At Horizons for Homeless Children (“Horizons”) we believe in the importance of your privacy and strive to manage your personal information accordingly.
Horizons provides donors, volunteers, families, and other visitors to its website and other websites from where it receives information (collectively, “Users”) with clear, prominent, and easily accessible information about its privacy practices. This Privacy Policy applies to information we collect about you through our website or other tools that we use to obtain personal information from you (collectively, the “Site”) and anywhere else we interact with you (collectively, our “Services”). By using the Site or sharing your information with us in connection with any of our Services, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.
This policy applies only to Users located in the United States. If you are not located in the United States and if you do not consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy, you are not authorized to use the Site or Services.
The Site is not intended to be used by anyone under the age of 18 except for persons who are at least 16 years old and desire to fill out a volunteer application form on the Site. If you are younger than 18, you are not authorized to use the Site without the consent of a parent or guardian.
This Privacy Policy may be supplemented or amended from time to time by additional privacy notices posted on the Site. These privacy notices may provide a level of detail that we cannot provide in this more general description of our privacy practices. For example, certain pages of the website may contain privacy notices providing details about the Personal Information we collect on those pages, why we need that information, and choices you may have about the ways we use that information.
Horizons instructs its employees and third-party servicers to manage your personal information properly and maintain your trust. We are accountable for complying with this policy and take reasonable and timely steps to ensure compliance.
This Privacy Policy describes:
For purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked to, directly or indirectly, a particular individual, beneficiary, or household, including biometric information, but excludes Excluded Information. “Excluded Information” means:
We may use Deidentified Information and Aggregate Information for any legal purpose, including without limitation for any purpose for which we use Personal Information.
Horizons uses your information to provide programs and services, and to support its core functions. These include processing of Users’ information for donations, authentication, marketing, reporting, and legal functions. Some examples include:
Our Site may share information with companies that provide support services to us (such as web hosts) or that help us market our products and services (such as email vendors). These companies may need information about you in order to perform their functions. These companies are not authorized to use the information we share with them for any other purpose.
Except as otherwise stated above, we will not publish or provide your e-mail address or other Personal Information to third parties without your consent.
We collect Personal Information using lawful and fair methods. We strive to limit the amount of Personal Information collected to support the intended purpose of the collection. The following are categories of Personal Information we have collected about you and which we may continue to collect. We use this information for the purposes described below and disclose the information to third parties who provide services to us for our legitimate business purposes, such as email providers, automated text-based A2P messaging (SMS), and for the purpose of improving our programs and services to you and for the purpose of distributing our marketing and advertising materials.
A. Individual identifiers including email, password, phone number, internet protocol address, real name, alias, postal address, financial information including but not limited to credit card or banking information
Directly from you through the Site when you make donations or interact with our Services or the Site
Directly from you when you communicate with us, including through online submissions, family enrollment, volunteer applications, by phone, or by email
From third parties who provide us with information of families that may be interested in the services that we provide to you
From third parties who provide us with marketing and advertising services, including assessment of the use of the Site
From our business partners who collaborate with us to enhance our services or program offerings to the families that we serve and may serve
B. Biometric information regarding biological characteristics or activity patterns and visual images
Visual images from on-premises security cameras
C. Internet or network activity, including cookies, web beacons, and information on your interaction with the Site
Directly from your interaction with the Site, and through cookies, trackers and beacons.
From third party advertising vendors and information providers
D. Professional or employment related information
Directly from staff for employment purposes, including but not limited to benefits administration and payroll
Directly from you through our new volunteer applications
We share the categories of Personal Information listed below with third parties for the purpose of complying with applicable state and local laws and requirements and for providing mass communications and general updates relating to our business. We do not share your Personal Information with third parties for their marketing or promotional purposes, but we may share your Personal Information for charitable fundraising purposes and third parties may provide us with information about you which we may use for our own marketing or promotional purposes.
We never sell your Personal Information.
A. Individual identifiers including email and real name, and which may include phone number, postal address, and, if voluntarily provided, your age
B. If enrolled in Horizons programs, individual’s family information to comply with applicable state and local laws, to comply with financial assistance policies of our business partners and public funders, and to enable researchers to conduct collaborative research efforts to improve our services
We receive Personal Information about you from third party sources such as statewide emergency assistance shelter systems to potentially enroll families into our services. We also may receive Personal Information about you from third party service providers who help us with our marketing efforts, and we may receive Personal Information about you from third party service providers who screen and train our potential new volunteers. Additional examples of these sources are entities that can help us correct our records and help improve our services.
