Privacy Policy

In addition to this Privacy Policy, please also read our Terms of Use for detailed information about our services. By using our platform, you agree to be bound by our terms of use and consent to the data practices described in this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy describes the practices and policies of Charity Navigator, a 501(c)(3) public charity (hereinafter, "Charity Navigator," "we," "us," or "our") relating to our collection of personal data received by us, both online and offline, including but not limited to through the Charity Navigator website (charitynavigator.org) and related applications and platforms, including the Nonprofit Portal, as well as any written, whether electronic or hard copy, or verbal communications (together, our "Platform").

When we use the terms "you" or "your" in this Policy, we are referring to individuals who use our Services, such as:

individual donors
charity representatives,
other visitors to our Platform.

If after reading this Policy you have additional questions or would like further information, please email us at info@charitynavigator.org.

This Privacy Policy includes the following sections:

Data We Collect
- Personal vs Non-personal Data
- Personal Data You Provide To Us
- Data Collected Automatically
How We Manage (Protect & Store / Use / Share)Your Personal Data
Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Data
Links to Other Websites
Special Concerns Regarding Children and Privacy
Special Concerns Regarding International Use and Transfer
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
How to Contact Us

Data We Collect
1. Personal vs Non-personal Data
  
  We use the term "personal data" to mean information that can be used, individually or together with any other data you provide to us or we collect, to identify an individual person. Non-personal data is all other information you provide to us or we collect, which cannot be traced to an identifiable individual.
  
  Please note information that you provide to us or we collect through the Platform and Nonprofit Portal concerning a charity's programs and operations, including but not limited to a charity's finances, operations, policies, procedures and results information, and the information contained therein, is not personal data for the purposes of this Policy.
2. Personal Data You Provide To Us
  
  The data that you provide directly to us through our Services will vary depending on the Services you are utilizing, as described below. We never request highly sensitive data, such your social security number, or information about medical or health conditions, and we ask that you refrain from sending us such data. But we do request certain personal data, as follows:
  - Individual donors:
    As part of our Services, Charity Navigator offers donors the opportunity to make donations to their selected charities through the "Giving Basket" functionality on our Platform. The Giving Basket functionality is powered by our trusted third-party partner, Give Lively. When you choose to donate through the Giving Basket, Give Lively collects your name, email, contact information, donation amounts and dates, and payment information, all of which is shared with us. In addition, Give Lively will share this information with the charity(-ies) you have designated as a beneficiary of your donation, unless you specifically opt-out of sharing your name, email, or mailing address in the Giving Basket form. We do not control the privacy practice of Give Lively or the recipient charities, and we encourage you to review the privacy policies of Give Lively and the recipient charities for more information regarding their privacy practices before using the Giving Basket.
    
    Individual donors may use the Giving Basket functionality without registering or signing in to the Charity Navigator website, but donors who elect to register with Charity Navigator may also choose to submit additional personal information, such as their address, birth date, and professional affiliations. Registered users who utilize the Giving Basket functionality will be able to view within their profile pages their donation history, including both charity recipients and donation amounts.
    
    You may also choose to make a donation through our website directly to us, Charity Navigator. This functionality is powered by our trusted third-party partner, Classy. In that case, Classy will directly collect your name, email address, street address, and donation amount, and partner with Stripe or PayPal as payment processors to process your donations; therefore, the personal data you provide in this context will be shared with Stripe or PayPal, and Stripe or Paypal will additionally require you to submit payment information (credit card or ACH banking information). We encourage you to review Classy's privacy policy, Stripe's privacy policy, and PayPal's privacy policy prior to providing us with payment information. Classy will share your name, email address, street address, and donation amount with Charity Navigator, but the payment information (credit card or ACH) that you provide at the time of donation is never seen by Charity Navigator directly.
  - Charity Representatives:
    When charities want to submit information to inform the ratings we provide as part of our Services, individual representatives of the charity provide us with personal data such as their name, email address, and other contact information. Charity representatives may also choose to provide non-personal information concerning the charity's programs and operations through Charity Navigator's Nonprofit Portal ("Portal"), including but not limited to financial and tax information, information about the charity's activities, policies, and practices, and constituency, board, mission and vision statement, strategic plan, and programmatic delivery. (Again, this latter category of charity information is not considered personal data.)
  - Other Platform Visitors:
    You may visit our Platform without being required to provide us with any personal data about yourself or your organization. However, our Platform also offers optional Services that do call for the provision of personal data, as follows:
    - Subscription to Emails and Newsletters. You may sign up to receive emails from us with our newsletters and other information. In order to register with us and/or sign up to receive emails from us, you must provide us with your name and email address.
    - Account Creation. You may create an account with us, which requires you to provide your name and email address. In creating an account with us, you may, but not are required to, provide the city, state, and zip code in which you reside, your date of birth and professional affiliations, and information about the charities that you follow.
    - Commenting on Articles. We offer the opportunity to post comments on our articles. Comment functionality is enabled through a third-party web service called Disqus. When you choose to post a comment on our articles, you will be prompted to log into Disqus via your Disqus, Facebook, Twitter or Google account. The name you provide (but not your email or contact information) will be displayed alongside your comment. We do not control the privacy practices of Disqus, and we encourage you to review Disqus's privacy policy for more information about their privacy practices before commenting on Charity Navigator articles.
    - Donor Tools. We also offer visitors to the Platform the opportunity to learn more about and participate in other activities that may enhance their philanthropic experience. Visitors may choose to explore "Volunteer Opportunities" or to utilize the "Estate Planner" or "Giving Circle Finder" functionalities. Each of these Services is enabled by third parties: "Volunteer Opportunities" is enabled by Golden; the "Estate Planner" tool by FreeWill; and "Giving Circle Finder" by Philanthropy Together and Grapevine. We do not control the privacy practices of these third parties and encourage you to review the Golden's privacy policy, FreeWill's privacy policy, Philanthropy Together's privacy policy, and Grapevine's privacy policy before using these Services.
    - Contact Us. We provide a "Contact Us" link on the Platform that allows you to start a discussion with Charity Navigator staff, intended for you to be able to ask questions, request additional information, and provide feedback to us. Our "Contact Us" functionality is powered by Tender or Salesforce. Tender and/or Salesforce collects your name and email address, and shares this information with us. We do not control the privacy practices of Tender or Salesforce, and we encourage you to review the privacy policy of Tender and the privacy policy of Salesforce for more information regarding their privacy practices before using the "Contact Us" functionality. When you use this Service, we keep that correspondence, including your email address and information you volunteer in that correspondence, so that we have a history of past correspondence to reference if you reach out in the future.
    - Electronic Mail, Regular Mail, and Phone Calls. You may, on your own initiative, reach out to Charity Navigator by electronic mail, regular hard-copy mail or by telephone. We collect any information you share with us through such communications, such as your name and contact information and information you volunteer in your communication, and may use and share such information consistent with this Policy.
3. Data Collected Automatically
  
