When you make a donation to a nonprofit that is using the Groundspring.org DonateNow button, Groundspring.org collects a variety of personal information about you in order to properly process your donation. This personal information may include: name, address, phone, email address, your credit card information, "acknowledgement" or "in memory of" information, and donation amount. Groundspring.org shares this information with the organization(s) to whom you have designated your donation. This way the organization can enter you into their database of supporters.

We encourage these organizations not to share your personal information without your knowledge or permission; however, this information is subject to their policies and practices and is not controlled by Groundspring.org. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of a particular organization before making a donation. In some cases, you may have the option to make your donation anonymously. If you choose this option, Groundspring.org will not share any of your contact information with the recipient organization.

It is unlikely that Groundspring.org will need to contact you but we reserve the right in the event that we need to verify your personal information. If you contact us by email or phone, we may ask you to verify your personal information so that we may respond to your inquiry.

When making a donation to a nonprofit through the Groundspring.org DonateNow service, donors may be asked to check a box to "receive email updates" from that nonprofit. The nonprofit will obtain that information and may choose to send email updates to the donor. Nonprofit practices in this regard are subject to their policies and practices and are not controlled by Groundspring.org. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of a particular organization before subscribing to email updates and eNewsletters.

We collect credit card information from our nonprofit customers so that we can process donations and monthly fees. We maintain this information on our secure servers for our internal processes only. We also use a credit card processing company to process donations and monthly fees. This company does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

If a donor selects "I want to make a recurring donation", you will be registering to make a credit card donation every month, 3 months, or year. After you complete this initial donation, future donations will be made automatically. You will receive an email receipt from Groundspring.org for each recurring donation. As soon as you complete this initial donation, you will receive a separate email containing a password and a link to the DonateNow system where you can review and change your donation options (amount, frequency, billing information) at any time. Of course, you will also be able to cancel your recurring donation at any point in the future. Donors can view and update their personal information on the DonateNow system by using their passwords and the link that we provide.

When you submit a Service Application we collect your personal and organizational information such as: name, address, email address, organization name, employer ID, credit card number, etc. We collect this information so that we can process set-up fees and monthly fees and to carefully screen organizations for our DonateNow and EmailNow programs to ensure that their programmatic work meets the scope of our vision statement. Applicants fill out an online Application Form, which our customer service staff reviews. We may contact an applicant to verify information. The set-up fees and monthly fees are processed through a credit card processing company. This company does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes. Nonprofit customers can log into their password protected "My Account" section on the Groundspring.org web site to update any personally identifiable information.

When you register for one of our Training Workshops, we collect your personal and organizational information such as: name, address, email address, phone number, etc. This information is collected and fees are processed through an event registration vendor who shares the information with Groundspring.org. This company does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

Groundspring.org provides links to other web sites as a resource for donors who are interested in additional ePhilanthropy giving opportunities. We encourage you to view their privacy policies as well. Any information you share with these web sites is subject to their policies and practices and is independent of Groundspring.org.

Groundspring.org uses "session cookies" while a visitor is making a donation using an Groundspring.org DonateNow button. "Cookies" are bits of information that are stored by your browser on your hard drive. We use "session cookies" so that we can properly verify a donor's identity as they move from one donation page to the next. For our nonprofit customers, we also "session cookies" and "persistent cookies" in addition to verifying personal information, so that we can provide secure access to donor information. These session cookies are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Like most web site administrators we use log files that record information such as Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and page navigation. We gather this information to track web site visitor movement in the aggregate, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Our goal in gathering this information is to learn how our customers and the public are using our service. IP addresses that are recorded by our log files are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Groundspring.org takes every precaution to protect donor information. When donors submit sensitive information via our web site, their information is protected both online and off-line. When a form asks donors to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number or address), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page, such as a donation form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked.

While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect donor information off-line. All of our donor information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (our customer service team) are granted access to personally identifiable information. All employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices.

Groundspring.org offers its own free monthly eNewsletter that it sends out to customers and other interested individuals. Customers are automatically added to this monthly eNewsletter, and other individuals opt-in to subscribe on the Groundspring.org web site or though personal contact. Subscribers may choose to unsubscribe at any time and unsubscribe information is located at the bottom of each eNewsletter. Individuals who donate to nonprofits through the Groundspring.org DonateNow service are not subscribed to this monthly eNewsletter.

Though Groundspring.org makes every effort to preserve donor and customer privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our organization.

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to our homepage, this privacy statement, and other places we deem appropriate so our donors and customers are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If, however, we are going to use users' personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection we will notify users via email.

Groundspring.org works hard to ensure that your giving experience is a positive one. If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of Groundspring.org, or your dealings with our web sites, please contact:

Customer Support
Groundspring.org
P.O. Box 29256
San Francisco, California 94129-0256
support(at)groundspring.org
tel: 415.561.7807
fax: 415.561.6495