a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation

Gently Hugged

Our Mission:
To collect and distribute clothing and blankets to babies in need

Privacy Policy

Gently Hugged Privacy Policy

Your information privacy is important to us. We have prepared this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, protect, and disclose information and data when we obtain it from you through:

Collectively, we refer to the Social Media Pages, emails, and any other interactions with us as the “Services.”

This Privacy Policy also explains your choices for managing your information preferences, including opting out of certain uses of your Personal Information (defined below). This Privacy Policy applies to all users of the Site and Services. The Site and Services are provided by Gently Hugged (“Organization”, “we”, “our”, “us”).

BY USING THE SITE OR SERVICES, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY. If you do not agree to our Privacy Policy, please do not use our Site or Services.

1. What Information Do We Collect?

Personal Information

You can generally visit the Site without revealing any personally identifiable information about yourself. We do not collect personal information from you without you providing us with information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

When you access or use the Site and Services, you may be required to provide us with certain information. We collect information that personally identifies you, such as your name, address, phone number, mobile phone number, e-mail, donation-related information, and other personally identifiable information that you choose to provide to us (“Personal Information”). You may be asked to provide us with Personal Information when you contact us through the Site, use any of our Services, and at other times.

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

  • Through our Services, for example when you sign up for our newsletter or emails; submit an inquiry through our Site; visit our offices; attend one of our events; make a donation online, in person, or over the phone; contact us; or volunteer with us.

  • From other sources, such as:

    • publicly available databases;
    • other donors, volunteers, or prospective donors or volunteers;
    • third-party event and giving/donation platforms;
    • partner organizations and our third-party data cooperatives and marketing partners when they share the information with us.

If you disclose any Personal Information relating to other people to us or to our service providers in connection with the Services, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Usage Data and Site Activity

We automatically collect information regarding the actions you take on the Site (“Usage Data”). For example, each time you use the Site we automatically collect the type of Web browser you use, your operating system, your Internet Service Provider, your IP address, the pages you view, and the time and duration of your visits to the Site. We use this information to help us understand how people use the Site and Services, and to enhance the services we offer.

Cookies and Anonymous Identifiers

We do not use cookies to collect Personal Information or Usage Data. However, some of our Service Providers (defined below) may use their own cookies, anonymous identifiers, or other tracking technology in connection with the services they perform on our behalf.

We may use Google Analytics on the Site to collect Usage Data, to analyze how users use the Site and Services, to analyze our user demographics statistics, and to provide advertisements to you on other websites. For more information about how to opt out of having your information used by Google Analytics, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

2. How Do We Use, Share and Disclose Information?

We use Personal Information, including maintaining records in our database, for the following purposes:

  • Providing Services and fulfilling your requests, such as:

    • Communicating with you about Gently Hugged programs, services, activities, and volunteer opportunities.
    • Communicating with you about your interest in providing donations or volunteer services to the Organization.
    • Processing your donations to Gently Hugged, verifying your information, and communicating with you about donation-related matters.
    • Coordinating your volunteer activities on behalf of Gently Hugged.
    • Responding to your inquiries and fulfilling your requests when you contact us via one of our online contact forms or otherwise, for example, when you send us questions or suggestions, or when you request other information about our Services.
    • Sending administrative information to you, such as changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.

  • Providing you with Organizational information and our newsletters and facilitating social sharing. For example:

    • To send you emails with information about our programs, services, events, giving opportunities, and other news about our Organization.
    • To facilitate social sharing functionality that you choose to use, including on the Site or Social Media Pages.

  • Analyzing Personal Information for business reporting, improving our Services, and providing personalized services. For example:

    • Analyzing and improving the operation and effectiveness of Gently Hugged, such as by performing data analysis, performing audits, improving our Site, assessing and enhancing our outreach activities, determining the effectiveness of fundraising campaigns, and operating and expanding our activities as a non-profit organization.
    • To better understand your interests and preferences, so that we can personalize our interactions with you and provide you with information and/or event and volunteering offers tailored to your interests.
    • To better understand your preferences so that we can deliver content via our Services that we believe will be relevant and interesting to you.

  • Aggregating and/or anonymizing Personal Information. For example:

    • We may aggregate and/or anonymize Personal Information so that it will no longer be considered Personal Information. We do so to generate other data for our use, which we may use and disclose for any purpose, as it no longer identifies you or any other individual. We will not disclose Usage Data regarding the Site to third parties without your consent. Even in such cases, your Usage Data will be aggregated with the Usage Data of others and does not identify you individually.

  • Accomplishing our non-profit purposes. For example:

    • For data analysis, to improve the efficiency of our Services, and analyze donation capacity.
    • For audits, to verify that our internal processes function as intended and to address legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements.
    • For complying with our legal obligations.
    • For fraud prevention and fraud security monitoring purposes, including to detect and prevent cyberattacks or attempts to commit identity theft.
    • For developing new services.
    • For enhancing, improving, repairing, maintaining, or modifying our current Services, as well as undertaking quality and safety assurance measures.
    • For understanding which parts of our Services are of most interest and providing more relevant search results from the search functions of the Site.
    • For determining the effectiveness of our promotional and fundraising campaigns, so that we can adapt our campaigns to the needs and interests of our community.
    • For operating and expanding our business activities, for example, understanding which parts of our Services are of most interest to our members so we can focus our energies on meeting our community’s interests.

We will not disclose Personal Information to third parties, including for their direct marketing purposes, without your consent, except as explained in this Privacy Policy.

We disclose Personal Information in the regular course of our operation as follows:

  • Where you elect to disclose Personal Information to third parties. For example:

    • On message boards, chat, profile pages, blogs, social media posts, and other services to which you are able to post information and content (including, without limitation, our Social Media Pages). Please note that any information you post or disclose through these services will become public and may be available to other users and the general public.