  We collect certain data by automated means when you visit the Platform, some of which may be personal data. The data collected may include usage information, such as the numbers and frequency of users to the Services, pages visited, web browsing histories, device location, social networking activities, and similar data. If gathered, this data is aggregated and is not used to identify or track individual activity. We collect this information through various means, including "cookies," "web beacons" and IP addresses, as further explained below, and may utilize third-party web servers or tracking services in connection with this activity, such as Google Analytics, Heap, AdWords and Remarketing Lists.
  - Cookies
    A cookie is a piece of information that a web server may place on your computer when you visit a website. Cookies are commonly used by websites to improve the user experience. Many cookies last only through a single website session, or visit. Others may have an expiration date, or may remain on your computer until you delete them. Most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to be notified when you receive a new cookie, and how to disable existing cookies. Please note, however, that without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of all the features on our Platform. For more information on cookies and similar technologies and how to disable them, please see allaboutcookies.org/cookies.
  - Web Beacons
    Our Platform contains "web beacons" (also known as internet tags, pixel tags, and clear GIFs). These web beacons allow third parties to obtain information such as the IP address of the computer that downloaded the page on which the beacon appears, the URL of the page on which the beacon appears, the time the page containing the beacon was viewed, the type of browser used to view the page, and the information in cookies set by the third party. Web beacons also may be used to track whether you have opened an HTML email. When the email is opened, a part of the code that makes up the HTML page calls a web server to load the web beacon that then generates a record showing that the email has been viewed. Web beacons may also recognize when the email was opened, how many times it was forwarded and which URLs (links within the email) were clicked.
  - IP Addresses
    When you visit and interact with the Services, Charity Navigator and third parties with whom we have contracted to provide services for us collect Internet Protocol addresses (each an "IP Address" ), as well as browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and page navigation. An IP Address is a unique identifier number that certain electronic devices use to identify and to communicate with each other on the Internet; your Internet Service Provider automatically assigns an IP Address to the computer that you are using.
How We Manage (Protect & Store / Use / Share)Your Personal Data
1. How We Protect & Store Your Personal Data
  
  We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards for the Services designed to protect against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of the personal data that we collect from you. Your data is stored in an enterprise-level, secure database protected by encryption, two-factor authentication and restricted access. This cloud-hosted database employs robust security measures, including access controls, to protect your data. Additionally, secure authentication and authorization services are in place to provide additional layers of data security and privacy.
  
  We restrict access to personal data collected about you on the Services to our employees, our affiliates' employees, those who are otherwise specified in this Privacy Policy, or others who need to know that information to provide the Services to you or in the course of conducting our business operations or activities. Please note, however, that no website, including the Services, can guarantee 100% security.
  
  We store your personal data for as long as required to provide the Services to you. We may retain personal data after we cease providing Services to you to the extent necessary to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, and for the purpose of fraud monitoring, detection, and prevention, including our tax, accounting, and financial reporting obligations. Where we retain data, we do so in accordance with any limitation periods and records retention obligations that are imposed by applicable law.
2. How We Use Your Personal Data
  
  We collect and process personal data from you only for lawful reasons, such as to perform the Services, for our legitimate business interests or to fulfill our legal or contractual obligations. We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties. For more specific information about how we use your personal data, please see below.
  - Data You Provide to Us. We use the data you provide to us in order to perform the Services, and to perform data analytics to assess and improve the Services we deliver. We may use your personal data to deliver customized content and to inform you of other Services available from us, including programs and content, to share information about us and our partners, and to request support. If you choose to make a donation to a charity through the Giving Basket or to us through our website, your payment information is used only to process your donation and will not be stored or used for any other purpose.
  - Data Collected through Automated Means. We also use the data we collect from you through automated means in order to perform the Services, and to perform data analytics to assess and improve the Services we deliver. We use cookies to enhance the user experience, for example, by maintaining continuity during a user session, or by storing your user name or related login credentials so that you do not have to provide this information every time you return to our Platform. We also use cookies to research and gather data about the usage of our Platform, to assess our performance and reach and to inform and implement our overall business strategy, including marketing purposes. We use web beacons and IP addresses for the same business purposes: to track Platform visitor movement in the aggregate, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Our goal in gathering this information is to learn how you are using our Services. We may use this information to enhance our Platform or for other lawful purposes, including marketing.
3. How We Share Your Personal Data
  
  As stated above and in our Donor Privacy Policy, we do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties. When we share your personal data, we only do so as described below.
  
  If you are a Giving Basket user, data you provide is shared with Give Lively and, if you opt-in, data you provide is also shared with the charity or charities to which you made a donation. You may review Give Lively's privacy policy here; please contact the recipient charities directly for more information on the applicable privacy policies and they use and protect your personal data.
  
  For donors through the Giving Basket or donors to Charity Navigator directly, we will also disclose personal data to Stripe or Paypal for donation payment processing.
  
  For donors through the Giving Basket, donors to Charity Navigator directly, and all other users of the Platform whose personal data we may collect, as described in this Policy, we may also share personal data with other third parties as follows: (1) to users and all other visitors to the Platform (2) to our affiliates, service providers, and agents for our internal operations (like storage and data backup) and to provide, improve, and market our Services to you; (3) to perform data analytics (as described above); (4) in connection with a sale of all or substantially all of the assets of Charity Navigator or the merger of Charity Navigator into another entity or any consolidation, share exchange, combination, reorganization, or like transaction in which Charity Navigator is not the survivor; (5) for any or all of the following reasons: (i) to comply with a subpoena, to comply with a legal process, to comply with what we reasonably believe in good faith is a valid and enforceable warrant or subpoena, or to comply with any other legal obligation, (ii) to prevent, investigate, detect, or prosecute criminal offenses or attacks on the technical integrity of our Services, (iii) when we reasonably believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, property, business, or safety of Charity Navigator, their partners and employees, you, or the public, and/or (iv) to investigate fraud.
  
  Please note Charity Navigator does share and sell non-personal nonprofit data used to create ratings collected via the Platform. This data is shared either as the aggregated rating or as individual data points with API subscribers, Candid, or other TBD partners.
Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Data

Upon request, Charity Navigator will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal data. You may access, correct, or request deletion of your personal data, or request that we stop any processing of your personal data. If you would like to inquire about any personal data of yours that Charity Navigator may hold, or to correct or request the deletion of such data, please email us at info@charitynavigator.org. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe. Registered users of our Platform may also make any changes to their information at any time by logging into the Platform and navigating to the "Edit Profile" page.
Links to Other Websites

We provide links through our Platform to third-party websites to deliver our Services and as a service to you, in order to enable you to take advantage of the Services, to learn more about our partners and the charities listed on our Platform, and to interact directly with these organizations, if you so choose. Please be aware when you choose to use such third-party Services that we disclaim responsibility for the information collection, use, and disclosure practices of third party sites; we encourage you to review and understand their privacy practices and policies, if any, before providing any personal data to them or using any of their services. We are not responsible for the content or information of these sites, any products or services that may be offered through them, or any other use of the sites.
Special Concerns Regarding Children and Privacy

The Services are not intended for use by children, and we do not knowingly or intentionally solicit data from or market to children under the age of 16. Additionally, as specified in the Terms of Use those individuals who are less than 16 years of age are only permitted to use the Platform and Services with parental/guardian consent and supervision. If you are a parent or guardian and become aware that your child has provided us information without your consent, please contact us at info@charitynavigator.org to request that we delete such information from our files within a reasonable amount of time from your request.
Special Concerns Regarding International Use and Transfer

The Platform and Services are intended for users in the United States only. Charity Navigator and its servers are located in the United States, and we necessarily transfer any data that is collected on the Platform to the United States for processing and storage. The laws governing data collection, storage and use may differ under United States law from the law of other regions.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update this Policy at any time. The date of last update is stated at the beginning and end of this Policy. It is your responsibility to check this page from time to time for updates. If we make any material changes to this Policy, then we will provide notice of such change via the Services or will email you using the email you provided to us when you registered; your continued use of the Services after such notice will indicate your acknowledgment and agreement with any and all such changes.
How to Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this Policy or our practices please feel free to write to us at info@charitynavigator.org. We will respond to your email as soon as we can.

Effective Date: November 1, 2022

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