CanadaHelps Privacy Policy

Last Update: April 30, 2024

CANADAHELPS CANADON (“CanadaHelps”, “we”, or “us”) values and respects your privacy. We have prepared this privacy policy to explain the manner in which we collect, use, and disclose personal information when you visit our websites located at www.CanadaHelps.org, www.UniteForChange.com and www.charitygrowthacademy.org (the “Websites”), donate to one of our causes or partners, participate in one of our programs or otherwise interact with us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Collection and Use of Personal Information
  2. Sharing of Personal Information
  3. Information About Our Websites
  4. Interest-Based Advertising
  5. Safeguards and Retention
  6. Your Choices
  7. Updates to The Privacy Policy
  8. Contact Us
  9. Our Privacy Policies and Practices

1. COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

CanadaHelps is a registered Canadian charity that operates under the brands “CanadaHelps” and “Unite for Change”. We also provide a variety of services to facilitate the fundraising efforts of other registered charities and organizations in Canada.

Information we process in connection with providing services to our clients:

For some services we provide to our clients, we may process donor information on our clients’ behalf such as name, email address, home or billing address, and donation and donation amount. We use this information to deliver the services our clients have requested, such as donor management, event management, and marketing services. Our clients are responsible for providing all required notices, obtaining all necessary consents, and otherwise complying with applicable privacy laws with respect to the collection, transfer, and use of the information by us in order to provide our services to them.

If your organization uses our services, we may collect personal information about you such as your full name, role, organization name, email address, and password in order to create an account for your organization and deliver our services to your organization.

Information we collect and use through our Websites and other interactions:

We may collect personal information when you:

Donations and Fundraising:

If you choose to donate to CanadaHelps, one of our cause funds or charitable partners, or purchase a charity gift card, we may collect information such as your full name, email address, home address, and payment card information or other banking/financial information (depending on the manner in which you donate) for the purposes of accepting your donation or facilitating your transaction and issuing you a tax receipt. All donations are made directly to CanadaHelps for the purpose of issuing tax receipts. CanadaHelps transfers the donated amount (minus its non-commercial service fee) to the registered charity selected by the donor (unless, of course, your donation is intended by you to be to CanadaHelps alone, in which case your donation in support of our activities is gratefully received and retained by CanadaHelps in its entirety).

Create an Account:

You may be able to create an account on our Websites to view your past and ongoing donations. In order to create and administer your account and authenticate you, we will collect your email address (i.e., your username) and a password that you create. You will also have the option to add information to your account profile, such as your full name, address, payment information, and organization. You are required to keep your username and password secure and not share it with anyone else. We will never ask you for your password in any unsolicited communication (such as letters, phone calls, or email messages).

Payment:

If you make a donation to a cause fund, charity, or CanadaHelps, we (or our authorized third-party payment processor) will collect your full name and payment information (including billing address, credit card number, expiry date, and CVV code) in order to process the donation and enable CanadaHelps to provide you with a tax receipt (if applicable).

Communications:

If you sign up to receive email communications, we will collect your email address in order to send you information about us. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link included at the bottom of each email. Alternatively, you can opt-out of receiving email communications by contacting us at the contact information provided in the “Contact Us” section below. Please note that you may continue to receive transactional or account-related communications from us.

We may use services provided by third-party platforms (such as social media and other websites) to serve targeted advertisements on such platforms to you or others, and we may provide a hashed version of your email address or other information to the platform provider for such purposes. To opt out of the use of your information for such purposes, please send a request using any of the methods set forth in the Contact Us section below.

Contests and Promotions:

When you enter a contest or participate in a promotion, we may collect your name, address, email address, phone number, and any additional information or content required for the contest or promotion, including to deliver a prize to you, or that you otherwise provide. We use this information to administer the contest or promotion.

Surveys:

From time to time, we may offer you the opportunity to participate in one of our surveys on an optional basis. We use the information collected through our surveys to help us understand our donors’ needs and interests and to develop and improve our programs and Websites.

Events:

If you attend one of our events or webinars, we may collect your full name, email address, city, province, postal code, country, phone number, and any other information you may provide us in connection with the event or webinar. We collect this information so that we can communicate with you about the event and contact you about future events.

Contact Us:

When you contact us with a comment, question, or complaint through email or telephone, you may be asked for information that identifies you, such as your name, address, and a telephone number, along with additional information we need to help us promptly answer your question or respond to your comment or complaint. We may retain this information to assist you in the future and to improve our services and programs. In addition, we may monitor and record our telephone conversations with you for documentation, training, and quality assurance purposes.

Non-Identifiable Information:

We may modify or aggregate your personal information such that it cannot reasonably be associated with you to conduct research and/or analytics with the goal of improving our programs and initiatives and developing new offerings. We may share such non-identifiable information or insights with certain limited third parties to assist in analytics, planning, or programming and service development.

If you provide CanadaHelps with the personal information of another individual, you represent that you have obtained all necessary consents from such person, or otherwise have legal authority to share this information, to enable us to collect, use, and disclose such personal information for the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy.

2. SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We do not sell or disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent, except as set forth below or as required or permitted by law.

Donations:

With your consent, we will share your full name, contact information, and donation amount with the charity or cause fund you donated to. If you donate funds to a team or individual raising funds for a particular cause, with your consent we will post your name, donation amount, and any message you choose to publish on the team or individual’s fundraising page and share your name and email address with the page owner. In addition, if you make a donation and provide consent, we may display your name, message, and donation amount on our Websites or share your name and email address with any individual with whom you choose to share your information through our Website.

