OPERATION GRATITUDE PRIVACY POLICY

Last Updated: May 30, 2023

Operation Gratitude Inc. (“Operation Gratitude,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy.  This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information is collected, used, and disclosed by Operation Gratitude.  This Privacy Policy applies to our website, https://www.operationgratitude.com/ (our “Site”), and your use of the Service in connection with the Site (collectively, our “Service”).

By accessing or using our Service, you signify that you have read, understood, and agree to our collection, storage, use, and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.

1. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE?

Personal Information:  When we use the term “personal information,” we mean any information that can be used to identify you, directly or indirectly, as an individual person.

We collect personal information in connection with your visits to and use of the Service. This collection includes information that volunteers, donors and beneficiaries provide in connection with the Service, information from third parties, and information that is collected automatically, such as through the use of cookies and other technologies. For further information on your choices regarding your information, see the “Control Over Your Information” section below.

             A. Information You Provide to Us Directly

We collect and use personal information you provide in the following ways:

• Volunteer, Donor and Beneficiary Information. We may collect information about volunteers and donors, such as your name, email address, telephone number, payment information (if you make a donation), address, and information about intended care package recipients/beneficiaries (if you request a care package to be sent), when you sign up to volunteer or participate in one of our activities or campaigns, make a donation, request a care package for a beneficiary, attend one of our events, or otherwise interact with us. We may also collect information through your participation in our volunteer programs, such as letters you may write as part of a campaign, or photos of you at one of our events. We may also collect any communications between you and us, as well as any other information you provide to us.

• Information Collected Through the Use of the Website, Social Media, or Other User Platforms. You may upload, or transmit videos, images, data, or information through your communications with us or other users of the service (collectively, “User Content”). User Content and any information contained in the User Content, including personal information you may have included, is stored and collected as part of the Service. We use the User Content to operate, improve, personalize, and optimize the Service, and to manage and deliver advertising. Where required by law, we will seek your consent for this.
• Inquiries. If you communicate with us through any form both online and offline, we may collect your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, or any other personal information you choose to provide to us. We use this information to investigate and respond to your inquiries, and to communicate with you, to enhance the services we offer to our users and to manage and grow our organization
• Marketing Communications.  If you register for our newsletters or updates, we will communicate with you by email. To unsubscribe from promotional messages, please follow the instructions within our messages and review the “Control Over Your Information” section below.

            B. Information We Collect Automatically through Use of the Service

We use various technologies to automatically collect certain personal information about the device or browser you use to navigate our Service, including:

• Web Logs. Our web servers keep log files that record data every time a device accesses those servers.  As such, when you access this Website, we will automatically collect information such as your browser type and version, device and connection information, the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet, and standard web log information.

• Location Information.  We may collect general geographic location based on your IP address or more precise geolocation with your permission when accessing our online services through a mobile device.

• Cookies and Pixel Tags. We, and our third-party partners, automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit our Service, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us.  We typically collect this information through a variety of tracking technologies, including cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, file information, and similar technology (collectively, “tracking technologies”).  For example, we collect information about your device and its software, such as your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, platform type, device type, operating system, date and time stamp, a unique ID (that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, mobile device, or your account), and other such information.  We also collect information about the way you use our Service, for example, the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave our website, the pages you visit, the links you click, how frequently you access the Service, whether you open emails or click the links contained in emails, and other actions you take on the Service.   Most internet browsers allow you to remove or manage cookie functions and adjust your privacy and security preferences.  For information on how to do this, access the “help” menu on your internet browser, or access http://www.aboutcookies.org/how-to-control-cookies.  Please note, however, that disabling our cookies may mean that you will not be able to take full advantage of the Service.

• Mobile Device Identifiers. When you access our Service from a mobile device, we may collect unique identification numbers associated with your device (including, for example, a UDID, Unique ID for Advertisers (“IDFA”), or Google AdID), mobile carrier, device type, model and manufacturer, mobile device operating system brand and model, phone number, and, depending on your mobile device settings, your geographical location data (with your permission), including GPS coordinates (e.g., latitude and/or longitude) or similar information regarding the location of your mobile device, or we may be able to approximate a device’s location by analyzing other information, like an IP address.

We use or may use the data collected through these technologies to:  (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the site; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information, including targeted content and advertising (see “Third Party Tracking and Online Advertising” below); (c) recognize and contact you across multiple devices; (d) provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Service; (e) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our Service; (f) diagnose or fix technology problems; and (g) otherwise to plan for and enhance our Service.

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies.  Please note that doing so may negatively impact your experience using the Service, as some features and services on our Service may not work properly. Depending on your mobile device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all cookies.  You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.

We and our third-party partners may also use cookies and tracking technologies for advertising purposes.  For more information about tracking technologies, please see “Third Party Tracking and Online Advertising” below.

                 C. Information From Third Party Sources

We may receive personal information about you from third parties and combine this information with other information we have.

• Beneficiary Information. If you are the intended recipient/beneficiary of a care package, letter, or other volunteer service, the individual making the request on your behalf (“Requestor”) may provide us with certain information about you, including your name, contact information, and details about your position in the military or as a first responder. We use this information to facilitate your receipt of the service. In some instances, the Requestor may provide us with a photo of you.

• Information from Other Sources. We may obtain information from other sources, including through our partners, third-party information providers or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. We may combine this information with other information we collect from or about you. In these cases, our Privacy Policy governs the handling of the combined personal information. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Service, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages about products and services that may be of interest to you.   We may also collect information about you that is publicly available.

• Information We Receive from Third-Party Sites You Connect to Our Service.  We may receive personal information about you from third parties and combine that with information we collect through our Service. For example, when you interact with us through a social media site or third-party service, such as when you like, follow, or share Operation Gratitude content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other sites, we may receive information from the social network, including your profile information, picture, user ID associated with your social media account, and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties.  The data we receive from these third-party sites is dependent upon that third party’s policies and your privacy settings on that third-party site.  You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to our Service.

2. HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use the information we collect for purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed to you on our Service or in connection with our Service. For example, we use your information to:

• Send you transactional information, including confirmations, updates, support and administrative messages, and information about your transaction with us;
• Communicate with you such as to respond to your comments and questions, or respond to employment opportunities for which you’ve applied, or for any other purposes in connection with the Service;
• Provide you with news about our organization, donation opportunities, and volunteer efforts;
• Operate, maintain, test, enhance, update, monitor, diagnose, fix and improve our Service;
• Prevent, investigate or provide notice of fraud or unlawful or criminal activity, unauthorized access to or use of personal information, our data system services, and to meet governmental and institutional policy obligations;
• Enforce and carry out contracts and agreements with our partners;
• Investigate and resolve disputes and security issues.
• Comply with legal obligations; and
• For any other lawful, legitimate business purpose.

3. SHARING OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may share your personal information in the instances described below.  For further information on your choices regarding your information, see the “Control Over Your Information” section below.

We may share your personal information with:

• Donors. We may share personal information about volunteers and/or beneficiaries of our charitable programming (to include care package recipients) with our donors. For example, we may share content you provide us, such as testimonials or photographs, with our donors so they can feature this content on their websites and use it for their own promotional purposes.

• Service Providers.  We may share personal information with third-party service providers that perform services on our behalf, as needed to carry out their work for us, which may include identifying and serving targeted advertisements, providing mailing services, providing tax and accounting services, web hosting, or providing analytic services.
• Payment Processors.  If you make a donation, you provide your information directly to our payment processors through our Service. The processors are lawfully permitted to process your information for their own business purposes and legal requirements.  We currently us Stripe and Classy for payment processing.  Please review their privacy policy if you have any questions about how it processes your personal information https://stripe.com/privacy and https://www.classy.org/terms/privacy/ .

• Change of Control or Other Transaction. We may transfer any information we collect in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our organization or any portion or combination of our products, services, and/or assets. Should such a transaction occur (whether a merger, consolidation, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, liquidation, or similar transaction or proceeding), we will use reasonable efforts to ensure that any transferred information is treated in a manner consistent with this Privacy Notice.

• Regulatory or Legal Requirements, Safety and Terms Enforcement.   We may disclose personal information to third parties as required by law or subpoena or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement; (b) to protect the security or integrity of our Service; and/or (c) to exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Operation Gratitude, our visitors, or others.  We may also disclose personal information to governmental regulatory authorities as required by law, including for tax or accounting purposes, in response to their requests for such information or to assist in investigations.

