Privacy Policy

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What’s New

  • We updated the section on how your data is kept private.
  • We updated various social media platforms.
  • We recently changed our Privacy Policy in order to better explain our practices in connection with the information that we collect through our website and online services.  Here are some important changes from our old policy:
  • We added a section that explains how we may collect, share and exchange information from our mailing lists with other organizations to improve the information we have about you and so that other non-profits can contact you regarding issues related to our mission, as well as how you can opt-out of such sharing.
  • We added a section describing how we may share information with our business partners who may send you promotional offers that may be of interest to you and that help us raise money to support our mission, as well as how you can opt-out of such sharing.
  • We described how we may use third-party marketing companies to promote our initiatives and programs that may be of interest to you based on your activities across our services and other websites over time.

LAST UPDATED:  May 9, 2022

The Wilderness Society Action Fund values you as a member and works diligently to safeguard your privacy. 

We want you to be familiar with how we collect, use and disclose information.  This Privacy Policy describes our practices in connection with information that we collect through our website, www.wildernessaction.org/ (the “Website”), through our social media pages that we control and from which you are accessing this Privacy Policy (our “Social Media Pages”), and through HTML-formatted email messages that we send to you that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, including the Website and our Social Media Pages, the “Services”).  By providing Personal Information to us, you agree to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

Personal Information

Personal Information We May Collect

“Personal Information” is information that identifies you as an individual or relates to an identifiable person, including:

  • Name
  • Postal address (including billing and shipping addresses) and latitude-longitude geolocation information associated with your postal address
  • Telephone number (mobile and/or landline)
  • Email address
  • Credit and debit card number

How We May Collect Personal Information

We and our service providers may collect Personal Information in a variety of ways, including: 

  • Through the Services:  We may collect Personal Information through the Services, e.g., when you sign up for a newsletter or make a donation.
  • From Other Sources:  We may receive your Personal Information from other sources, such as public databases; joint marketing partners; social media platforms; our list sharing partners in accordance with the “List Sharing” section below; from you offline, such as when you make a donation by mail or by phone, attend one of our events, or contact member services; as well as from other third parties.

How We May Use Personal Information

We may use Personal Information:

  • To respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests, such as to send you newsletters.
  • To send administrative information to you, for example, information regarding the Services and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. 
  • To complete and fulfill your donation or membership enrollment.  For example, to process your payments, deliver membership materials to you, communicate with you regarding your membership or donation and provide you with related member services.
  • To send you marketing communications about our initiatives and programs that we believe may be of interest to you.
  • To facilitate social sharing functionality.
  • For our internal purposes, such as data analysis, audits, fraud monitoring and prevention, enhancing, improving or modifying our Services, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and operating and expanding our activities. 
  • As we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

How Personal Information May Be Disclosed

Your Personal Information may be disclosed:

·       To our partners in conservation for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. 

·       To our third-party service providers who provide services such as website hosting, data analysis, information technology and related infrastructure provision, member service, email delivery, credit card processing, auditing and other similar services.

·       To identify you to anyone to whom you send messages through the Services.

·       By you, on message boards, profile pages, blogs and other services to which you are able to post information and materials (including, without limitation, our Social Media Pages).  Please note that any information you post or disclose through these services will become public information, and may be available to users of the Services and to the general public.  We urge you to be very careful when deciding to disclose your Personal Information, or any other information, on the Services.

·       To a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our organization, assets or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

·       As we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

Other Information We May Collect

“Other Information” is any information that does not reveal your specific identity or does not directly relate to an individual, such as:

  • Browser and device information
  • Information collected through cookies, pixel tags and other technologies
  • Demographic information, including date of birth, gender, and your affiliations with other organizations
  • Other information provided by you
  • Aggregated information

How We May Collect Other Information

We and our third-party service providers may collect Other Information in a variety of ways, including: 

·       Through your browser or device:  Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device, such as your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type (Windows or Macintosh), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, Internet browser type and version, and the name and version of the Services you are using.  We use this information to ensure that the Services function properly. 

