This page contains information on what ‘cookies’ are, the cookies used by Benefacto’s website, how to switch cookies off in your browser and some useful links for further reading on the subject. If it does not provide the information you were looking for, or you have any further questions about the use of cookies on the Benefacto’s website, please email data@benefacto.org

What Are ‘Cookies’?

‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store things like user preferences. You can think of cookies as providing a ‘memory’ for the website, so that it can recognise you when you come back and respond appropriately. If you want to find out more, check out http://www.aboutcookies.org/

How Does Benefacto’s Website Use Cookies?

We use cookies at Benefacto for two main reasons.

First, is for reasons of functionality. Cookies help us to register and book volunteers through our database and e-commerce platform; to sign people up to our newsletter if they’re not already on it; and to manage the content that we send out to our subscribers. Please see below for the full list of functionality cookies.

Secondly, is for reasons of analysis. We use two services, Google Analytics and HotJar to explore how our users interact with the site and book volunteering. We have a big emphasis on ‘user journey’ at Benefacto and these tools help us improve the experience for would-be volunteers. Please see below for more information on Analysis Cookies.

Disabling Cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this).

Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of this site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

Functionality Cookies

WordPress

WordPress is the central database and contact management system we use at Benefacto. It is built on PHP.

• wordpress_logged_in_
  This cookie checks to see whether the user already has a profile with us and whether they’re logged in
• PHPSESSID
  To store a simple message when a form is submitted that can be displayed on a different page.

WooCommerce

We use WooCommerce to manage and process bookings through VolunteerHub

To keep track of cart data, WooCommerce makes use of 3 cookies:

• woocommerce_cart_hash
• woocommerce_items_in_cart
• wp_woocommerce_session_

The first two cookies contain information about the cart as a whole and helps WooCommerce know when the cart data changes. The final cookie (wp_woocommerce_session_) contains a unique code for each customer so that it knows where to find the cart data in the database for each customer. No personal information is stored within these cookies.

Klaviyo

We use Klaviyo to manage all our newsletter and marketing subscriptions and the content we send out

• __kla_id
  This cookie recognises each user with a unique id and allows us to track the content they engage with. For example, it records all those volunteers who book with homeless charities so that we can keep them up to date with new opportunities.

Analysis Cookies

HotJar

We use HotJar to understand how people interact with our charity booking pages

• _hjIncludedInSample
  This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels.
• _hjUserId
  This cookie is set as soon as a user loads a page which contains the Hotjar code. The cookie contains a universally unique identifier (UUID) which allows Hotjar to track the same visitor across multiple pages and sessions.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to better understand how people use our website

• _ga
  Google Analytics uses this cookie to distinguish users.
• __gat
  Google Analytics uses this cookie to throttle the request rate, that is, if we have a lot of traffic it limits the amount of data collected.