Effective 02/01/2003

Personal contact information we collect and what we do with it

When you are making a donation, volunteering your services, enlisting in our guest book, or subscribing to our email and postal updates, we ask you for personal contact information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address. We will use this contact information to provide you with information or resources you have requested, such as information about A Caring Hand, a receipt, or a financial report, or we will use your information to contact you to clarify or verify other information, such as a request or a donation you made. Personal contact information is not shared with any organization outside of A Caring Hand, Inc and our agents.

Personal billing information we collect and what we do with it

In addition to personal contact information, we ask for billing information, such as your billing address and credit card number, when you make a donation. We use secure servers to gather and process your billing information. These secure servers are hosted by our agent VeriSign, which is bound by our site policies. Your billing information is not shared with any other organizations, and your credit card number is not retained once your transaction has been authorized and processed.

Other contact information we collect and what we do with it

In some instances, we may ask for contact information for people other than yourself - for example, e-mail addresses of friends to whom you wish to send a copy of one of our pages or the mailing address of someone you think would want more information about A Caring Hand. Such contact information is not added to any mailing list without permission from such people nor is the information shared with any other organization.

How to view or change your information

With the exception of credit card numbers, which are not retained, you can view and request changes to all the information you have given us, including any mailing lists you may be on, by emailing us at info@acaringhand.org.

Your IP address, cookies, and plug-ins

For each visitor to our Web site, our Web server automatically recognizes the visitor's IP address (no personally identifiable information, such as e-mail addresses, are automatically recognized by our server). We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our Web site. Your IP address may also be used to gather broad demographic information. Occasionally, we may use session cookies to improve content, provide easier access, and understand how visitors use our Web site. Session cookies are also used to support our e-commerce pages. These cookies persist on your system for the duration of your browser session only. Our Web site does not offer stand-alone or plug-in applications that report individually identifiable information back to us or to any other organization.

Financial transactions and our secure servers

All financial transactions on our Web site, specifically online donations are managed through our agent VeriSign, which is TRUSTe certified. All transactions use an encrypted channel, take place on secure servers, and occur in real time. No financial data, such as your credit card number, is transferred via a less-secure channel, such as encrypted e-mail, for processing. Moreover, once your transaction has been completed, your credit card number is not retained.

Acceptance of Privacy Policy

By using this site and services, you signify your acceptance of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree or are not comfortable with any policy described in this Privacy Policy, your only remedy is to discontinue use of the this site and services. We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. If we change our policy, we will post those changes on our site so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it. Your continued use of any portion of the site following notification or posting of such changes will constitute your acceptance of those changes. Please remember that protection of your privacy begins with you. You are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any password you use to register, and you should always exercise caution whenever disclosing information online.

Please direct any questions regarding this policy or our practices to info@acaringhand.org