LHI Privacy and Data Collection Policy
Last Updated November 5, 2024
Lifting Hands International (LHI) is an impact-focused 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing clear and meaningful ways for you, your family, and your community to help refugees at home and abroad. Our vision is to create a world where compassion transcends national, ethnic, religious, and political divides. Since 2016, our dynamic and passionate team has responded to the ongoing refugee crisis by meeting the most immediate and vital needs of thousands of refugee families. With minimal overhead and thousands of volunteers, we fill gaps and rapidly adapt to conditions on the ground in ways larger organizations often can’t.
LHI places a high priority on protecting your privacy. This privacy policy was created in order to demonstrate LHI’s firm commitment to the privacy of our supporters, volunteers, and website users. This policy explains what types of information we collect and how this information is used. This privacy policy takes into account the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which means if you are a resident of the EU and your data reflects that address, you may be entitled to certain additional protections in accordance with GDPR.
Our privacy policy is explained in full below, but the main points to understand are:
We will only ask you for information we really need.
We will be transparent, fair, and honest regarding any collection and use of the personal data you share with us.
We will respect your choices regarding the data that you share with us and the communication channels you ask us to use.
We will always put appropriate security measures in place to protect any personal data you share.
We will never sell your data.
Personal Data We Collect
Donors and volunteers to LHI and individuals that sign-up to receive our email communications voluntarily provide us with contact information (such as name, physical address, phone number, and email address). We may use this information for specific, limited purposes. You may always "opt out," either now or at any time in the future, if you do not wish to receive our communications. In addition to the personal information that you submit to us, we may collect personal information about you from reputable third parties.
Why We Collect Your Personal Data
The data we collect depends on the reason you are providing it. We may ask you for your name and contact details, including where required, physical address, telephone number, email address, and social media identity. However, we may request other information where it is appropriate and relevant, for example, if you are a supporter and making a donation, or we are processing a volunteer application that you have submitted. This additional information might include:
Details of why you have decided to contact us, or your bank or debit/credit card details
Details of campaigns you have supported or topics/areas of interest to you
Responses to surveys you have completed
Information about your computer and your visits to and use of this website including your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit, and number of page views
If you are a volunteer applicant, the information you are asked to provide is as set out in the application and necessary for the purposes of considering the application.
In limited cases, we may ask you for sensitive personal data. We only collect sensitive personal data with your explicit consent and if there is a clear reason for doing so. We will only keep that information for as long as necessary.
Ways We Use Your Information
LHI may use your personal information to:
process your donations
process orders you place
send communications to you via email that you have requested
request your feedback
carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us
provide you with personalized service
process a grant or volunteer application
conduct research into the impact of our campaigns
notify you of changes to our organization
notify you of changes to this privacy policy
We may also use your information to track visits to our website. This lets us see which of our features are the most popular so we can better serve our supporters’ needs. It also lets us provide aggregate data about our traffic (not identifying you personally, but showing how many visitors used which features, for example) to outside parties for the purpose of generating additional support for our mission.
Communications, Fundraising, and Marketing
If you have provided us with your physical address, we may contact you by mail. If you have provided us with your email address and appropriate consent, we may contact you by email with targeted communications to let you know about our events and activities, about the work of LHI, to ask for donations or other support, to provide donation receipts and tax statements, and to thank you for your support.
Donations and Third-Party Payments
We may pass your information to our third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors, and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations or send you email newsletters). These third parties have access to your personal information only to perform these specific tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
Children’s Data
We do not knowingly process data of any person under the age of 16. If we come to discover, or have reason to believe, that you are 15 and under and we are holding your personal information, we will delete that information within a reasonable period and withhold our services accordingly.
Web Browser Cookie Policy
Our website uses "cookie" messages to automatically help provide better services. They remind us who you are and your preferences for our website based on what you've done and told us before. The "cookie" is placed in your computer and is read when you come back to our website. Cookies let us take you to the information and features you're particularly interested in. They also let us track your usage of our website, so we know which parts of our site is most popular. You can reject cookies or cancel them by instructing your web browser accordingly. If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on LHI website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. During the course of any visit to a LHI website, the pages you see, along with a cookie, are downloaded to your device. It is important to note that if you change your settings and block certain cookies, you will not be able to take full advantage of some features of ourwebsite, and we might not be able to provide some features you have previously chosen to receive. You will also see embedded ‘share’ buttons on some pages on our website, which enable users to easily share content through social media. When you click on one of these buttons, a cookie may be sent by the service you have chosen to share content through. LHI does not control the dissemination of these cookies and is not responsible for them.
External Links
Our website includes links to external websites. These links do not fall under the www.liftinghandsinternational.org domain, and LHI is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of external websites. Your use of any linked website is solely at your own risk.
Other Disclosures of Your Data
We will disclose your personal information where required to do so by law, or if we believe that such action is necessary to comply with the law. Your information may be transferred to computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those for your jurisdiction. Your consent to this privacy policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
Security of and Access to Your Data
We make every effort to have reasonable security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of information under our control. Your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors. The security of your personal data is very important to us, however, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Aside from the methods outlined in this Privacy Policy, we will only share your data with your informed consent.
Your Rights and Explanation of Consent
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive communications from us about the vital work we do, you can “opt out” of our mailing list at any time. Where we rely on your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This includes the right to ask us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes or to be unsubscribed from our email list at any time. If you are a resident of the European Economic Area, you have the following data protection rights:
Right to be informed – you have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This Policy and other policies and statements used on our website and in our communications are intended to provide you with a clear and transparent description of how your personal information may be used.
Right of access – you can write to us to ask for confirmation of what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information. Provided we are satisfied that you are entitled to see the information requested and we have successfully confirmed your identity, we have 30 days to comply.
Right of erasure – you can ask us for your personal information to be deleted from our records. In many cases we would propose to suppress further communications with you, rather than delete it.
Right of rectification – if you believe our records of your personal information are inaccurate, you have the right to ask for those records to be updated.
Right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted if there is disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.
Right to data portability – to the extent required by the GDPR where we are processing your personal information (i) under your consent, (ii) because such processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contact or (iii) by automated means, you may ask us to provide it to you—or another service provider—in a machine-readable format. You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personally identifiable information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority. To exercise these rights, please send a description of the personal information in question to info@lhi.org. We will respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we reserve the right to keep any information in our archives that we deem necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.
How Long We Keep Your Personal Data
We retain your personal information only as long as needed to provide information to you and fulfill the purposes described in this privacy policy. Retention periods can vary significantly based on the type of information and how it is used. Our retention periods are based on criteria that include legally mandated retention periods, pending or potential litigation, our intellectual property or ownership rights, contract requirements, operational directives or needs, and historical archiving. When we no longer need to use your personal information and there is no need for us to keep it to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements, we’ll either remove it from our systems or depersonalize it is no longer tied to you personally. In the event that you ask us to stop sending you direct marketing/fundraising/other electronic communications, we will keep your name on our internal suppression list to ensure that you are not contacted again.
Updating Your Personal Data
You can check the personal data we hold about you, and ask us to update it where necessary, by emailing us at info@lhi.org.
Privacy Policy Amendments
We may amend this privacy policy from time to time, so please review it periodically. We maintain the option to modify this privacy policy at any time by electronic notice posted on our website. Your continued use of our website after the date that such notices are posted will be deemed to be your agreement to the changed terms.
Contact
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about the way in which your data is being processed by either emailing us at info@lhi.org or by writing to us at the following address:
Lifting Hands International
Attn: Data Protection
1167 W Brooklyn Ave
Salt Lake City, UT 84104
USA