We are committed to protecting your privacy at Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (“SV2,” “us,” or “we”). This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) applies to your use of the www.sv2.org and my.sv2 websites (the “Websites”), which are owned and operated by us. This Privacy Policy describes how and why we obtain, store and process data which can identify you. We do not sell, share or rent this information to others in any way that we have not mentioned in this statement. We may update this policy from time to time and will indicate on the Websites when changes have been made. Changes are effective at the earlier of (i) your use of the Websites after such revisions have been posted and (ii) fourteen days after such revisions have been posted. If you do not agree with any changes to the Privacy Policy, you must cease using the Websites.
1. The Information We Collect.
A. Personal Information vs. Non-Personal Information. Our primary goal in collecting information from you is to provide you with an efficient and helpful experience while using the Websites. In order to do so, the Websites collect two types of information about you, Personal Information and Non-Personal Information. “Personal Information” refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are and can be used to identify, contact or locate you. We may collect and use Personal Information to verify your identity when you are making one-time or recurring donations (“Donations”), communicating with us or other members of the SV2 community through the Websites or, if you are a Partner (as defined in our Terms of Use found here), making your annual contributions (“Contributions”) through the sv2.org Website. “Non-Personal Information” refers to information that does not by itself identify you. Examples of Non-Personal Information we may collect include demographic information and which web pages of ours are most often visited. We will explain how Personal and Non-Personal Information is collected below.
B. Information you provide to us. We collect Personal Information and Non-Personal Information directly from you as follows:
(a) For visitors who email us directly via an email hyperlink or the “Get Involved” page on sv2.org. If you email us via a hyperlink or fill out a form as a prospective grantee, impact investee, collaborator or donor, we collect your first and last name, email address and any content included in the email or body of the form.
(b) For visitors making Donations and existing Partners making Contributions on sv2.org. If you make a Donation or Contribution (if you are a Partner) to SV2 online, we will collect and maintain your name, email address, billing address, Donation or Contribution amount and IP address. We accept online Donations and Contributions through PayPal and Stripe. By making your Donation or Contribution through PayPal, you accept PayPal’s User Terms, found here. By making your Donation or Contribution directly through the Website, you are using Stripe, and you accept Stripe’s Services Agreement, found here. You may let us know that you will be making an offline Donation by filling in your name and email address under the “Offline Donation” option.
(c) For Partner applications. If you wish to be a Partner of SV2, you must fill out the application available on the sv2.org Website under the “Apply Now” tab. The application will request your name, telephone number, address, email address, company name, professional title, preferred method of Contributions and other biographical information. Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required, the other fields are optional. The application will also collect the IP address.
(d) Information provided on my.sv2. If we have invited you to create a my.sv2 account, we will collect all of the login and biographical information that you provide in connection with your Profile (as defined in our Terms of Use), as well as any content that you upload to the Website. We reserve the right, but not the obligation, to monitor any communications that take place through the my.sv2 Website.
C. Information collected through technology. We collect information from visitors to the Websites regarding the referring URL, their IP address, which browser they used to come to the Websites, the country, state and telephone area code where their server is located, and the pages of the Websites that they viewed during their visit. Some of this information is gathered through the following technologies:
(a) Cookies. A “cookie” is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyze web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. Cookies are commonly utilized by most Internet users. We use traffic log cookies to help us provide you with a better Website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. Our cookies do not generally contain personally identifying information. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the Websites.
(b) IP Address. You can visit many areas of the sv2.org Website anonymously without the need to become a registered user. Even in such cases, we may collect IP addresses automatically. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you begin service with an Internet Service Provider. Each time you access the Website and each time you request one of our pages, our server logs your IP address. Standing alone, your IP address is not necessarily personally identifiable.
(c) Web Beacons. SV2 may use a variety of other technical methods for tracking purposes, including Web beacons. Web beacons are small pieces of data that are embedded in web pages and emails. We may use these technical methods in HTML emails that we send our users to determine whether they have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails. The information from use of these technical methods may be collected in a form that is personally identifiable.
D. Children and our parental consent policy. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act imposes certain requirements on websites directed toward children under 13 that collect information on those children, or on websites that know they are collecting Personal Information from children under the age of 13. We want to let you know that it currently is our policy not to collect Personal Information from any person under 13 because children are not permitted to use the Websites or services on the Websites, and we request that children under the age of 13 not submit any Personal Information to us via the Websites. If we learn that we have inadvertently gathered Personal Information from children under 13, we will attempt to notify such child’s parent or guardian and erase such information from our records, unless the child’s parent or guardian consents to our maintaining such information.
2. Use of Personal Information and Non-Personal Information.
A. How we use it. We use Personal Information and Non-Personal Information to process your Donations and Contributions, to administer the Websites and services therein, to communicate with you about your Contributions, Donations, or other requests, to enable you to use the my.sv2 Website’s community features, and to send you informational and promotional materials. In addition, we may use Personal Information and Non-Personal Information to learn more about our community so we can improve our Websites, our community outreach, our funding campaigns, and our events and programs. Specific examples of how we may use your information are as follows:
(a) System Administration. We use your IP Address for system and Website administration, to assist in diagnosing problems with our server, to monitor our system performance and the level of activity on the Websites in general. We also use IP Addresses for information about specific portions of our Websites and how the traffic on our Websites is apportioned and from where it may come, and to gather broad demographic information about our Website visitors. Our goal is to make it easier and more convenient for you to navigate and use the Websites, and make our Websites more useful and better targeted for you and our community in general.
