AdoptAClassroom.org, Inc. Privacy Policy
LAST UPDATED ON NOVEMBER 8, 2023
At AdoptAClassroom.org, we value the privacy of our users.
Our revised Privacy Notice, aims to clarify how we collect, maintain, and use your personal information on www.adoptaclassroom.org (the “Site”). This Privacy Notice explains our online information practices and your choices about how we collect and use your information on the Site. The terms of this Privacy Notice are subject to the Site’s Terms of Use Agreement, available at: https://www.adoptaclassroom.org/terms-of-use/
This Privacy Notice is subject to periodic changes and updates. These changes are effective upon posting to the Site. Please check this Privacy Notice periodically for updates. Your continued use of the Site constitutes your acceptance of the terms of this Privacy Notice, as amended from time to time. This Privacy Notice applies only to the practices of AdoptAClassroom.org and not any third parties. In cases where the Site directs you to the website of any third party, this Privacy Notice does not govern the privacy practices of such third parties and we ask that you refer to their respective privacy policies for details on their use of your information.
About AdoptAClassroom.org
We are a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. We are dedicated to improving educational opportunities in the United States by engaging citizens who wish to help teachers and schools purchase supplies for their classrooms.
The Information We Collect
The amount, type, and use of the information we collect from you depends upon how you use the Site. As a user of the Site, you fall into one of the following two categories, Donors and Educators:
Donors—You are a U.S. citizen at least 18 years of age (according to our Terms of Use) who has made a donation through the Site, set up a non-educator account on the Site, or subscribed to receive email updates through the Site.
Educators—You are currently employed as a licensed teacher, school administrator or other certified employee in a school accepted by our Terms of Use.
Below, we have listed the ways in which your personal information is used depending upon whether you are a Donor or Educator:
Donors
| The personal information you provide | How that personal information is used |
| Your name, mailing address, email address, and phone number. | We use this information (if you provide it to us) to effect the purpose for which you have submitted it to us, and to correspond with you regarding your use of the Site, which may include sending you confirmation emails, receipts, acknowledgement messages, impact reports, updates on your donation, newsletters, and thank-you notes. You may opt out of receiving emails from us by unsubscribing. You may opt out of receiving mail from us by indicating on your account with the Site that you would not like to receive correspondence through the mail. |
| Payment information | We use third-party payment providers including Authorize.net, Classy Pay, Stripe, and PayPal to process payment information (including credit card information and billing zip code) that you provide through the Site. Accordingly, no payment information that you submit through the Sites are processed or stored on our servers. |
Educators
| The personal information you provide | How that personal information is used |
| Your name, email address, and phone number. | We use this information (if you provide it to us) to effect the purpose for which you submitted it to us, and to correspond with you regarding your use of the Site, which may include sending you confirmation emails, updates relating to funds that have been donated to you, newsletters, notifications, reminders, and acknowledgment messages. When we are not able to reach you via email, we may use your phone number to contact you about actions required to continue receiving donated funds. |
| School name, school address, and grade level | We use this information (if you provide it to us) to identify the classroom that will benefit from donated funds, and to ship products that you order to your school. Once you submit your school’s address, you may not change it—only AAC staff has the ability to change this information. |
| Subject area(s) that you teach, a general description of your classroom, and a general description of how you would use funds that you may receive. | We use this information (if you provide it to us) to assess the merits of an application you may submit for an allocation of spotlight funds, including whether we shall disburse funds to you. We have full discretion to determine whether we shall grant a spotlight fund application for funds. |
| Photographs of your classroom/students or thank you notes from your students | We use this information (if you provide it to us) for display on the Site and in our marketing, promotional, and program materials. You agree that if you provide thank-you notes from your students that they shall not contain any of the personal information that will identify the student. You also agree, represent, and warrant that, by submitting any photograph to us that depicts your students or students at your school, that you (1) have obtained verifiable written permission from each student’s parent/legal guardian; (2) such permission grants us the right to use the photograph in accordance with our Terms; and (3) submitting the photograph(s) to us complies with that permission, school regulations, school district policies, and any other applicable laws, rules, or regulations. |
How we protect your personal information
Your privacy is important to us, and we use technical safeguards designed to preserve the security of your personal information and protect it from unauthorized use or disclosure. We understand, however that no system is perfect, and we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any or all of the personal information you transmit through the Site.
