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Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) tells you what information Student Freedom Initiative (“Student Freedom Initiative”, “we” or “us”) collects as part of your interaction with the studentfreedominitiative.org domain, or any subdomain of this website (collectively, the “Website”) or through off-line communications that we have with you and how we use, share and protect that information.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand what we do with the information that we collect as part of your interactions with the Website and Student Freedom Initiative, and please also read our Terms of Use carefully to understand the terms and conditions governing your use of the Website.  Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time.  Please check the Privacy Policy each time you visit the Website for the most current version.

This Privacy Policy concerns only the Website, and does not concern any other website, app or Internet-based services, including websites created by third parties in connection with Student Freedom Initiative, including any originator and servicer of the Student Freedom Agreement and any other websites to which the Website may link (“Third-Party Sites”).  We do not control Third-Party Sites or their privacy policies or terms of use, and therefore we encourage you to review the applicable privacy policies and terms of use prior to submitting any information that identifies, relates to or describes a particular person (“personally identifiable information”) to a Third-Party Site.

To the extent you have any questions about, or complaints concerning, this Privacy Policy please contact us at privacypolicy@studentfreedominitiative.org.

A.            The Types Of Information We Collect From You.

When you browse the Website, with the exception of your IP address, we do not collect personally identifiable information about you unless you affirmatively provide it to us.  This means that, unless you choose to provide such information, we will not know your name, email address or any other personally identifiable information (other than your IP address) about you just because you browse the Website.  We may collect your IP address and other information, such as the type of device you are using, when you visit the Website.  We use this information to optimize your experience on the Website.  Currently, in connection with our operation of the Website, we use Google Analytics.  For more information about how Google Analytics collects and processes data, please visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

If you express interest in or begin the process to register to participate in certain programs of ours, such as our alternative income-contingent funding option via our Student Freedom Agreement or our tutoring and mentoring programs (collectively, “Programs”), whether through the Website or outside of the Website, we may ask for personally identifiable information about you or your family members, including name, age, email address, phone number, birth date, home address, phone number, social security number, taxpayer identification number, driver’s license number, passport number, grade, school name, major, school address, employer, employer address, gross income, gender, ethnicity, and marital status.  And, if you complete registration in our Student Freedom Agreement program, you may agree to give us such information, as well as provide to us or allow us to receive through your educational institution additional personally identifiable information.

We may collect information that does not personally identify you when you visit our Website or through other interactions we may have outside of our Website.  We may store and disclose aggregated non-personally identifiable information collected through the Website or any other interactions.  We own and can use non-personally identifiable information without restriction.

You do not have to create an account in order to use or access the Website.  However, we may limit certain portions of the Website to registered users, and if you wish to access certain features of the Website available only to registered users, including participating in a Program or using certain features such as creating a portfolio to save your work, you may be asked to provide personally identifiable information, including a username, password, name, email address, phone number, academic year, major, and school name to create an account with a username and a password (all information provided, collectively, the “Registration Information”) to protect your account from unauthorized access.

You may also contact us through the use of forms on the Website, by emailing us at privacypolicy@studentfreedominitiative.org.  If you choose to contact us in one of these manners, you should provide a name, email address, phone number and nature of your inquiry.

B.             How We Use Personally Identifiable Information We Collect From You.

As a non-profit dedicated to ensuring freedom in professional and life choices for students attending minority serving institutions, Student Freedom Initiative will use the information it receives from you to enhance the higher education experience and broaden student outlooks for career paths by providing alternative income-contingent funding option for education costs via our Student Freedom Agreement and other tools and resources.  We may use your personally identifiable information to evaluate your participation in any Program to which you apply or provide you with services or information related to those Programs, send you information about our upcoming Programs or programs of our partners or sponsors, solicit donations to support our operations, including Programs and other activities, and to inform you about our products and services or those of our partners and sponsors.

Information that you provide to us, including Registration Information you provide us through the Website, may be disclosed or processed by third parties under contract with us, such as third parties like Firstmark, a division of Nelnet (“Nelnet”), which originates and services our Student Freedom Agreements and the United Negro College Fund, which will be conducting a longitudinal study evaluating the success of certain components of our Programs.  When your personally identifiable information is provided to these third parties, we require them to exercise reasonable care to protect your information and restrict the use of your information to the purposes for which it was provided.  We also may share your personally identifiable information with third-party vendors and web developers who assist us in performing internal functions necessary to operate our business, including development and maintenance of the Website.  We require our third-party vendors to keep such information confidential and to only use the information as necessary and for the purpose it was provided.

In addition, we reserve the right to use your personally identifiable information for various purposes including to study and evaluate the performance of our Programs, to allow others to study and evaluate the performance of our Programs, to better understand the behavior and preferences of users of the Website and other services and participants in our Programs, to troubleshoot technical problems, for marketing purposes (including to let you know about job opportunities and provide you with information about our partners and sponsors), to enforce this Privacy Policy and to ensure proper functioning of and to help improve the Website, the Programs or other services of ours.