(b) Personalization. We use cookies and IP Addresses to provide features such as personalization. We may also use cookies to assist us in delivering content specific to your interests, such as informing you of certain third party offerings or events.
(c) Notices to Recipients Regarding Donations, Contributions or other Requests. If you have made a Contribution or Donation via the sv2.org Website, we may use your Personal Information to send one or more emails regarding your Contribution or Donation or for customer service issues. We may also telephone you regarding the payment or processing of your Contributions or Donations.
(d) Newsletters & Promotional Emails; Opt-Out Option: We may use your Personal Information to send you newsletters and emails with information about our organization, our current activities, upcoming events or other features available on our Websites. However, you have the choice to opt-out of receiving such newsletters and promotional emails by sending an email to us at info@sv2.org and/or following the instructions at the bottom of our promotional email. Once we have processed your request, we will not send you promotional emails unless you opt back in to receiving such communications directly.
(e) Contact Information: If you contact us by telephone, email or letter, we may keep a record of your contact information, correspondence or comments. If you report a problem with the one of our Websites, we may collect this information in a file specific to you. In addition, if you provide us feedback through the Websites, by email or by calling us, we may ask for your name and email address in order to send you a reply.
B. Who we disclose it to.
(a) General Rule. Except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, we do not sell, trade or rent your Personal Information collected on the Website to others. We will, however, disclose your Personal Information to our third party service providers, including without limitation, Socious, our online community software provider, for the sole purpose of administering the my.sv2 Website. Other users of the my.sv2 Website may access the Personal Information on your my.sv2 Profile, including your contact information, unless you specify otherwise. We may also disclose your Personal information to companies we retain as consultants to conduct research on our behalf, but only if you give us permission to do so. These third parties may not use your Personal Information other than to provide the services requested by us. With respect to Non-Personal Information, we also share website usage information we gather from visitors to the Websites who have received a targeted promotional campaign with our third-party advertising service partners for the purpose of targeting future campaigns and upgrading visitor information used in reporting statistics. For this purpose, we and our third-party service partners may note some of the pages you visit on the Websites through the use of web beacons. In addition, we may provide aggregated statistics about our visitors, Donations, Contributions, traffic patterns, and related Website information to third parties. We reserve the right to use or disclose Non-Personal Information in any manner.
(b) Enforcement of Law and/or Terms of Use. From time to time, we may be required by law enforcement or judicial authorities to provide Personal Information to the appropriate governmental authorities. We will disclose Personal Information upon receipt of a court order or subpoena or to cooperate with a law enforcement investigation. We fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who use our services for illegal activities. We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we in good faith believe to be unlawful. Moreover, we may release account information and Personal Information when we believe that such release is reasonably necessary to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions of Use or to protect the rights, property and safety of our users, others and ourselves.
(c) Change in Control. We will transfer your Personal Information if SV2 is acquired by or merged with another organization. In such event, SV2 will use reasonable efforts to notify you (either by posting notices on the Websites or by email to you at the last known email address) before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy, provided however, in the event SV2 fails to notify you, your Personal Information will still be transferred but subject to this Privacy Policy.
3. Security.
A. Our security measures. Keeping information about you secure is very important to us and certain sections of the Websites may encrypt data using SSL or a comparable standard. However, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure. We strive to protect your Personal Information, but we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information which you send to us, and you do so at your risk. We use reasonable precautions to keep the Personal Information you disclose and to only release this information to third parties we believe share our commitment to privacy, including without limitation our payment processing partners, PayPal and Stripe and our online community software provider, Socious. However, we are not responsible for any breach of security or for the actions of these parties. Other forms of payment to SV2, such as wire transfers, Donor Advised Funds and stock transfers are done outside of the Websites.
B. Protecting yourself. You are solely responsible for safeguarding and maintaining the secrecy of your username and password (together, your “Login Credentials”) and/or any account information in your possession or control. Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online. The Websites contain links to third parties who may collect information directly from you. Each of the websites linked from the Websites have separate privacy policies and data collection practices, independent of SV2. SV2 has no responsibility or liability for these independent policies or actions and is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites, nor does SV2 make any warranties or representations about the contents, products or services offered on such websites or the security of any information you provide to them. You can learn more about Internet privacy from government websites such as www.ftc.gov/privacy/. In addition, it is important to keep us updated with your most current contact information. You may ask us in writing via mail or email to have the information on your account deleted, updated or corrected; however, because we keep track of past Donations and Contributions, you cannot delete information associated with past Donations and Contributions. Note that we may retain changed or deleted information for archival or other purposes.
4. Questions?
If you wish to change the information you have given us, or have any questions about our Privacy Policy, you can contact us at info@sv2.org. Please note “Privacy Policy” in the subject line of your email.
Last updated on September 28, 2017.