Website Privacy Policy

OUR COMMITMENT TO PRIVACY

Our Privacy Policy was developed to provide the highest level of integrity in dealing with our Web users, donors and partners. The Policy is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect, use and safeguard the personal information you provide to us and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our website. This statement will be continuously assessed against new technologies, business practices and our users’ needs.

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website. 1. Personal Information You Choose to Provide Credit Card Information If you choose to donate or purchase products or services from us, you may need to give personal information and authorization to obtain information from various credit services. For example, you may need to provide the following information: Name Mailing address Email address Credit card number Home or business phone number Email Information In addition to providing the foregoing information to our partners, if you choose to correspond further with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone. 2. Website Use Information Similar to many other websites, our website utilizes a standard technology called “cookies” (see explanation below, “What Are Cookies?”) and Web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and Web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the websites visited just before and just after our website. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual. If you would like to opt out of these features, you can do so through Google Ads Settings, Ad Settings for mobile apps or any other available means, including Google’s currently available opt-outs for the web which can be found here.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

HOW DO WE USE THE INFORMATION THAT YOU PROVIDE TO US?

Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities and providing customer service to our donors, customers and prospective donors and customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special events we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you this information are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of our users’ personal information. If you provide your personal information to us, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire to receive or not to receive these offers.

WHAT ARE COOKIES?

Cookies are a feature of Web browser software that allows Web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user’s Web browser on the user’s hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one Web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user’s transactions on related Web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from Web page to Web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

HOW DO WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM COOKIES?

We use website browser software tools such as cookies and Web server logs to gather information about our website users’ browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our Web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website’s visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you although they do permit us to send focused information or other such responses to you.

NOTICE OF NEW SERVICES AND CHANGES

Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request here.

HOW DO WE SECURE INFORMATION TRANSMISSIONS?

When you send confidential personal credit card information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

HOW DO WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION?

1. Information Security. We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. 2. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices. Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with corporate policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. 3. Employee Access, Training and Expectations. Our corporate values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of customer information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

HOW CAN YOU ACCESS AND CORRECT YOUR INFORMATION?

You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us here.

DO WE DISCLOSE INFORMATION TO OUTSIDE PARTIES?

We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related Web site information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this Privacy Policy.

WHAT ABOUT LEGALLY COMPELLED DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION?

We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER WEB SITES LINKED TO OUR WEB SITE?

We are not responsible for the practices employed by websites linked to or from our website nor the information or content contained therein. Often links to other websites are provided solely as pointers to information on topics that may be useful to the users of our website. Please remember that when you use a link to go from our website to another website, our Privacy Policy is no longer in effect. Your browsing and interaction on any other website, including websites which have a link on our website, is subject to that website’s own rules and policies. Please read over those rules and policies before proceeding.

YOUR CONSENT

By using our website you consent to our collection and use of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy. If we change our privacy policies and procedures, we will post those changes on our website to keep you aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we may disclose it.