Some Personal Information is collected about you through automated sources, including through website cookies, on-premises security cameras, use of our wi-fi services, and website monitoring.
Cookies are pieces of information that are stored by your hard drive, logging specific aspects of your visits to a particular website. We may use cookies to help us improve your experience on the Site by tracking which areas of the Site are the most and least popular. We never use cookies to store confidential information such as passwords or credit card information.
Please know that cookies enable us to recognize you from page to page. We use “cookies” to recognize you when you use or return to the Site. This is done so that we can provide a continuous and more personalized experience for you.
You can manage your cookie options by using the cookie selection tool that we provide when you first arrive at the Site. You can also acquire more information regarding cookies and cookie selection by visiting https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.
If you would like to opt out of accepting cookies altogether, you can generally set your browser to not accept cookies or to notify you when you are sent a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it. However, certain features of the Site may not work if you delete or disable cookies.
We may also use web beacons. Beacons allow us to know if a certain page was visited or an email was opened were effective.
We operate cameras in our office (the “Office”) located at 1785 Columbus Avenue, Roxbury, MA 02119, for security and operational purposes. When used for operational purposes, we do not use these cameras to identify you personally.
If you choose to use our Wi-Fi technology, we may track certain device information, like device type and IP address, as necessary for us to provide Wi-Fi service within our premises.
We may use tools that monitor and manage interactions with the Site and our online marketing strategies. We do not control how these tools use your Personal Information. These tools may have privacy policies and you may visit the relevant privacy policy to exercise your options with respect to collection, the use of your information, and how to opt-out.
Horizons does not sell or rent your Personal Information to third parties. We may disclose or share your Personal Information, whether you are a current or former User, for our own business purposes, under the following limited circumstances:
Public Funders
We may disclose Personal Information about you and your family, as applicable, to public funders who provide us with reimbursement for childcare vouchers. Except as legally required, such public funders are prohibited from using or sharing your information for any other purpose.
Business Partners
We may disclose information about you to business partners such as Action for Boston Community Development and Boston Public Schools, who further enhance and support our business operations and our business purpose. Such business partners are prohibited from using or sharing your information for any purposes other than to support our business operations, to support our business purpose or as legally required. Such business partners may share information in an anonymized format.
Research Partners
We may disclose information about you to our research partners, who use the information to enhance and support our business operations and our business purpose. Such research partners may analyze the information and inform us of ways to improve our services. Such research partners are prohibited from using or sharing your information for any purpose other than to conduct research that supports our business operations, to support our business purpose, or as legally required.
Service Providers
We may disclose information about you to third party vendors that we engage to perform our operations. Examples are automated text-based A2P messaging tools such as Twilio or Microsoft Teams, credit card processors, and companies that help us improve our programs, the Site, and our ability to communicate effectively with our Users. We require these service providers to keep the information secure. We also prohibit them from using your information for any purposes other than those requested by us.
Links to Third Party Sites
The Site provides links to third party websites for purposes such as processing donations, or providing information that may be of interest to those who visit the Site. While we make efforts to choose our service providers and links carefully, we cannot take responsibility for the content of linked websites or for the privacy policies of websites to which we link. Since we do not control those websites, we encourage you to review the privacy policies on those websites prior to any use.
Legal Requirements and Protection of Our Company and Others
We may disclose your information in other special circumstances. These include sharing your information with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for anti-fraud purposes and in situations when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or that the disclosure is necessary to protect the safety, property, or other rights of Horizons, our Users, or any other person. Examples also include protecting the health or safety of Users or addressing crimes committed on Horizons’ property. Data from our office’s security cameras may also be provided to law enforcement upon written request.
Aggregate Information
We may use and share aggregate and statistical data that does not identify you personally. We may do this to provide reports to public sector funders, research universities, or governmental authorities. We may also share aggregated data for research purposes, for instance to describe our Services to prospective partners and donors and for other lawful purposes.