Our employees, volunteers, interns and contractors (“agents”) must have a legitimate business reason (i.e., related to furthering our mission or related to achieving the purpose for which you have provided your information) to access the information you provide. We take steps to limit the amount of access to the minimum level needed to achieve each agent’s purpose.
Security
We combine technical and physical safeguards with policies and procedures to help protect your information. We work to protect your information during transmission, and for certain transactions we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts the information that you provide on our Site. We will use commercially reasonable efforts and reasonably available technologies to protect your information.
How we share, publish, and transfer your personal information
Regardless of whether you are an Educator or Donor, if you fill out forms made available through the Site or otherwise submit personal information to us, unless you expressly request otherwise, you agree that we may collect and use your personal information to notify our beneficiaries and business partners with respect to your needs, suggestions, requests, or other communications.
We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to or with others, or send mailings on behalf of any other organizations, without your explicit consent. We may use your personal information for purposes that include maintaining the Site, fulfilling an order or application you have submitted, processing or effecting donations, surveys, promotion, and other functionalities or services provided or offered through the Site. With respect to our mailing list, we will generally maintain control of that list or contract with an email list management company to provide you with announcements or information from us or our strategic partners/sponsors in our email or offline newsletters to you. Where we disclose your personal information to organizations that perform services on our behalf, we will require those organizations to use such information solely for the purposes of providing services to us and our business partners and will require that they protect your personal information with appropriate safeguards.
Business transfers
As we continue to develop our business, we may buy or sell some of our business units. In these transactions, your personal information may be transferred, but it shall remain subject to the promises made in this Privacy Notice, unless you consent otherwise. In the event AdoptAClassroom.org sells or transfers substantially all of its assets, or in the event of a change in control, merger, consolidation, or organizational restructuring, you hereby authorize us to transfer your personal information subject to the terms of this Privacy Notice, as it is amended from time to time.
When we may share or disclose your personal information
We may disclose your personal information without your consent in certain circumstances, including but not limited to:
- Effecting the purpose for which you have submitted your personal information;
- When we are required by law, a court or administrative agency order, other government entity, or court rules regarding production of records;
- When we have reasonable grounds to believe that use or disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, property, or safety of any other person or organization;
- When we have reasonable grounds to believe that the information relates to a breach of agreement or online policy, or violation of law has been, is being, or is about to be committed;
- When it is necessary for fraud protection, risk reduction, or the establishment or collection of funds owed to us;
- When it is necessary to enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements, to pursue remedies, or to limit damages to AdoptAClassroom.org;
- If the information is reasonably determined by us to be non-personally identifying information or is otherwise public; or
- For other reasons not restricted or otherwise required by laws, rules, regulation, or order.
When we are either required or permitted to disclose information without your consent, we are still committed to not disclosing more information than is necessary to fulfill the purpose of such disclosure.
Non-personal information that we automatically collect during your visit to the Site; Demographic Information and Cookies
We collect non-personally identifiable information such as your IP address, the web address of the site that referred you and the site to which you exit, your computer’s operating system web browser (and plug ins), the time of your visit, whether you are a new user or not, the approximate geographic area from which you are logging in, and the areas and files that you visit. This information tells us something about the type of visitors we get and which areas of the site they find most interesting. We use the IP address so that we know where to send information you are requesting. An IP address is often associated with the place from which you enter the Internet such as your ISP (Internet service provider), or your company. This is all demographic information; none of this information is personally identifiable; we do not link this information to any data which identifies you, such as your name. We share this general demographic information with companies that help us understand how our site is working.
We keep this information indefinitely.
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user. Usage of a cookie is not linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. Once the user closes his browser, the cookie simply terminates. Cookies allow the user not to have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If a user rejects a cookie, the user may still use parts of our site. We do not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information from anyone.
You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being used, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. If you turn cookies off, you won’t have access to many features that make your experience with this web site more efficient and some of our services will not function properly.
Your IP address or domain name may be used to analyze this website’s traffic patterns and usage, and to help diagnose problems with the CLIENT NAME server, and to otherwise improve performance of the site. Website logs may be analyzed and reviewed, but are not sold to third parties.
We have the assistance of consultant parties who help us maintain our web site and the computers on which it operates. Those companies have access to the demographic data described above, and are bound by written confidentiality agreements.
Classy.org
We contract with a third party, Classy.org, to process donations that you make to a particular fund (e.g., STEM Fund). Whether you are a Donor or an Educator, you explicitly consent and agree that, when you donate to a particular fund and in so doing submit your personal information to us, we may share it with Classy.org for the purpose of processing and effecting your donation to the designated fund. Your personal information that we submit to Classy.org will continue to belong to us, and it will only be used by Classy.org to administer the purpose for which you submitted your personal information. Your personal information that we share with Classy.org will not be shared, rented, or sold to any third parties. You hereby agree that you have no privacy interest in any non-personal information that we may share with Classy.org. Should you independently submit your personal information to Classy.org, you understand that this Privacy Notice does not govern the privacy practices of Classy.org, and we ask that you refer to Classy.org’s respective privacy notice and terms of use for details on their use of your information.
Double the Donation
We contract with a third party, Double the Donation, also called 360MatchPro. Whether you are a Donor or an Educator, you explicitly consent and agree that, when you donate on the Site and in so doing submit your personal information to us, we may share it with 360MatchPro for the purpose of promoting matching gifts. Your personal information that is shared with 360MatchPro will not be shared, rented, or sold to any third parties.
How We Protect Children’s Privacy
As an organization that aims to further the education of students, we take safety and privacy of children seriously. We do not knowingly collect or solicit information from anyone under the age of 13.
As set forth in our Terms of Use, if you are an Educator that has provided any photograph depicting your students, you will NOT submit any photograph to us unless you have obtained verifiable written permission from each student’s parent/legal guardian; such permission grants us the right to use the photograph in accordance with these Terms; and submitting the photograph(s) to us complies with that permission, school regulations, school district policies, and any other applicable laws, rules, or regulations. Otherwise, we ask that you DO NOT SHARE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION (INCLUDING PHOTOGRAPHS) ABOUT ANY OTHER PERSONS WHO ARE UNDER AGE 13, SUCH AS STUDENTS.
In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13 without parental consent, we will delete that information as soon as practicable from our server. If you believe that we might have any information collected from a child under the age of 13, please contact us.
Your California Privacy Rights/Do Not Track Disclosures
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosures of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us.
Some web browsers may transmit “do-not-track” signals to the websites with which you are communicating. Because of differences in how web browsers incorporate and activate this feature, it is not always clear whether you intend for these signals to be transmitted, or whether you even are aware of them. Because there currently is no industry standard concerning what, if anything, websites should do when they receive such signals, we currently do not take action in response to these signals.
International Users
Please note that the services we offer on Site are directed towards users who live in the United States. By using the Site and/or its services, you affirm that you reside in the United States, and you consent to the collection, storage, processing, and transfer of your information in and to the United States, pursuant to the laws of the United States, and the State of Minnesota. We do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose information of European Union residents.
Your consent, how you can access and adjust your information, and retention
If you do not consent to our collection, use, or disclosure of your personal information, then do not share it with us. However, we are unable to offer some services without your personal information. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to reasonable notice and legal or contractual obligations. To withdraw your consent, simply notify us in writing of the information that you no longer wish for us to maintain (subject to aforementioned legal or contractual obligations).
You may correct your account information at any time by logging into your online account. You have the right to request access to the personal information that we record about you. You also have the right to request corrections, amendments and deletions of any of your personal information in our possession. To make these changes or cancel your account, please email us.
We keep your personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose for which we collected it. We continue to hold this information for a reasonable amount of time or as long as required by applicable laws, rules, or regulations. When we no longer require your personal information, we have procedures in place to destroy, delete, or erase it, or, at our election, convert it into an anonymous form.
How to contact AdoptAClassroom.org
We are always happy to hear from you with your questions or comments! For additional information, or if you have any questions regarding this Privacy Notice or our privacy practices in general, please send your questions or comments to us at [email protected]. You can also send questions or comments to the address below.
AdoptAClassroom.org, Inc.
10 S 5th St Ste 835
Minneapolis, MN 55402
Attn: Executive Director
Please provide details in your correspondence to enable us to respond and take appropriate action. It may take up to thirty (30) days to see changes or results.