If you provide us with any personally identifiable information as part of any information or other content that you provide to us via the Website (“Submission”), we may use such personally identifiable information, together with such Submission or any portion or derivative work thereof, for any purpose in accordance with our Terms of Use.

Like many other websites, we use “cookies.”  “Cookies” are text files sent by a server and stored by your web browser on the hard drive of your computer (including tablets and smart phones).  Cookies allow us to personalize and save preferences, optimize your experience on the Website, and assist us in evaluation of site usage.  Cookies can be used to collect data and serve the user with push notifications, and may be used to communicate with Twitter, Facebook or other Third-Party Sites in connection with the “share” or “like” buttons for these Third-Party Sites.  Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can configure your browser to prevent the acceptance of cookies.  We do not use cookies to read any data or files in your computer.    We do, however, use Google Analytics and Fundraise Up, each of which uses cookies.  For more information about how Google Analytics uses cookies, please visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.  For more information on how Fundraise Up uses cookies, please visit https://fundraiseup.com/privacy.

We reserve the right to disclose any content, records or electronic communication of any kind, including without limitation your personally identifiable information: (i) to satisfy any law, regulation, court order or government request; (ii) to the extent permitted by law if such disclosure is necessary to our business; or (iii) to protect the rights, property or safety of anyone, including Student Freedom Initiative or its users, sponsors, processors, suppliers, providers, licensors or merchants, which may include the enforcement of the Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy or any other policies or agreements.  We also reserve the right to reject any request for additional information from you or any other user.

If you do not want us to use your personally identifiable information, including Registration Information, to send you information about products and services offered by us or our partners or sponsors, you may opt-out of such uses by notifying us in accordance with Section D of this Privacy Policy.  Please note that opting-out will not prevent your information from being used for non-marketing purposes.

C.            Storage And Security.

By submitting your information to us, you acknowledge that you fully understand and agree to this collection, transfer, storing and processing.  We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy, including adherence to applicable laws for the protection of privacy.

We have implemented technical, administrative and security measures in an effort to safeguard the privacy of your information from unauthorized access or improper use.  From time to time, we will review our security procedures in order to consider appropriate new technology and methods to enhance our security procedures as new technology becomes available.  However, you acknowledge and agree that despite our best efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and your information may still be accessed and used by others without authorization in the event of a security breach.

D.            Updating Your Information And Opt-Out Choices.

Student Freedom Initiative may take affirmative steps to confirm the accuracy of the information that you provide to us, including verifying the school that you attend.  At any time, you may request that your information and Website account, if any, be removed from our database by emailing us at privacypolicy@studentfreedominitiative.org.  We will endeavor to remove such information reasonably promptly to the extent that the retention of any of your information is not required or useful to enforce the terms of any agreement you may have entered with us, such as a Student Freedom Agreement, or for us to comply with applicable law.

You acknowledge that, when you request to delete your information or account for the Website, your data may be permanently expunged from our primary production servers such that further access to your account may not be possible.  We may also disconnect any connection we had established to your account information and delete all account credentials.  However, portions of your information may remain on our production servers indefinitely.  Your information also may remain on backup servers or media.  We also reserve the right to use any deidentified, aggregated or anonymous data derived from your personally identifiable information.

We, or third parties acting on our behalf, may communicate with you through the Registration Information on file or other information that you provide to us.  If you are participating in a longitudinal study evaluating the success of certain of our Programs, the persons conducting such studies may also communicate with you regarding such information.  You also may unsubscribe from receiving marketing emails from us by clicking on the unsubscribe links in those emails.  If we receive an opt-out or unsubscribe request from you, following a reasonable amount of time to process your request, we thereafter will not contact you directly with any information relating to the class of communications for which you've opted-out or unsubscribed, unless you later change your preferences.

E.             Children and Privacy

Our Website and our Programs are not intended for use by children.  If you are a parent or guardian and believe that we may have inadvertently collected personally identifiable information from your child, please notify us immediately by emailing us at privacypolicy@studentfreedominitiative.org.

F.             Business Transfers.

In the event that Student Freedom Initiative is consolidated or merged with a third party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign all of the information we have collected from you in any manner, including via our Website, in connection with such merger, acquisition, sale or other change of control.  In the event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors’ rights generally, we may not be able to control how your information is treated, transferred or used.

G.            Privacy Policy Changes.

By using the Website or otherwise providing your information to us, you agree to let us collect and use information per this Privacy Policy.  In the future, we may change this Privacy Policy; we will post changes at this URL and note the effective date so that you are always aware of what information we collect and how we use it.  If we decide to change our privacy practices, all changes will be reflected at this URL and the effective date will be posted so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use information and whether we will disclose it to anyone.  If we materially change our practices regarding collection or use of your information, your information will continue to be governed by the policy under which it was collected unless you have been provided notice, and have not objected to, this change.  This Privacy Policy was last updated on November 11, 2021.