Fundraising/Outreach:

We may share certain information in an aggregated, non-identifiable form for the purposes of fundraising and/or outreach.

Service Providers:

Your personal information will be transferred (or otherwise made available) to certain third parties that provide services on our behalf. We use service providers to provide services such as hosting the Websites, processing payments, and providing analytics advertising, and marketing services. Our service providers are only provided with the information they need to perform their designated functions and are not authorized to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes. We and our service providers may access, store, and otherwise process personal information outside of Canada (and, for residents of Quebec, outside of Quebec), including in the United States, where we or our service providers are located.

Legal and Compliance:

We and our Canadian, U.S., and other foreign service providers may disclose your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, or to another organization for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law or detecting, suppressing or preventing fraud, or as otherwise may be required or permitted by applicable Canadian, U.S. or other law or legal process, which may include lawful access by U.S. or foreign courts, law enforcement or other government authorities. Your personal information may also be disclosed where necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspected loss or harm to persons or property.

3. INFORMATION ABOUT OUR WEBSITES

Visiting our Websites:

In general, you can visit our Websites without telling us who you are or submitting any personal information. However, we collect the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of all visitors to our Websites and other related information, such as page requests, browser type, operating system, and average time spent on our Websites. We use this information to help us understand website activity and to monitor and improve our Websites.

Cookies:

Our Websites use a technology called “cookies”. A cookie is a tiny element of data that our Websites send to a user’s browser, which may then be stored on the user’s hard drive so that we can recognize the user’s computer or device when they return. You may set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to not accept certain cookies. However, if you decide not to accept cookies from our Websites, you may not be able to take advantage of all of the Website’s features.

Analytics:

We may use a third party such as Google Analytics to help us gather and analyze information about the areas visited on the Website (such as the pages most read, time spent, search terms, and other engagement data) in order to evaluate and improve the user experience and the Website. These third parties may use cookies and other tracking technologies. For more information about Google Analytics or to prevent the storage and processing of this data (including your IP address) by Google, you can download and install the browser plug-in available at the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. You can also obtain additional information on Google Analytics’ data privacy and security at the following links:

https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites and
https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/2919631.

Third-Party Links:

Our Websites may contain links to other websites that CanadaHelps does not own or operate. We provide links to third-party websites as a convenience to the user. These links are not intended as an endorsement of or referral to the linked websites. The linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, notices, and terms of use. We do not have any control over such websites, and therefore we have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose, secure, and otherwise treat personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

4. INTEREST-BASED ADVERTISING

We work with third parties such as ad networks and other advertising companies that use their own tracking technologies (including cookies and pixel tags) on our Websites in order to provide you with tailored advertisements across the Internet. These companies may collect information about your activity on our Websites and third-party websites (such as web pages you visit and your interaction with our advertising and other communications) and use this information to make predictions about your preferences, develop personalized content, and deliver ads that are more relevant to you on third-party websites. This information may also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of our online advertising campaigns.

Opting Out of Interest-Based Advertising:

For more information about interest-based advertising and to understand your options, including how you can opt out of receiving behavioural ads from third-party advertising companies participating in the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada, please visit the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada website at http://youradchoices.ca/choices.

Please note that even if you opt out of interest-based advertising by a third party, these tracking technologies may still collect data for other purposes, including analytics, and you will still see ads from us, but the ads will not be targeted based on behavioural information about you and may therefore be less relevant to you and your interests.

To successfully opt out, you must have cookies enabled in your web browser (see your browser’s instructions for information on cookies and how to enable them). Your opt-out only applies to the web browser you use so you must opt out of each web browser on each device you use. Once you opt-out, if you delete your browser’s saved cookies, you will need to opt out again.

5. SAFEGUARDS AND RETENTION

We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical, and physical measures in an effort to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss, and unauthorized access, use, modification, and disclosure. We restrict access to personal information on a need-to-know basis to employees and authorized service providers who require access to fulfill their job requirements.

We have record retention processes designed to retain personal information for no longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy or as otherwise required to meet legal or business requirements.

6. YOUR CHOICES

Communications

As indicated above, if you have signed up to receive our email communications, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link included at the bottom of the email. Alternatively, you can opt out of receiving our email communications by contacting us using the contact information under “Contact Us” below.

Exercising Your Privacy Rights

Subject to applicable law, you have the right to access, update and correct inaccuracies in, and withdraw consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information in our custody or control. You may make such a request or withdraw your consent by emailing or writing to us using the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information for the purpose of verifying your identity.

To opt out of interest-based advertising, see the “Interest-Based Advertising” section above.

7. UPDATES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this privacy policy periodically to reflect changes to our privacy practices. We encourage you to periodically review this page to ensure you are familiar with those changes. We will indicate at the top of this privacy policy when it was most recently updated.

8. CONTACT US

If you have any questions or comments about this privacy policy or the manner in which we or our service providers (including our service providers outside Canada) treat your personal information, or to exercise any rights in respect of your personal information, please contact us at:

CanadaHelps CanaDon (Att. Privacy Officer)
30 Adelaide St. East 12th Floor
Toronto, ON
M5C 3G8

info@canadahelps.org
Telephone number: 1-877-755-1595

9. OUR PRIVACY POLICIES AND PRACTICES

We are committed to protecting personal information and have implemented policies and practices that govern our treatment of personal information. These policies and procedures include, among other things, the following: