Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

The Birthing Families Foundation is committed to protecting your privacy. We value the trust of our volunteers, donors, members, supporters, and all others who work with us, and we recognize that maintaining your trust requires that we be transparent and accountable in how we handle your personal information. For that reason, we call our Privacy Policy and Practices “Our Commitment to Your Privacy.”

In carrying out our various programs and activities, particularly with respect to raising funds to support our work, we frequently collect, use and disclose personal information. Anyone from whom we collect such information can expect that it will be carefully protected and that any use of or other dealing with this information is subject to consent. Our privacy practices are designed to achieve this.

The following Privacy Policy explains how the Birthing Families Foundation collects, uses, discloses, and safeguards the personal information of volunteers, donors, members, supporters, and all others who work with us – whether provided to us through a signed registration form; orally in person or over the phone; electronically through a web site; or, in select circumstances, obtained by us from public domain sources such as published directories or other organizations’ public documents such as annual reports.

The Birthing Families Foundation adheres to personal privacy legislation as outlined in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

What Personal Information Do We Collect and Why?

Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) defines personal information as any information about a specific, identifiable individual, such as name, address, or phone number, but not including the name, title, business address or business phone number of an employee of an organization.

The personal information that we collect, use and disclose – with your express or implied consent – and the reasons why we collect such information are as follows:

  • Name, address, phone number, and fax number – to provide quality, responsive service; to issue donation receipts for income tax purposes; to send thank you communications; and to report and communicate about our program results and how donor financial support is making a difference.

  • E-mail address – to communicate program results, funding needs, opportunities to volunteer or to give, special events, and other similar information to donors and other supporters, through cost-effective e-newsletters or permission-based e- mail messages.

  • Date of birth – to communicate opportunities to volunteer or to give, special events, and other similar information deemed to be of interest to individuals within certain age groups, and to conduct aggregate demographic analyses of our donors.

  • Information related to chequing or credit card accounts – to provide high quality, convenient service in accepting and processing donations.

  • Information about relationships, preferences, opinions, and beliefs – to build stronger relationships with our donors, volunteers and other supporters; and to be able to target special requests for volunteer support or fundraising assistance.

  • Information about professional, employment and business relationships – to conduct donor prospect research; to make specially targeted requests for volunteer support or fundraising assistance; and to inform donors of the opportunity to facilitate “matching grant” fundraising contributions by their employers.

How Do We Collect Personal Information?

We collect personal information about our donors and other stakeholders in the following ways:

  • via donation reply coupons;

  • via our web site and other charitable giving web sites;

  • via the phone;

  • in-person;

  • via purchase order forms;

  • via personal cheques from first-time donors;

  • via third party suppliers, from whom we obtain confidentiality and protection of privacy commitments;

  • via public domain sources such as published directories or other organizations’ public documents such as annual reports, which facilitate our prospect research;

  • with donor consent, via list trading with other progressive, like-minded charities, from whom confidentiality and protection of privacy commitments are obtained.

Donor List Trading and Third Party Suppliers

We do not share any personal information with third parties.

 Privacy Practices

Personal information gathered by the Birthing Families Foundation is kept in strict confidence. Certain staff members have authorized access to personal information based on their need to deal with the information for the reason(s) for which it was obtained. Safeguards are in place to ensure that the information is not disclosed or shared more widely than is necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was gathered. We also take measures to ensure that the integrity of this information is maintained and to prevent its being lost, stolen or prematurely destroyed.

We collect, use and disclose personal information only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate under the circumstances. We routinely offer our stakeholders the opportunity not to have their information shared for purposes beyond those for which it was collected.

Web Sites and Electronic Commerce

When you browse the Birthing Families Foundation web site, you do so anonymously. We collect only the domain name (eg. Sympatico, Gmail, etc.), not the e-mail address of a visitor to our site.

At times, we may request web site visitors to supply us voluntarily with personal information, such as name and e-mail address and postal address, for purposes such as corresponding with us, registering at our site, making a donation, entering a contest, or participating in an on-line survey.

Donors through our web site are linked to an industry-standard secure payment service for credit card transactions. Your credit card information is encrypted as it leaves your computer using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) 128-bit encryption, which is currently the strongest export-grade encryption available. This means that any data you send from your computer to the Birthing Families Foundation is completely secure.

The details of your donation are then retrieved from the server by the Birthing Families Foundation using SSL 128-bit encryption. This encryption makes interpretation impossible for anyone other than the intended recipient. Our software is routinely updated to maximize the protection of any information sent to us on-line.

Our site uses cookies in a limited way. Cookies are small files containing information that a web site uses to track a visit. Both persistent and session cookies are used by many web sites. However, we use session cookies only to better understand how our site is used, to make sure our information and dynamic content are served up to visitors correctly, and to improve the performance of our site for users, particularly the way search pages are delivered. Session cookies do not remain on your computer at the end of your visit, and cannot be used to obtain any personally identifiable details.


Copyright

All information contained on the Birthing Families Foundation’s web site is copyrighted and is the property of the Birthing Families Foundation unless otherwise stated, all rights reserved. Canadian copyright law and international treaties protect the textual, graphic, audio and audiovisual material on our site. You may not copy, distribute, or use these materials except as necessary for your personal, non-commercial use. Any trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.

External Links

There are links on the www.birthingfamiliesfoundation.org web site that take you to other web sites outside of our service. Any links provided to third party web sites outside of www.birthingfamiliesfoundation.org are provided solely for your convenience. The operation and content of such third party web sites are beyond our control, and we do not endorse in any manner whatsoever or accept any responsibility for the content or other material that may be contained on such web sites, the use of such web sites, or any other products or services advertised on or sold through any such web sites. We will not be liable under any circumstances for any damages whatsoever, direct or indirect, resulting from any use of our web site or any other third party web site linked to our web site, whether or not we are advised of the possibility of such damages.

Social Media Moderation Policy

Social channels are managed by the Birthing Families Foundation staff. We would like to encourage sharing in an open and friendly environment. These guidelines are meant to help foster a positive experience for our supporters.

Please ensure that your comments and photos:

  • Are relevant to our cause

  • Respect others

  • Don’t reveal personal details – such as phone numbers, etc.

  • Don’t use inappropriate, offensive, sexist or racist language

We reserve the right to remove comments that we feel breach our guidelines.

Updating of Privacy Policy

We regularly review our privacy practices, and update our Privacy Policy when warranted. Please check our web site www.birthingfamiliesfoundation.org on an ongoing basis or contact info@birthingfamiliesfoundation for the most up-to-date information on our privacy practices.

Contact Information

Questions, concerns or complaints related to our Privacy Policy or our treatment of personal information—or if you wish to change or modify personal information or related consent that you have already provided to us—should be directed to:

Birthing Families Foundation

1644  North beach Rd.  

Salt Spring Island

V8K 1A8

250-709-2687

info@birthingfamiliesfoundation.org


Further information on privacy and protection of personal information may be found on the web site of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at www.privcom.gc.ca