Users of the Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative website and online tools will be submitting personal data. For this reason, we are committed to transparency about data use and to protecting the privacy of your personal information. Please read the following before using this site.

The Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative (“EPLI,” “lab,” “we,” “us,” “our”) is a research lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS). EPLI is committed to transparency about data use and to protecting the privacy of your personal information. 

Please note, we follow Stanford University’s Online Privacy Policy when using websites in the Stanford.EDU domain. This privacy policy covers all Stanford.EDU websites unless otherwise indicated. To access this policy please visit:  https://www.stanford.edu/site/privacy/ 

This Data Usage Statement is designed to let you know how we collect, use, and disclose information through the websites, mobile applications, and other online services and products (collectively, the “Services”) related specifically to EPLI online resources and tools. Also note, for any data we collect for research purposes, we follow procedures and guidelines of Stanford University’s Research Compliance Office (RCO) and their Institutional Review Board (IRB). Visit the RCO homepage for more information.

European Union General Data Protection Regulation

On May 25, 2018 the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced new rules and protections about how organizations use and process personal data about persons in the European Union.. You can read Stanford University’s policy on the rights of EU data subjects under the GDPR.

Information We Collect

Information you provide directly

You may provide information directly to us in a number of ways. For example:

• When you register for our Services, we may ask you for information such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, zip code, telephone number, and social media accounts. This site uses WordPress. 
• When you use our interactive online features for e-learning (forms, activities, or other Services). Interactive activities and data are handled by GravityForms. You can read their privacy, security and compliance documentation for more information.
• When you fill out forms and surveys, we collect data for research and evaluation purposes. Our forms are primarily handled by JotForm. You can read their security documentation for more information. 
• When you contact us for assistance with our Services, we receive the information you provide in that correspondence and any other information that you send to us.

Information we receive automatically when you use our Services

We may also automatically receive certain information about your device when you use our Services. For example, we may receive:

• Information about your interactions with our Services, such as the content you view, information collected by Google Analytics, and information in other cookies and similar technologies.
• Information about how you access our Services, including information about the type of device you’re using, your browser or operating system, the language in which you asked to view our Service, the referring website through which you accessed our Services, links that you click while using our Services, your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, location information, and certain device identifiers that may be unique to your device.

Use of Information

We may use information that we collect through our Services for a variety of purposes supporting our mission, including to:

• Provide you with the products, promotions, Services, newsletters, and information you request and respond to correspondence that we receive from you. We may also provide you with information about how to use our third-party partner products or services.
• Contact you with surveys, legal notices, and other information that may be relevant to your use of the Services, such as account status, renewal, or any problems with your account.
• Customize and personalize your use of our Services, including the use of cookies to remember your login information and interface preferences.
• Inform you about important public policy issues that relate to our mission or that might affect our Services.

Sharing of Information

We are committed to maintaining your trust, and we want you to understand when and with whom we may share the information we collect.

• Service Providers. We may share your information with service providers that perform certain functions or services on our behalf, such as Google Analytics, WordPress, Gravity Forms, Jotform, and LearnDashLMS.

Other Parties When Required By Law or as Necessary to Protect the Services. We may disclose your information to third parties in order to:

• Protect the legal rights, safety, and security of The Lab and the users of our Services;
• Enforce the terms of use of our Services;
• Prevent fraud (or for risk management purposes);
• Comply with or respond to law enforcement or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government or other entity, whether or not legally required. If The Lab intends to disclose a member’s information to law enforcement or in response to a legal process, we will make reasonable efforts to promptly notify the member—and, if the member is under 18, the member’s parent or legal guardian—unless directed not to by a court of law. In Connection With a Transfer of Assets. If we sell all or part of our business, or make a sale or transfer of assets, or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction.
• De-identified and Aggregate Information. We may share de-identified or aggregate data with any entity, including for research and analysis purposes. De-identified data is data that is not linked or reasonably linkable to a particular person or device. Aggregate data is data we collect that has been combined with information from others so that the recipient of the data is not able to identify any particular person or device from the data. However, we will never share personally identifiable information with third party commercial entities for direct marketing purposes, unless you give us permission.
• Other Parties With Your Consent. We may share information about you with third parties when you consent to such sharing.

Data Security

Protection of our users’ information is important to us, so we maintain security safeguards to help protect against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of the information you provide to us. However, please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your information and privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your information.

Children’s Privacy

The privacy and protection of children is of great importance to us. We will not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under the age of 18 without obtaining consent from a parent or legal guardian, except as otherwise permitted by law.

Social Networking and Third Party Sites

Social Networking Services

We have worked with certain third-party social media providers to offer you their social networking services through our Services. For example, you can use third-party social networking services, including but not limited to Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter, to share information about your experience on our Services with your friends and followers on those social networking services. The third-party social networking services may be able to collect information about you, including your activity on our Services. The third-party social networking services also may notify your friends, both on our Services and on the social networking services themselves, that you are a user of our Services or about your use of our Services, in accordance with applicable law and their own privacy policies.

If you choose to access or make use of third-party social networking services, we may receive information about you that you have made available to those social networking services, including information about your contacts on those social networking services.

Links to Third Party Sites and Services

Our Services may contain links to other websites or online services that are operated and maintained by third parties and that are not under our control or maintained by us. Such links do not constitute an endorsement by us of those other websites, the content displayed therein, or the persons or entities associated therewith. Our policies do not apply to this third-party content. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of these third-party websites or services.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

How long we retain your data

Form inputs are retained indefinitely. 

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

We do not sell data about visitors under any circumstances. Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

Contact information and communications preferences submitted through contact forms or signup forms on this site may be shared with the third-party vendors we use to manage newsletters, event registrations, and other communications activities.

If you would like to unsubscribe from our email communications at any time, you may do so in the footer of any of our emails. If you would like us to delete your information entirely, please contact us at contact-epli@stanford.edu.

Updates and Communications

Communications Preferences

You may choose to receive promotional e-mails, newsletters, and similar communications from us. You may opt out of receiving these e-mails from us by clicking on the opt-out or “unsubscribe” link included in the e-mails you receive. Please note that opt-out requests may take up to 10 business days to be effective. Your opt-out request will not apply to messages that you request or that are not promotional in nature. For example, we may contact you concerning your account or any purchases or donations you have made with us, even if you opt out of receiving unsolicited promotional e-mail messages.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about privacy or about any other aspect of operation of the Services, please contact us at:

Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative
Stanford PACS
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305 Palo Alto, CA 94305

Attn: Privacy
contact-epli@stanford.edu

Last updated: Dec 8, 2021