Data Policy

We are committed to transparency about data use and to protecting your right to privacy. Please read our policy before using this site.

Digital Impact (digitalimpact.io) is an initiative coordinated by the Digital Civil Society Lab (“Lab,” “we,” “us,” “our”) at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS). The Lab is committed to transparency about data use and to protecting the privacy of your personal information. This Data Usage Policy is designed to let you know how we collect, use, and disclose information through the websites, mobile applications, and other online services and products (collectively, the “Services”) that link to this Policy. Please read the entire Policy before using our Services. By using the Services, you consent to the terms of this Policy.

GDPR Notice: On May 25, 2018 the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced new rules and protections about how organizations use and process personal data about persons residing in the European Union. See our GDPR hub for more on how nonprofits are navigating these new rules, and read Stanford University’s policy on the rights of EU data subjects under the GDPR.

Information We Collect

Information you provide directly

You may provide information directly to us in a number of ways. For example:

• When you register for our Services, we may ask you for information such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, zip code, telephone number, and social media accounts.
• When you use our interactive online features (such as forums, blogs, or other Services that allow you to post content), we receive whatever you post.
• When you contact us for assistance with our Services, we receive the information you provide in that correspondence and any other information that you send to us.

Information we receive automatically when you use our services

We may also automatically receive certain information about your device when you use our Services. For example, we may receive:

• Information about your interactions with our Services, such as the content you view, information collected by Google Analytics, and information in other cookies and similar technologies.
• Information about how you access our Services, including information about the type of device you’re using, your browser or operating system, the language in which you asked to view our Service, the referring website through which you accessed our Services, links that you click while using our Services, your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, location information, and certain device identifiers that may be unique to your device.

Use of information

We may use information that we collect through our Services for a variety of purposes supporting our mission, including to:

• Provide you with the products, promotions, Services, newsletters, and information you request and respond to correspondence that we receive from you. We may also provide you with information about how to use our third-party partner products or services.
• Contact you with surveys, legal notices, and other information that may be relevant to your use of the Services, such as account status, renewal, or any problems with your account.
• Customize and personalize your use of our Services, including the use of cookies to remember your login information and interface preferences.
• Inform you about important public policy issues that relate to our mission or that might affect our Services.

Information sharing

We are committed to maintaining your trust, and we want you to understand when and with whom we may share the information we collect.

• Service Providers. We may share your information with service providers that perform certain functions or services on our behalf, such as Google Analytics, MailChimp, and Vertical Response.
• Other Parties When Required By Law or as Necessary to Protect the Services. We may disclose your information to third parties in order to:
• Protect the legal rights, safety, and security of The Lab and the users of our Services;
• Enforce the terms of use of our Services;
• Prevent fraud (or for risk management purposes);
• Comply with or respond to law enforcement or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government or other entity, whether or not legally required. If The Lab intends to disclose a member’s information to law enforcement or in response to a legal process, we will make reasonable efforts to promptly notify the member—and, if the member is under 18, the member’s parent or legal guardian—unless directed not to by a court of law. In Connection With a Transfer of Assets. If we sell all or part of our business, or make a sale or transfer of assets, or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction.
• De-identified and Aggregate Information. We may share de-identified or aggregate data with any entity, including for research and analysis purposes. De-identified data is data that is not linked or reasonably linkable to a particular person or device. Aggregate data is data we collect that has been combined with information from others so that the recipient of the data is not able to identify any particular person or device from the data. However, we will never share personally identifiable information with third party commercial entities for direct marketing purposes, unless you give us permission.
• Other Parties With Your Consent. We may share information about you with third parties when you consent to such sharing.

Data security

Protection of our users’ information is important to us, so we maintain security safeguards to help protect against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of the information you provide to us. However, please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your information and privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your information.

Children’s privacy

The privacy and protection of children is of great importance to us. We will not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under the age of 18 without obtaining consent from a parent or legal guardian, except as otherwise permitted by law.

Social Networking and Third-Party Sites

Social networking services

We have worked with certain third-party social media providers to offer you their social networking services through our Services. For example, you can use third-party social networking services, including but not limited to Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter, to share information about your experience on our Services with your friends and followers on those social networking services. The third-party social networking services may be able to collect information about you, including your activity on our Services. The third-party social networking services also may notify your friends, both on our Services and on the social networking services themselves, that you are a user of our Services or about your use of our Services, in accordance with applicable law and their own privacy policies.

If you choose to access or make use of third-party social networking services, we may receive information about you that you have made available to those social networking services, including information about your contacts on those social networking services.

Links to third-party sites and services

Our Services may contain links to other websites or online services that are operated and maintained by third parties and that are not under our control or maintained by us. Such links do not constitute an endorsement by us of those other websites, the content displayed therein, or the persons or entities associated therewith. This Policy does not apply to this third-party content. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of these third-party websites or services.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

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

We do not sell data about visitors under any circumstances. Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. 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.

Contact information and communications preferences submitted through contact forms or signup forms on this site may be shared with the third-party vendors we use to manage newsletters, event registrations, and other communications activities.

If you would like to unsubscribe from our email communications at any time, you may do so in the footer of any of our emails. If you’d like for us to delete your information entirely, please contact us using the information below.

Updates and Communications

Data usage policy updates

We may decide to change the Data Usage Policy but, if we choose to do so, we will post the changes here. You will always have access to the Privacy Policy in order to determine:

• Whether or not we gather personal information about you;
• Whether or not we use information about you; and
• Whether or not we disclose your information to anyone else.

Your continued use of the Services after any modification to the Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of the new terms and conditions.

Communications preferences

You may choose to receive promotional e-mails, newsletters, and similar communications from us. You may opt out of receiving these e-mails from us by clicking on the opt-out or “unsubscribe” link included in the e-mails you receive. Please note that opt-out requests may take up to 10 business days to be effective. Your opt-out request will not apply to messages that you request or that are not promotional in nature. For example, we may contact you concerning your account or any purchases or donations you have made with us, even if you opt out of receiving unsolicited promotional e-mail messages.

Contact us

If you have any questions about the Privacy Policy, or about any other aspect of operation of the Services, please contact us at:

Digital Civil Society Lab
Stanford PACS
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305 Palo Alto, CA 94305

Email hello[at]digitalmpact[dot]io with “Attn: Privacy” in the subject line.

Your California privacy rights

Some web browsers may transmit “do-not-track” signals to the websites with which the user communicates. The Lab does not take any specific action in response to these signals. However, The Lab does not track its users over time or across third party websites to provide targeted advertising.

Cookies and related technologies

A “cookie” is a text-only piece of information that a website transfers to your computer’s hard disk so that the website can remember who you are. A cookie will normally contain the name of the internet domain from which the cookie has come, the “lifetime” of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number.

The Lab uses cookies and collects IP addresses (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet). We use analysis software to look at IP addresses and cookies for the purpose of enhancing your user experience.

You may block cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality. To prevent the download of cookies, or otherwise control how cookies are used on your computer, please read the “Help” information supplied with your internet browser software or go to: www.allaboutcookies.org. By using The Lab’s Services, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google and The Lab in the manner and for the purposes set out below.

The Lab’s Services use Google Analytics, a service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies. The information associated with the cookie about your use of the Service (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States or other countries, and may be shared with The Lab in aggregated form. For more information about how Google uses the data it collects in connection with Google Analytics—and how you can control the information sent to Google—please select this link: http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

The Lab’s Services may also use cookies for other purposes, including remembering your login information, analytics, and interface preferences.

Updated May 2018