Your trust, kept carefully.

Who we are

Shepherds Only Foundation (“the Foundation”, “we”, “us”) supports ministers of the five-fold ministry and their households. We are responsible for the personal information collected through shepherdsonly.org and through our application, support, counselling and prayer work.

For anything in this policy, write to [email protected].

What we collect

We collect only what we need for the purpose you are using. Depending on how you interact with us, that may include:

• Application alerts: your name, email address, phone number, whether we may message you on WhatsApp, and optionally your ministry.
• The weekly letter: your name, email address and, optionally, how you describe yourself as a reader.
• Messages, prayer requests, testimonies and counselling requests: the details you choose to give, which may include your name, contact details, ministry and the content of your message. Prayer requests may be sent anonymously.
• Applications for membership and support: identity details matching your Ghana Card, contact details, ministry and denomination, information about your spouse and children, evidence of financial need, payment details for Mobile Money or a bank account, referees and recommendation letters.
• Verification: notes from conversations with referees or your denomination, and from any in-person visit by a Foundation agent.
• Technical information: your IP address and basic browser details, processed by our security, firewall and content-delivery services to keep the site safe and working.

Visit statistics, only if you agree. When you first visit, we ask whether we may count your visit. If you say yes, Google Analytics records which pages are read, roughly where visitors are in the world and what kind of device they use, so that we can see which pages help ministers most. Google’s advertising features are switched off, and we cannot see who you are. If you say no, Google Analytics never loads. You can change your answer at any time from our Cookie Policy.

We do not use advertising, remarketing or social media tracking tools on this website.

How we use it

• to tell you when an application window opens;
• to send the weekly letter you subscribed to;
• to reply to messages and arrange counselling;
• to pray for requests you send us;
• to assess, verify and decide applications, and to provide and record support for members;
• to invite members to programmes, events and prayer meetings;
• to keep the Foundation’s resources safe from fraud, including preventing a rejected applicant from applying again;
• to meet our governance, accounting and legal obligations; and
• to protect the security of the website.

We never sell personal information, and we never use it for advertising.

Why we may use it

We handle personal information in line with the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843). In most cases we rely on your consent, which you give when you tick the consent box on a form or submit an application. Some processing is necessary to carry out the support relationship you have asked for, to comply with the law, or to protect the legitimate interests of the Foundation and its members, such as preventing fraud and securing the website.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect anything we did lawfully before you withdrew it.

Sensitive information

Applications and counselling requests can involve deeply personal information: health conditions, family circumstances, financial hardship and details about children. We treat this information with particular care. Access is limited to the people who need it to assess an application or arrange care, and it is never published.

We never publish the names or circumstances of the ministers we support. A testimony is published only if its author asks us to, and only in the form they approve.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only where it is needed, and only with:

• People involved in verification: the referees you name, your denomination, and Foundation agents carrying out an in-person check.
• Service providers who process information on our behalf, under our instructions: our website host; Cloudflare, which protects and delivers the site and runs the security check on our forms; Baserow, which hosts our application form and the records it collects; our email-sending service, including MailPoet for the weekly letter; Google Fonts, which serves the typefaces used on this site; and, only for visitors who agree to it, Google Analytics, which counts visits.
• Payment providers, such as Mobile Money operators or banks, when support is paid to you.
• Authorities, where the law requires it, or where we must act to prevent fraud or protect someone from serious harm.

Transfers outside Ghana

Some of our service providers store or process information outside Ghana. When that happens, we choose providers that apply recognised security standards and protect personal information to a level consistent with Act 843.

How long we keep it

• Application alerts and the weekly letter: until you ask to be removed or unsubscribe.
• Messages, prayer requests and counselling requests: for as long as we need them to respond and provide care, and then deleted or anonymised.
• Members’ records: for as long as you are a member, and afterwards for the period our accounting and governance obligations require.
• Rejected applications: a limited record identifying the applicant is retained, because a rejection is final and we must be able to recognise a repeat application.

How we protect it

We use access controls, encrypted connections, firewall and malware protection, and spam and bot screening on every form. Only people who need information for their role can see it. No system is perfect, and if a security breach ever affects your information, we will tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

Your rights

Under Act 843 you may:

• ask whether we hold information about you, and for a copy of it;
• ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• ask us to delete information we no longer have a reason to keep;
• object to, or withdraw consent for, particular uses of your information; and
• complain to the Data Protection Commission of Ghana if you believe we have mishandled your information.

To use any of these rights, write to [email protected]. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request. Please see our Data Protection page for more detail.

Children

This website is intended for adults. We process information about ministers’ children only when it is provided by a parent or guardian, for example as part of a household application, a scholarship or a counselling request, and we handle it with the same care as other sensitive information.

Changes and contact

We may update this policy as our work develops. The effective date at the top of this page shows when it last changed, and significant changes will be highlighted on this site. Our use of cookies is described in our Cookie Policy.

Questions, requests or concerns: [email protected].