·       Using cookies:  Cookies are pieces of information stored directly on the computer that you are using.  Cookies allow us and our service providers to collect information such as browser type, time spent on the Services, pages visited, language preferences, and other anonymous traffic data.  We and our service providers use the information for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, display information more effectively, and to personalize your experience while using the Services.  We can recognize your computer to assist your use of the Services.  We also gather statistical information about the usage of the Services in order to continually improve the design and functionality, understand how the Services are used and to assist us with resolving questions regarding the Services.

If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to automatically decline cookies, or be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer to your computer of a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular site.  You may also wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html.  However, if you do not accept these cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of the Services.  For example, we may not be able to recognize your computer and you may need to log in every time you visit the applicable Services.

·       Using pixel tags and other similar technologies:  Pixel tags (also known as web beacons and clear GIFs) may be used in connection with some Services to, among other things, track the actions of users of the Services (including email recipients), measure the success of our marketing campaigns and compile statistics about usage of the Services and response rates.

·       IP Address:  Your “IP Address” is a number that is automatically assigned to the computer that you are using by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).  An IP Address may be identified and logged automatically in our server log files whenever a user accesses the Services, along with the time of the visit and the page(s) that were visited.  Collecting IP Addresses is standard practice and is done automatically by many websites, applications and other services.  We use IP Addresses for purposes such as calculating usage levels of the Services, helping diagnose server problems, and administering the Services.

·       From you:  Other information is collected when you voluntarily provide it to us.  Unless combined with Personal Information, this information does not personally identify you or any other user of the Services.

·       By aggregating information:  Aggregated Personal Information does not personally identify you or any other user of the Services, (for example, we may aggregate Personal Information to calculate the percentage of our users who have a particular telephone area code).

·       From our list sharing partners:  We collect other information from our list sharing partners in accordance with the “List Sharing” section below.

How Your Data is Kept Private

The security of data you entrust us with is paramount to our team. We actively audit our controls and safety measures to ensure we are doing everything we can to keep your data safe.

Any personal data maintained in our system is secured in the following way:

  • Access to personal data is limited and controlled by physical and logical security controls both by the TWS team and any third-party systems we use.
  • Data is kept in encrypted databases and encrypted in transit.
  • Third-party providers are required to provide an annual Security and Organization Controls (SOC) attestation reports if they are regulated by law.
  • We have instituted annual reviews of our own controls and policies along with auditing our third-party providers to be sure that all data is as secure as we possibly can make it.

While we do our best to safeguard your information, no transmission of data over any public network is 100% secure.

How We May Use and Disclose Other Information

Please note that we may use and disclose Other Information for any purpose, except where we are required to do otherwise under applicable law.  If we are required to treat Other Information as Personal Information under applicable law, then we may use it for all the purposes for which we use and disclose Personal Information.

In some instances, we may combine Other Information with Personal Information (such as combining your name with your geographical location).  If we combine any Other Information with Personal Information, the combined information will be treated by us as Personal Information as long as it is combined.

THIRD PARTY SERVICES

This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any site or service to which the Services link or that may be co-branded with The Wilderness Society Action Fund logo or name.  The information practices of any such third party are governed by the privacy policy applicable to the particular site or service, and the inclusion of a link on the Services does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by our affiliates.

Please note that we are not responsible for the collection, use and disclosure policies and practices (including the data security practices) of other organizations, such as Care2, Change.org, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, SnapChat, or any other social media platform provider, including any Personal Information you disclose to other organizations through or in connection with our Social Media Pages. 

List Sharing 

Subject to your right to opt-out (discussed below), we may rent or exchange mailing lists with third parties in order to improve or update the information we have about you and find other potential donors who may be interested in supporting our mission.  As part of that process, we may share your name, postal address, email address, and phone number (but not your financial information) with other non-profit organizations whose services or activities may be of interest to you.  As part of this sharing, we may allow other non-profit organizations to use the information for their own purposes, such as to update their lists with information we provide and to contact you regarding issues related to our mission, but only after we have approved of such mailings for specific, approved uses.  If you would like to opt out of having The Wilderness Society Action Fund share your personal information with third-party organizations for their own purposes, please let us know by writing to us at member@tws.org or at The Wilderness Society Action Fund, 1801 Penn Ave, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006.  In your request, please include your full name, phone number, and email address. 