  • To our affiliates for the uses described in this Privacy Policy.

  • To our third-party service providers, as further described in Paragraph 4 below, to facilitate services they provide to us. For example:

    • Website hosting, data analysis, payment processing, fundraising/event-related coordination, fraud prevention, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service or related benefits (including special promotions), email delivery, auditing, and other services.

  • In order to make or process donations.

With your permission, we may also publicly recognize you as a donor, or otherwise use your Personal Information or other content that you voluntarily submit to us via our Site or Social Media Pages, for referral, testimonial, example, or publicity purposes.

We do not sell our donor’s names or other Personal Information, nor do we send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations without the donor’s consent.

3. How Can You Opt Out of Communications from Us?

You are able to opt out of receiving marketing emails from us by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our emails. We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving promotional related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages (such as receipts of donations), from which you cannot opt out. If you have questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please email us at gentlyhugged@gmail.com.

4. Service Providers

From time to time, we may establish a business relationship with other businesses whom we believe trustworthy and who have confirmed that their privacy practices are consistent with ours (“Service Providers”). For example, we may contract with Service Providers to provide certain services, such as hosting and maintenance, data storage and management, and marketing and promotions. We only provide our Service Providers with the information necessary for them to perform these services on our behalf. Each Service Provider must agree to use reasonable security procedures and practices, appropriate to the nature of the information involved, in order to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. Service Providers are prohibited from using Personal Information other than as specified by us.

5. Payment Methods

If you choose to make a donation, through the Site or Services, we may collect certain information regarding your purchase or donation, and you will be required to provide certain payment and billing information directly to our payment processing partners, including but not limited to your name, credit card information, and billing address (“Payment Information”). We do not directly access, store, or collect Payment Information, and we will not use Payment Information except as needed to process your donations and/or to communicate with your regarding your transactions. Because email communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails to us.

6. Advertising and Online Tracking

We may allow third-party companies to serve ads and collect certain anonymous information when you visit the Site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g. click stream information, web browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to the Site and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie to collect this information. Our systems do not recognize browser “Do Not Track” signals, but Service Providers who utilize these cookies on our Site may enable you to opt out of targeted advertising practices. To learn more about these advertising practices or to opt out of this type of advertising, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org or www.aboutads.info/choices/. We also provide you with additional tools to opt out of marketing from us. You can learn about this in the “How Can You Opt Out of Marketing Communications from Us?” section of this Privacy Policy.

7. Other Transfers

We may share Personal Information and Usage Data with entities controlling, controlled by, or under common control with our Organization. If our Organization is merged, acquired, or sold, or in the event of a transfer of some or all of our assets, we may disclose or transfer Personal Information and Usage Data in connection with such transaction. You will have the opportunity to opt out of any such transfer if, in our discretion, it will result in the handling of your Personal Information in a way that differs materially from this Privacy Policy.

8. Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement

We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We may disclose Personal Information and any other information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties if, in our discretion, we believe it is necessary or appropriate in order to respond to legal requests (including court orders and subpoenas), to protect the safety, property, or rights of our Organization or of any third party, to prevent or stop any illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity, or to comply with the law. 9. Be Careful When You Share Information with Others

Please be aware that whenever you share information on any public area of the Site or Services, that information may be accessed by others. In addition, please remember that when you share information in any other communications with third parties, that information may be passed along or made public by others. This means that anyone with access to such information can potentially use it for any purpose, including sending unsolicited communications.

10. Security

We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of information transmitted to us. However, no data transmission over the Internet or other network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect information transmitted on or through the Site or Services, we cannot and do not guarantee the security of any information you transmit on or through the Site, and you do so at your own risk.

Our Site and Services may contain links to other websites or allow others to send you such links. A link to a third party’s website does not mean that we endorse it or that we are affiliated with it. We do not exercise control over third-party websites. You access such third-party websites or content at your own risk. You should always read the privacy policy of a third-party website before providing any information to the website.

12. Children’s Privacy

We recognize the privacy interests of children and we encourage parents and guardians to take an active role in their children’s online activities and interests. The Site is intended for users who are 13 years old or older. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If we become aware that we have inadvertently received Personal Information from a child under the age of 13, we will delete such information from our records. California users under the age of 18 may request the removal of their content or information publicly posted on the Site by emailing us at gentlyhugged@gmail.com. Please note that most of the user content that appears on our Site is stored and controlled by third party providers; thus, complete and comprehensive removal of the content may not be possible.

By providing Personal Information through the Site, you represent and warrant that you are either over the age of 13 or have obtained parental consent. If you do not meet these requirements, you must not provide Personal Information through the Site.

13. Processing in the United States

Please be aware that your Personal Information and communications may be transferred to and maintained on servers or databases located outside your state, province, or country. If you are located outside of the United States, please be advised that we process and store all information in the United States. The laws in the United States may not be as protective of your privacy as those in your location. By using the Site, you are agreeing to the collection, use, transfer, and disclosure of your Personal Information and communications will be governed by the applicable laws in the United States.

14. Your Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of California, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) :

  • Right to Know: You have the right to request information about the personal data we have collected about you.
  • Right to Delete: You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data, subject to certain exceptions.
  • Right to Opt-Out of Sale: We do not sell personal information, but if this changes, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal data.
  • Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

To exercise these rights, please contact us using the information below.

15. Privacy Policy Changes

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will inform you by posting the revised Privacy Policy on the Site. Those changes will go into effect on the “Revised” date shown in the revised Privacy Policy. By continuing to use the Site, you are consenting to the revised Privacy Policy.

16. Contacting Us

If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, please contact us at gentlyhugged@gmail.com.

Updated: April 21, 2025

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