Privacy, corrections and removals

If you write to us through the contact form, we keep your name, email address, subject and message so we can reply, and so whoever answers next can see what was already said.

If you send a letter of interest for a board position, we keep what you send (your name, email address, any phone number or link, your letter and your experience) in the same place, and use it only to consider you for the board.

If you subscribe to the newsletter, we keep your email address and the date you confirmed it, on this site and in the Foundation’s own email system. Every newsletter carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes you from future sends.

If you create an account, we keep your email address and the name you give us. Signing in is handled by Stytch, which holds your email address, a copy of your name and profile (including any phone number and address you add), and, if you choose one, your password; we never see the password. Your account is also recorded in our email system, but you are not added to any mailing list unless you confirm by email.

Anything you add to your profile (organization, title, phone, address, links, photo) is private to you and the Foundation. It is never shown on the public site. We keep your name, organization and contact details in our records, including our email system.

If you save an emergency preparedness plan to your account, we keep what you tick on its checklists, what you write down for its steps (such as your meeting places, where your gas shutoff is, and your household’s medications and medical needs) and what you type on its contact card. That can include other people’s names and phone numbers, such as your neighbors, your doctor and your emergency contacts, and details such as your insurance company and policy number. Your plan is kept in our database with your account. It is never shown on the public site or in the site’s admin screens, and it is never sent to our email system, to Stytch or to anyone else. You can clear any part of it on your plan page at any time, and when your account is deleted, your plan is deleted with it. If you use the preparedness guide’s checklists and contact card without signing in, what you tick and type stays in your browser on that device and is never sent to us.

If you ask to join a Blockwatch province, we keep what you send with your request: your name, street address, any phone number, how you’d like to be reached, your note and your message. Only that province’s Blockwatch volunteers and the Foundation see them. We check the address against the province map with Nominatim (below) and keep what the check found, so the volunteers can see it. Messages between you and the volunteers before you’re confirmed stay on this site, and their emails to you come from the Foundation’s address, signed by province, not by name.

Volunteers’ names and the contact details they choose to share are shown only to confirmed members of their province. Members don’t see each other. If you volunteer, confirmed members of the provinces you serve see your name, your position and what you put on your volunteer card.

If your request is declined or you withdraw it, or you leave a province or are removed from it, we clear the name, address, phone number, ways to reach you, note, message and messages you shared, and keep only the province, the dates, how you were confirmed and any note the volunteer made for the record. None of it is sent to our email system. When a volunteer confirms you, Stytch records the role “Blockwatch member” on your account, and it is removed when you no longer belong to any province; Stytch holds nothing else about Blockwatch. See or change all of it on your Blockwatch page.

If you volunteer on a grant-funded program, the board names you on that grant, and Stytch records the role “Grant volunteer” on your account until you are no longer named on any grant. What you record there (the expenses you paid, with their receipts, and your volunteer hours) is kept with the grant for the Foundation’s books and the funder’s reports. The board and the site’s administrators see it; other volunteers don’t. A photo of a receipt is stored without the location and other details your phone adds to it. None of it is shown on the public site or sent to our email system.

You can give online with or without an account. Either way, we keep your name, email address, the fund you chose, the amount, the date, the receipt number, how you paid (card, PayPal or Venmo) and the payment’s reference number, and email your receipt. Within the Foundation, only the administrators who run this site and the Foundation’s Treasurer can see gift records, on the site’s admin screens, and they may download them as a spreadsheet or a deposit sheet to keep the Foundation’s books. With an account, your receipts and a year-end statement for each year are also on your account page. A gift made without an account joins the account with the same email address only once that address is confirmed (opening a sign-in link we email to it confirms it), so nobody can see your gifts by making an account with your address. You type your card details into Square’s own form; they go straight to Square and never reach this website.

If you choose PayPal or Venmo, you sign in to PayPal, or to Venmo, which PayPal owns, in their own window or app. Your login, bank and card details stay with them and never reach this website. We receive only PayPal’s confirmation that the payment was made and whether it was paid by PayPal or by Venmo.

With a free account whose email address is confirmed, you can give by card every month or every year. When you tick the box to agree, Square keeps your card on file, with a customer record of your name, email address and a reference number for your account, so that each payment can be made. We keep the gift’s amount, fund and schedule, the card’s brand, last four digits and expiry date (never its number or security code), and the words you agreed to and when. Each payment is a gift like any other, with its own receipt. We email you about a month before each yearly gift, and whenever a payment is declined. Change or stop the gift at any time on your account page, or ask us to stop it for you; once it is stopped, we ask Square to remove your card.

You can also give monthly or yearly by PayPal. You approve the gift in PayPal’s own window, and PayPal keeps it as a subscription and takes each payment. We keep the subscription’s reference number, the amount, fund and schedule, and the words you agreed to, and each hour we ask PayPal for the payments it took and whether the gift is still running, so that every payment gets its receipt. Your PayPal login and how you pay inside PayPal stay with PayPal. Stop the gift on your account page or in your PayPal account; stopping it on our site stops it in PayPal too.

You decide which emails you get: the newsletter, and occasional special offers with invitations to events and the odd appeal. You choose when you create an account, and can change either at any time on your account page or from the link in any email we send.

When it is switched on, we use Plausible for visitor statistics. It sets no cookies and records no personal data. When the Foundation switches it off, the site sends no analytics at all.