BUSINESS PARTNERS

Subject to your right to opt-out (discussed below), we may share your personal information with third-party business partners who may send you promotional offers for products or services that may be of interest to you.  For example, we may partner with banks to offer a credit or debit card that displays our logo and helps us raise money to support our mission.  If you would like to opt out of having The Wilderness Society Action Fund share your personal information with our business partners for their own purposes, please let us know by writing to us at member@tws.org or at The Wilderness Society Action Fund, 1801 Penn Ave, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006.  In your request, please include your full name, phone number, and email address.

Third Party Marketing and Analytics

We may use third-party marketing companies to promote our initiatives and programs that may be of interest to you (or in some cases, to users who our service providers deem to have characteristics similar to our members) when you access and use the Services and other websites, based on information relating to your access to and use of the Services and other websites.  To do so, these companies may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser (including through the use of pixel tags).  If you would like more information about these practices and to learn about your choices in connection with them, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp and http://www.aboutads.info/.  We also use Twitter Tailored Audiences and Facebook Custom Audiences to promote our initiatives and programs on Twitter and Facebook, based on email addresses that we have collected.  You may learn more about Twitter Tailored Audiences, including how to opt out, by visiting https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170407-faqs-about-tailored-ads-and-your-privacy-controls.  You may learn more about Facebook Custom Audiences by visiting https://www.facebook.com/business/help/744354708981227?id=2469097953376494

We may use third-party analytics providers, including Google, to collect information about your use of the Services and to enable us to improve how the Services work.  The information allows us to see the overall patterns of usage on the Services, helps us record any difficulties you have with the Services, shows us whether our marketing is effective or not, and allows us to use responses to promotional campaigns to improve their effectiveness.  Google Analytics uses cookies and other, similar technologies to collect information about use of the Services and to report website trends to us, without identifying individual visitors to us.  You can learn about Google’s practices by going to www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners, and opt-out of them by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Security

We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect Personal Information within our organization.  Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any account you might have with us has been compromised), please immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us in accordance with the “Contacting Us” section below.

CHOICES AND ACCESS

Your choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information

We give you choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information for marketing purposes.  You may opt-out from:

  • Receiving phone calls from us:  If you would prefer that we do not call you for marketing purposes using the phone number you provide to us, you may opt-out by emailing us at member@tws.org or by writing us at The Wilderness Society Action Fund, 1801 Penn. Ave NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006.  Please note your preference not to receive marketing phone calls from us.
  • Our sharing of your Personal Information with unaffiliated third parties for their direct marketing purposes:  If you would prefer that we do not share your Personal Information on a going-forward basis with unaffiliated third parties for their direct marketing purposes, you may opt-out of this sharing by emailing us at member@tws.org or writing us at The Wilderness Society Action Fund, 1801 Penn. Ave NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006.  In your request, please include your full name, phone number, and email address.

We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable.

How you can access, change or suppress your Personal Information 

If you would like to review, correct, update, suppress, or delete Personal Information that has been previously provided to us by you, you may write to us at member@tws.org or at The Wilderness Society Action Fund, 1801 Penn. Ave NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006.

In your request, please make clear what Personal Information you would like to have reviewed, corrected, updated or deleted, and whether you would like to have your Personal Information that you have provided to us suppressed from our database.  For your protection, we may only implement requests with respect to the Personal Information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request.  We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable. 

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting such change or deletion (e.g., when you make a donation, you may not be able to change or delete the Personal Information provided until after the completion of such donation).  There may also be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed.

Use of Services by MINORS

The Services are not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and we request that these individuals do not provide Personal Information through the Services.

SENSITIVE INFORMATION

we ask that you not send us, and you not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., social security numbers, information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, or criminal background) on or through the Services or otherwise to us.

UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may change this Privacy Policy.  Please take a look at the “Last Updated” legend at the top of this page to see when this Privacy Policy was last revised.  Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Services.  Your use of the Services following these changes means that you accept the revised Privacy Policy.

CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at member@tws.org, or please write to the following address:

The Wilderness Society Action Fund

1801 Penn. Ave NW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20006

Please note that email communications are not always secure; so please do not include credit card information or sensitive Personal Information in your emails to us.