Privacy Policy

This policy covers the web site owned or operated by American Land Conservancy (ALC). We encourage you to take the time to read this privacy policy and our legal disclosures. All questions and comments regarding the content of this website should be directed to the ALC Webmaster at info@alcnet.org.

If you find or believe that information obtained from this site is inaccurate, illegible, or out-of-date, or you encounter technical or other problems when using or accessing this site, please notify the Webmaster at info@alcnet.org. ALC welcomes suggestions on how to improve the website and correct errors. This website is the only official website of the American Land Conservancy.

Following is American Land Conservancy's online privacy policy:

Personal Information Collected
In general, when you visit our web site and access information you remain anonymous. We do not require you to register or provide personal information to us to view our web site. There are occasions when we will ask for additional information. We do this to better understand and respond to your needs, and provide you with services that may be valuable to you.

What Information We Collect and How We Use That Information
Membership, donation, and/or registration forms on our site may require users to give us contact information that may include your name, e-mail address, credit card information, format preference (HTML vs. plain text) and physical address. We do not request or store sensitive information from our visitors, such as social security numbers.

E-Mail Sent to Us Containing Personal Information
You may decide to send American Land Conservancy personally identifying information. For example, you might send the Conservancy an e-mail message containing information about your membership. We will use this information solely to identify you as a member of American Land Conservancy and to determine how to best respond to the e-mail. We will NOT use this information for any purpose other than to resolve the specific matter identified in your e-mail. American Land Conservancy never shares your e-mail address with outside organizations for neither marketing or any other various purposes.

If you choose to submit information to us, the information will be transmitted to our departmental database. Any private information will only be used by ALC for the purposes for which it was provided and will not be shared with another entity or person except as prescribed by law. If you wish to review or correct the information collected about you, you may do so by contacting ALC at info@alcnet.org.

Our Relationship with Groundspring.org
Groundspring.org is a nonprofit organization that provides simple, affordable, and integrated services to small to medium-sized nonprofit organizations to help them become effective users of internet technology in their fundraising and management of donors and supporters. Groundspring.org serves over 1,500 nonprofit organizations and has processed $17.3 million in online donations, including individual contributions as well as matching funds from their partners.

ALC has partnered with Groundspring.org to produce a location for donations and to facilitate secure credit card transactions. Groundspring.org operates the secure web site at:
Groundspring.org

You can see when Groundspring.org is administering a given web page by looking for the “VeriSign Secured�? badge.
The VeriSign Secured Seal
The globally recognized VeriSign Secured Seal allows you to learn more about the web sites that you visit before you submit any confidential information.

Whenever you see the VeriSign Secured Seal on our web sites, you can personally verify that the web page in question is both secure and administered directly by ALC or Groundspring.org. You may submit personally identifiable information and/or sensitive data (such as credit card numbers) to the web site with the assurance that:

  • The web site has a VeriSign Secure Server ID
  • VeriSign has verified the organizational name and that ALC and/or Groundspring.org have the proof of right to use it
  • The web site legitimately runs under the auspices of ALC and/or Groundspring.org
  • All information sent to the web site, if in an SSL session, is encrypted, protecting against disclosure to third parties

Collecting personal information through the DonateNow service:

When you make a donation using the Groundspring.org DonateNow button, Groundspring.org collects a variety of personal information about you in order to properly process your donation. This personal information may include: name, address, phone, email address, your credit card information, "acknowledgement" or "in memory of" information, and donation amount. Groundspring.org shares this information with ALC. This way, we can enter you into our database of supporters.

It is unlikely that Groundspring.org will need to contact you but they reserve the right in the event that they need to verify your personal information. If you contact Groundspring.org by email or phone, they may ask you to verify your personal information so that they may respond to your inquiry.

Your credit card information is only used for the duration of the transaction and is then deleted from our records. We take the utmost precaution to keep your credit card information safe and secure. But if you are uncomfortable submitting your credit card information online, you can also contribute to the American Land Conservancy by printing out the online form Support ALC and mailing it to:

250 Montgomery Street
Suite 210
San Francisco, CA 94104

When making a donation to a nonprofit through the Groundspring.org DonateNow service, donors may be asked to check a box to "receive email updates" from that nonprofit. The nonprofit will obtain that information and may choose to send email updates to the donor. Nonprofit practices in this regard are subject to their policies and practices and are not controlled by Groundspring.org. Groundspring.org encourages you to review the privacy policy of a particular organization before subscribing to email updates and eNewsletters.

Groundspring.org collects credit card information from our nonprofit customers so that we can process donations and monthly fees. Groundspring.org maintains this information on their secure servers for our internal processes only. Groundspring.org also uses a credit card processing company to process donations and monthly fees. This company does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

If a donor selects "I want to make a recurring donation", you will be registering to make a credit card donation every month, 3 months, or year. After you complete this initial donation, future donations will be made automatically. You will receive an email receipt from Groundspring.org for each recurring donation. As soon as you complete this initial donation, you will receive a separate email containing a password and a link to the DonateNow system where you can review and change your donation options (amount, frequency, billing information) at any time. Of course, you will also be able to cancel your recurring donation at any point in the future. Donors can view and update their personal information on the DonateNow system by using their passwords and the link that Groundspring.org provides.

Internet Protocol Address
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when you use the Internet. We collect an IP address from all visitors to our web site. We use IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server, administer our web site, analyze usage trends, track users' interactions with the web site, gather broad demographic information for aggregate use in order for us to improve the web site, and deliver customized, personalized content. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

What are "Cookies"?
Cookies are simple text files stored on your computer by your web browser. The ALC portal uses cookies to enable interactive applications. You can refuse the cookies or delete the cookie files from your computer by using any of the widely available methods. However, if cookies are not enabled you may not be able to access some of the features in our interactive applications.

Links to Other Sites
Our website has links to sites we feel might be useful to you and which may provide services. When you link to another site, you are no longer on our site and are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

This website and the information it contains are provided as a public service by ALC. This system is monitored to ensure proper operation, to verify the functioning of applicable security features, and for comparable purposes. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring. Unauthorized attempts to modify any information stored on this system, to defeat or circumvent security features, or to utilize this system for other than its intended purposes are prohibited and may result in criminal prosecution.

Children's Guidelines
American Land Conservancy complies fully with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA).

None of the web sites covered by this policy knowingly collect identifiable personal information from children under age 18. If we discover that a person under the age of 18 has provided us with any personally identifiable information, we will delete that information from our systems. We are unable to reply to information requests from children under the age of 18, if so identified. A parent or guardian must initiate any requests for information from children under the age of 18 on their behalf. We encourage parents to supervise children when they browse the Internet.

Ownership
The compilation of, and all content included in the ALC website, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software, are the property of ALC and protected by United States and international copyright laws.

Spam
American Land Conservancy complies fully with the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act).

To this end, American Land Conservancy:

  • Always offers recipients of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters a clear means of opting-out from the receipt of future messages
  • Always includes the Conservancy’s physical address within the body of all our e-mail messages:

    250 Montgomery Street Suite 210
    San Francisco, CA 94104

  • Never uses false or misleading header information in any e-mail message
  • Never attempts to deceive e-mail recipients by using deceptive subject lines
  • Never uses automated means to harvest e-mail addresses from web sites or web services
  • Never generates e-mail addresses using programmatic methods
  • Never shares e-mail addresses with any other organizations

Privacy Policy Updates
American Land Conservancy may occasionally update this policy. All revisions will be posted to this web site and any revised Privacy Policy will apply only to data collected subsequent to its effective date.

Last revised: January 2009