosting (Belgium), database (Frankfurt), and error monitoring (Germany) are all in the EU. The UK recognises the EU as providing adequate protection for personal data, so no additional safeguard is needed for data held there. For users in the EU, the transfer of your data to Founders Pledge Ltd in the UK is covered by the European Commission's adequacy decision for the United Kingdom.
Where a provider receives personal data in the United States, we rely on the following safeguards:
| Provider | Transfer safeguard |
|---|---|
| Google (Cloud and Workspace) | Google LLC is certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension (the UK–US Data Bridge); Google's Cloud Data Processing Addendum also includes EU Standard Contractual Clauses as a fallback |
| Neon, Inc. | Relies on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension under its data processing agreement, with EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum as a fallback |
| Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) | Certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension; Sentry's data processing addendum also includes EU Standard Contractual Clauses as a fallback |
| Anthropic, PBC | EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Modules Two and Three) and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, incorporated in Anthropic's data processing addendum |
| Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) | Certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension; Resend's data processing addendum also includes EU Standard Contractual Clauses as a fallback |
9. How long we keep data
We keep personal data only as long as necessary for the purpose we collected it for:
- Your content (projects, models, chat, results): until you delete it or your account or organisation is removed. Deleting a project permanently and immediately deletes its models, chat history, and stored computation results.
- Sessions: sign-in sessions expire after about 30 days.
- Sign-in links: a single-use link expires shortly after it is sent and is discarded once used. Resend keeps its own delivery logs for about 30 days.
- Sign-in records and audit logs: kept while your account exists, for security purposes.
- Technical request logs: retained by our hosting platform for 30 days.
- Usage totals: kept as monthly aggregates while your organisation exists.
- Error reports: retained by Sentry for approximately 90 days.
To have your account and associated data deleted, contact us at the addresses below.
10. Security
All traffic is encrypted in transit (TLS). Data is encrypted at rest by our hosting and database providers, and organisation API keys get an additional layer of application-level encryption (AES-256-GCM). Sign-ins are limited to approved email addresses and domains, access within the Service follows the visibility rules described above, internal services only accept authenticated calls from each other, and administrative actions are logged.
11. Cookies
The Service uses only the cookies that are strictly necessary for signing in and keeping your session secure. We use no analytics cookies, no advertising cookies, and no third-party tracking. Because every cookie we set is strictly necessary, no cookie consent banner is required — but here is exactly what we use.
| Cookie | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| __Secure-authjs.session-token | Keeps you signed in | About 30 days |
| __Host-authjs.csrf-token | Protects forms against cross-site request forgery | Until you close your browser |
| __Secure-authjs.callback-url | Returns you to the page you wanted after signing in | Until you close your browser |
| __Secure-authjs.pkce.code_verifier | Secures the hand-off to Google while you sign in (PKCE) | 15 minutes |
These are set by Auth.js, the sign-in framework we use. The session token is an opaque identifier — it contains no personal data itself.
We also keep two small preferences in your browser's local storage (not cookies); they never leave your device:
| Key | Purpose |
|---|---|
| fp.projectPane.collapsed | Remembers whether you collapsed the project side panel |
| fp:export-skip-confirm:… | Remembers a per-project "don't ask me again" choice for Google Sheets export |
Error monitoring (Sentry) does not set any cookies.
12. Your rights
You have specific rights regarding the collection and processing of your personal data, which you can exercise subject to applicable exceptions. You can ask us to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- correct inaccurate data;
- delete your data;
- export your data in a portable format;
- restrict or object to processing based on legitimate interests.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at info@founderspledge.com or dpo.founderspledge@legalnodes.com, providing your name and specifying the right you wish to exercise. We will respond within one month; if your request is complex, or we are handling a large number of requests, we may extend this by up to two further months and will let you know. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or, if you are in the EU, to your local supervisory authority.
13. Children
The Service is a professional research tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18.
14. Changes to this policy
We may need to update this policy from time to time. If we do, we will post the updated version here with a new date at the top and, for material changes, let you know in the Service or by email.
15. Contact
If you have any questions about this policy or our privacy practices, please contact us:
Founders Pledge Ltd — info@founderspledge.com Data Protection Officer — dpo.founderspledge@legalnodes.com