The Vanished Children’s Alliance Donor Privacy Policy

Purpose

This privacy policy articulates the principles, actions and beliefs of the Vanished Children’s Alliance with regard to the information collected, retained and used related to some of our primary supporters, including our donors, volunteers, and prospects. This policy is intended to guide the actions of the Vanished Children’s Alliance employees, volunteers, contractors and authorized representatives.

This information includes:

1. Personal information obtained from donors, volunteers and prospects through pledge cards, letters, surveys, applications, and other forms, in writing, in person, by telephone, or electronically (e.g. name, address, employer, birth date, credit card number, family members, interests, etc.).
2. Individual information may also be collected about donors, volunteers and prospects' present and past giving history, volunteer activity, committee service, information from public documents and reports, and any other interactions an individual may have had with Vanished Children’s Alliance.

How is my Personal Information Secure?

The Vanished Children's Alliance uses our best efforts to respect and protect the privacy of our online visitors. For each visitor to our site, our server automatically recognizes only the visitor’s domain name, not the e-mail address. At this time, no part of our site makes use of “cookies” for user tracking, content customization, or any other purpose.

For purposes of improving our Web site content, aggregate information is collected on what pages of the Web site are visited. We only gather personally identifiable data (such as names, addresses, zip/postal codes, e-mail addresses, etc.) that are voluntarily submitted by a visitor, and we only use such data to facilitate online donations, or to distribute e-mail surveys regarding resources and information accessed on this site. Web site visitor information is used for internal Vanished Children’s Alliance purposes only and will not be sold to third parties. E-mail addresses of visitors and donors are never sold or exchanged.

If you supply us with your postal address online, you may receive periodic mailings from us with information on upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, requests for financial support, or new programs or services. If you do not wish to receive such mailings, please let us know by contacting us using the address or telephone number provided above, or e-mail us at info@vca.org.

Financial Information

All access to donor financial information is strictly limited to professional staff that needs to process those data.  No such data are given to any person, organization or group who does not need to access those data.

Security

When you send personal information to us by submitting an online form on our site, the information you transmit to us travels by high-grade encryption using the https protocol. The personal information that you provide is stored in a secure location and accessible only by designated employees trained in the proper handling of customer information. We employ industry standard techniques such as firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection, and site monitoring to protect your personally identifiable information from unauthorized access by users inside and outside the organization.

Security of Credit Card Information

The Vanished Children's Alliance cares about the safety of your credit card transactions. We only use online payment processing services with secure server technology, high-grade encryption software and https security protocol to communicate with your browser software. As a result, it is extremely difficult for anyone to intercept the credit card information you send to us. As an additional security measure the Vanished Children's Alliance does not store, nor does it have access to your credit card information, bank account numbers, or other account data sent to those processing services.

Policy

The Vanished Children's Alliance (VCA) maintains the highest level of respect for the privacy of the personal and organizational information that we are privileged to have about our donors, volunteers and prospects (hereafter referred to as our "supporters") and takes their privacy seriously. In furtherance of our commitment to honor your rights, we have developed this Donor Privacy Policy to guide our volunteers and staff on how they may and may not use, obtain, protect and share your personal information. This privacy policy is intended to be applied in conjunction with related Vanished Children’s Alliance policies, including, but not limited to, the Donor Bill of Rights and may be updated from time to time.

Principles, Actions, and Beliefs

• We do NOT sell trade or share our supporter information.
• Without the supporter's consent, we do NOT provide their information to organizations or individuals outside the Vanished Children’s Alliance.
• We contractually require any person or organization providing services to the Vanished Children’s Alliance to protect the confidentiality of supporter information.
• We will hold strictly confidential all information concerning donors and prospects, including names, addresses, names of beneficiaries, nature and value of estates, amounts of provisions or gifts, etc., unless a donor or prospect grants permission to use selective information for purposes of referral, testimonial, example, recognition, or publicity.
• We have procedures in place to limit access to information to those employees and volunteers who need to know such information in order to fulfill our mission.
• We educate our employees and volunteers on the importance of protecting the privacy and security of confidential personal and organizational information.
• We will use our best efforts to comply with the expressed wishes of any supporter who does not want their name used in any promotional material, wishes their name removed from solicitation lists, or wishes to have their gifts or services be anonymous.
• We will collect, use and share information about our supporters among employees and volunteers only on a needs-to-know basis and for the sole purpose of carrying out the Vanished Children’s Alliance mission.

Donor Bill of Rights

The Vanished Children’s Alliance subscribes to the Donor Bill of Rights.

Philanthropy is based on voluntary action for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To ensure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the nonprofit organizations and causes they are asked to support, we declare that all donors have these rights:

1. The right to be informed of the organization's mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes.
2. The right to be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization's governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities.
3. The right to have access to the organization's most recent financial statements.
4. The right to be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.
5. The right to receive appropriate acknowledgement and recognition or to remain anonymous if desired.
6. The right to be assured that information about their donations is handled with respect and with confidentiality to the extent provided by law.
7. The right to expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature.
8. The right to be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers, employees of the organization or hired solicitors.
9. The right to have the opportunity for their names to be deleted from mailing lists that an organization may intend to share.
10. The right to feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.

Contact us

If you have questions about this Donor Privacy Policy or if you wish to be removed from our e-mail/postal contact lists, then please email info@vca.org or write to:

   The Vanished Children’s Alliance, Inc.

   991 W. hedding Street, Suite 101

   San Jose,   CA   95126