Business Transfers
If Horizons merges with another organization or if another party acquires substantially all of our assets or the assets related to any particular service offering, your Personal Information may be one of the transferred assets. We may disclose or transfer your Personal Information to a third party in connection with any merger, acquisition, dissolution or other transaction or proceeding that involves the sale, transfer, divestiture, or disclosure of all or a portion of Horizons or its assets. Any recipient of such Personal Information will be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy.
We want to communicate with you in ways you find useful. We use the following standards for communications:
By providing Horizons with your email address, you are giving us permission to send you electronic communications. We will not rent or sell your email address at any time. We may share your information for the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy. You may opt out of receiving our emails by following the unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of any correspondence we send, or by emailing us at development@horizonschildren.org or by sending postal mail to the address below. Please note that it may take up to 5 days to process your email request and 30 days for your postal mail request.
Please be aware that, even if you have opted out of receiving communications from us, we may still contact you to provide any urgent real-time scheduling updates or as needed for our business operations.
Please also note that your opt-out status may expire 12 months from your submittal or if you revoke it. You will then need to re-submit your opt-out request.
In order to keep donors informed, Horizons may send newsletters via emails, direct mail appeals, and 1:1 text messages. In order to keep families and volunteers informed, Horizons may send emails, direct mail, 1:1 text messages, automated text messages through A2P messaging tools such as Twilio or Microsoft Teams to provide program specific updates. Message frequency varies.
The forms of communication are as follows:
For volunteers, by providing us with your phone number through the volunteer application and after completing the training, you can opt-in to receive program-specific information via automated text messages from A2P messaging tools. You may revoke consent for automated communications at any time by responding to the automated text message with the word STOP or similar words as instructed by such text message.
For families, either receiving or on the waitlist to receive our services, by providing us with your phone number, you will be opted-in to receive program specific information via automated text messages from A2P messaging tools. You may revoke consent for automated communications at any time by responding to the automated text message with the word STOP or similar words as instructed by such text message.
If you have any questions, please call 617-553-5454 and select “development” as the extension you’d like to reach.
We retain your Personal Information for the period reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in the Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. Where there may be technical or other operational reasons where we are unable to fully delete your Personal Information, we will take reasonable measures to prevent further processing of your information.
Securing your information is an organization priority. Horizons has implemented reasonable physical and digital security measures to prevent unauthorized access to transmitted and stored information. The Site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. We follow generally accepted standards to protect the Personal Information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. When you make a donation online, these transactions are handled by our third-party servicer to which we link and Horizons does take possession of your credit card information. Therefore, Horizons disclaims any responsibility for such credit card information and other information handled by our third-party servicers. We may change our hosting, storage and security procedures at any time without notice to you.
Personal Information that is maintained in our Office is subject to physical, administrative, and technical controls as well. Hard copies of Personal Information are maintained in locked locations or cabinets with similar restrictions for electronic storage of Personal Information. When disposed of, the information is shredded, destroyed, erased, or otherwise made unreadable.
If you have provided us with Personal Information and would like to change, correct, or request access to your Personal Information, or would like to opt out of receiving e-mail, text, or other communications from us, please contact us as described herein.
Personal Information that is maintained in our Office is subject to physical, administrative, and technical controls as well. Hard copies of Personal Information are maintained in locked locations or cabinets with similar restrictions for electronic storage of Personal Information. When disposed of, the information is shredded, destroyed, erased, or otherwise made unreadable.
We will not knowingly solicit or collect personally identifiable information from visitors to the Site who are under the age of 16. Users between the ages of 16 and 18 cannot disclose any personally identifiable information without the contemporaneous consent of a parent or guardian. We encourage families to obtain additional information about safe use of the Internet at https://www.ftc.gov/. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that any of your children has provided us with personal information without your consent, please contact us at legal@horizonschildren.org and we will take steps to remove that information.
If you are contacting us to exercise any of your privacy rights, or if you have any questions or comments about this policy or about the ways your information is handled, please contact us: online, directly through at this email address Development@horizonschildren.org, by phone at 617-553-5454 and select “development” as the extension you’d like to reach, or via the address below:
Horizons for Homeless Children
ATTENTION: Development Office
1785 Columbus Avenue
Roxbury, MA 02119
Updated and Effective May, 2024
© 2024 Horizons for Homeless Children, All Rights Reserved