Privacy Policy

We care about your privacy.

Berkeley Community Scholars (BCS) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect and use information about visitors to our websites and recipients of our e-mail newsletters (“user” or “you”), as well as how we share, store, and protect that information. 

By using or accessing this website, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

We collect the following types of information:

  • Technical Information. We gather non-personal data that include your internet protocol (IP) addresses, domain names of your Internet service provider (ISP), time zone and approximate geographic location, browser type, and device used to access the website. 
  • Usage Information. We may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your interaction with our sites, including the referring web page, time spent on pages, pages visited, links clicked, and files you downloaded. This information is aggregated and anonymous.
  • Email Open and Read data. When we send email newsletters to you, we track if you opened these emails as well as if you clicked on any of the links placed within the email message.
  • Personal Information You Choose to Provide to Us. We receive and store any information you voluntarily enter into forms on our website or give us in any way. This includes but is not limited to such actions as subscribing to our newsletter, submitting a mentor interest form or mentor application, submitting a scholarship application, submitting a job application, registering for an event, posting a comment on our blog, or making a donation online.

We use the information we collect to:

  • Learn how visitors are finding our website.
  • Determine what content people read. 
  • Make improvements to our website and newsletter content and structure. 
  • Communicate with our clients, potential clients, volunteers, donors, partners, and others who are interested in our work.
  • Contact you to respond to emails or online requests for programs, services or information; mail newsletters, documents, and publications to you; 
  • Manage or process volunteer or job applications; 
  • Manage or process scholarship applications;
  • Process and confirm your donations; 
  • Confirm event registrations; 
  • Print volunteer and registration lists for our internal use; 
  • Track the behavior of people openly following us on social media in order to provide new content of interest and value.

We do not rent, sell, or trade your personal information. 

We will not rent, sell, trade, or share your personal information to outside parties. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, hosting events, or in providing a service to you, as long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may disclose your personal data if required to do so by law.

California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section 1798.83, known as the “Shine the Light” law, permits users who are California residents to request and obtain from us a list of what personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year and the names and addresses of those third parties. Requests may be made only once a year and are free of charge. Under section 1798.83, and as stated in this Privacy Policy, we currently do not share any personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

For further information concerning your California Privacy Rights including “Do Not Track,” visit https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/cybersecurity/making_your_privacy_practices_public.pdf

Third Party Content, Links to Other Websites, and Service Providers

Our website(s) may include links to third-parties such as content delivery networks (e.g. YouTube or other media sites), cloud-hosting providers (e.g. our online scholarship application), financial services and payment processors, email providers (for sending you email), social media sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter) and website analytic services. Your interactions with them are governed by the third parties’ applicable privacy notices, statements or policies. We encourage you to read them. Berkeley Community Scholars does not claim nor accept responsibility for any privacy policies, practices and/or procedures or content of any third party. 

The third-party services we use or link to may include the following:

CommunityForce

We use CommunityForce, a cloud-based scholarship and grant management platform, to collect and manage our scholarship applications. Learn how CommunityForce uses and protects this information.

Google Analytics

We may collect data through Google Analytics to gather data about behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, videos you’ve played, and your IP address or device ID. We use this data to measure our site’s performance, to improve the online experience, and to track the regional location and number of visitors to our website. Learn about Google Analytics use of data here.

Google Forms 

We may use Google Forms to collect personally identifiable information that you voluntarily provide to us. Learn about Google Forms’ privacy policy here.

MailChimp

We use MailChimp, a web-based service, to send email. Data collected include whether or not you’ve opened the email, the links you’ve clicked on, messages you’ve forwarded to others, and unsubscribe requests.  Learn about MailChimp’s privacy policies here.

Stripe

We use Stripe to process our mobile and web donations made by credit card. Learn about Stripe’s privacy policies here.

Social Media Platforms and Widgets 

Our website may include social media features, such as the Facebook “Like” button. These features may collect information about your IP address and which page you are visiting on our website and they might use cookies to make sure the feature functions properly. We also maintain a presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Any information or communications you submit to us via a social media platform is done at your own risk without any expectation of privacy. Privacy Policies for these social media companies include:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/policy.php

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

Instagram – https://help.instagram.com/402411646841720

Twitter – https://twitter.com/en/privacy

YouTube

We may post videos about our organization on a YouTube channel. Learn about YouTube’s privacy policies here.

How we protect and store your information.

Transmission of data on the Internet is not completely secure, therefore we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our sites and any such transmission is at your own risk. However, we use a variety of technical and organizational measures to protect your data. We maintain adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to our offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure or modification of the user’s personal information under our control. 

We will only retain your data stored in our databases in accordance with the legitimate needs of our business and as required or permitted by applicable law. We will not retain any unused personal data on our systems longer than necessary for legitimate business purposes.

We protect the security of credit card transactions using measures such as encryption, access controls, network firewalls, and physical security. When we work with other companies to process credit card transactions, these companies also use encryption and other appropriate security measures.

You have the Choice to Opt-Out

We provide all individuals the opportunity to opt out of having your personal information used for certain purposes. 

  • Email Communications. If you no longer want to receive emails from us, you may opt out via the unsubscribe link included in such emails or by contacting us directly at info@berkeleyscholars.org. We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. 
  • Event Photography. We frequently take photographs in public areas of our events. We also solicit photographs from our scholars and mentors. We occasionally select photos for distribution via this website, social media, or other means. If you are included in a photograph and would prefer that it not be distributed, please contact BCS at info@berkeleyscholars.org and let us know what photo and where you saw it. We will do our best to remove it from circulation.

Terms of Use

This Privacy Policy describes our practices regarding the collection of information. By visiting this site or through social media correspondence (such as our Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter accounts) you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was last modified on 1/14/2020. Changes to our privacy policy may be made without notification. Future modifications will be posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us electronically info@berkeleyscholars.org or send physical mail to:

Berkeley Community Scholars

P.O. Box 680

Berkeley, CA 94701 USA.