• Public Reports. We may publish Operation Gratitude donor names and giving levels in our publicly available reports.

• Consent. We may disclose personal information about you to certain other third parties with your consent, including when a donor or volunteer grants permission to use selective information for purposes of a testimonial.

We may also share information with others in an aggregated, de-identified or otherwise anonymized form that does not reasonably identify you directly as an individual.

4. THIRD-PARTY TRACKING AND ONLINE ADVERTISING

We participate in interest-based advertising and use third-party advertising companies to serve you targeted advertisements based on your online browsing history and your interests. We permit third-party online advertising networks, social media companies, and other third-party services to collect information about your use of our Service over time so that they may play or display ads on our Service, on other websites, apps, or services you may use, and on other devices you may use. Typically, though not always, the information used for interest-based advertising is collected through cookies or similar tracking technologies. We may share a common account identifier (such as an e-mail address or user ID) or hashed data with our third-party advertising partners to help identify you across devices. We and our third-party partners use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research.

To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt out of some of this advertising, you may wish to visit the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) resources and/or the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”)’s online resources, at http://www.aboutads.info/choices or http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices, and you can opt out of receiving some interest-based advertisements on mobile apps by visiting http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices.  You may also be able to limit interest-based advertising through the settings menu on your mobile device by turning off “personalized ads” (iOS) or selecting “opt-out of interest-based ads” (Android).  You may also be able to opt out of some – but not all – interest-based advertising served by mobile ad networks by visiting http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.

Please note that some advertising opt-outs may not be effective unless your browser is set to accept cookies. Furthermore, if you use a different device, change browsers, or delete the opt-out cookies, you may need to perform the opt-out task again.

Google Analytics and Advertising. We use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our site or Service on your browser, log in to your account on our Service, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed e-mail address, with Google to facilitate the service. Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Service and to tailor our advertisements and content to you. For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s site “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You can learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad-On here https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features through Google Analytics, such as Remarketing with Google Analytics, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, the DoubleClick Campaign Manager Integration, and Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting. These features enable us to use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick advertising cookie) or other third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the Service. You may control your advertising preferences or opt out of certain Google advertising products by visiting the Google Ads Preferences Manager, currently available at https://google.com/ads/preferences, or by visiting NAI’s online resources at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

5. CONTROL OVER YOUR INFORMATION

How to Control Your Email Communications Preferences.  You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe link” provided in such communications.  We make every effort to promptly process all unsubscribe requests.  You may not opt out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Service, technical and security notices).

Modifying or Deleting Your Information.  If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting your information, or if you want to remove your name or comments from our Service or publicly displayed content,  you can contact us directly at info@operationgratitude.com.  We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances.

      6.HOW WE SECURE DATA

We use a variety of security measures to protect your data. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to help prevent unauthorized access to data. We protect the security of credit card transactions using several measures such as encryption and tokenization. These measures make it extremely difficult for anyone to intercept the credit card information you send to us. When we work with other companies to process credit card transactions, those companies also use appropriate security measures.

     7.CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Operation Gratitude does not knowingly collect or solicit any information from anyone under the age of 13 on this Service.  In the event that we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.  If you believe that we might have any information from a child under 13, please contact us at info@operationgratitude.com.

      8.LINKS TO OTHER WEB SITES AND SERVICES

The Service may contain links to and from third-party websites of our business partners, advertisers, and social media sites and our users may post links to third-party websites.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies.  We strongly recommend that you read their privacy policies and terms and conditions of use to understand how they collect, use, and share information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content on the websites of third-party sites.

      9.HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the Service, please contact us at info@operationgratitude.com.

To Unsubscribe/Opt-Out
To unsubscribe from Operation Gratitude phone calls, e-mails, texts, or mail, or to let us know how you would like us to contact you, please send an e-mail to the following address: Donor Unsubscribe info@operationgratitude.com Contact Us About Privacy or to update contact information.    

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY           

We may modify or update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect the changes in our business and practices, so you should review this page periodically.  When we change the policy in a material manner, we will let you know and update the last updated date at the top of this page.  Continuing to use our Service after we publish changes to this Privacy Policy means that you are consenting to the changes.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, you may send us an email at info@operationgratitude.com or write to:

Operation Gratitude
19748 Dearborn Street
Chatsworth, CA 91311
Attention: Donor Relations