Privacy Policy

Effective Date: July 24, 2026

AFC Scholarship Fund (“AFC SF,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains our practices regarding the personal information we collect through our website, including when you make a donation, sign up to receive communications, participate in our SMS program, use our interactive tools, or otherwise interact with us through the website, and how we collect, use, disclose, and protect that information. We may update or change this Privacy Policy at any time. When we do, we will update the effective date above.

A. Personal Information

We collect personal information in two ways: information you provide to us directly, and information we collect automatically when you use our websites.

Information you provide. Your personal information is collected on a voluntary basis when you complete the “Contact Us” form, sign up for our newsletter, use one of our interactive tools (such as a tax-credit or impact calculator), fill out a “Take Action” form, opt in to receive SMS communications, or contribute through the donation form. Depending on the activity, you may be asked for your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, state of residence, income information, tax filing status, and — for donations — payment information. You can decline to provide this information, though it may prevent you from participating in certain activities.

Information collected automatically. When you visit our websites, we and our analytics providers automatically collect certain technical and usage information, such as your device and browser type, IP address, pages viewed, links clicked, referring website, and the marketing campaign (if any) that brought you to us. For non-essential online tracking technologies, we will only use such technologies in a manner consistent with the choices you have made through our cookie consent tool (see “Your Privacy Choices” below).

B. Analytics, Tag Management, and Advertising Technologies

We use analytics and tag-management technologies to measure and improve our websites, and advertising technologies to deliver and measure our campaigns.

Customer data platform. We use a customer data platform and related customer relationship management and marketing technologies to collect website and interaction events and route them to our other systems. This activity is governed by the choices you make through our cookie consent tools and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.
Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager. We use GA4 (managed through Google Tag Manager) to measure site usage. Where you have not consented to analytics or advertising cookies, these tools operate in a consent-limited mode that provides us only aggregated, non-identifying measurement. More about how Google uses information from sites that use its services: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Advertising platforms (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising/Bing, Meta). We run and measure paid advertising campaigns using advertising tags and pixels on our websites (such as the Google Ads tag, the Microsoft UET tag, and the Meta Pixel, including server-side conversion measurement), which share online identifiers (such as cookie or device identifiers) and on-site activity with these platforms to measure conversions and deliver our ads to relevant audiences. We may also provide your email address or phone number to certain advertising platforms for audience matching and related advertising purposes, in accordance with the choices you make through our cookie consent tools and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

We use this information to improve our websites, measure our outreach, and determine the content we show or send you.

C. Our Service Providers

We disclose personal information with service providers who process it on our behalf. The main categories are:

Analytics and data infrastructure — to collect website events and maintain a central record of supporter and donor data.
Customer relationship management — to manage supporter and donor relationships and organize our outreach.
Email and text messaging — to send newsletters, updates, and campaign messages.
Donation processing — to process and receipt donation. Donations are made through FundraiseUp, our donation platform, and payments are processed by Stripe. Payment-card details are collected and stored by Stripe, our payment processor; they are not stored by FundraiseUp or on AFC SF systems.
Scholarship administration and verification partners — where you direct a donation to a particular fund, school, or program, we share aggregated or grouped information regarding donation totals, designated funds, states, schools, and scholarship partners.

We do not authorize these providers to use your information for their own marketing purposes. We may also disclose personal information to comply with legal obligations or legal requests, to enforce our contracts, protect the rights of others or us, as you direct us to, or in connection with a reorganization of our entities or transaction involving our assets.

D. Profiling and Automated Processing

We analyze information we hold about supporters — including website activity, the content you engage with, and your giving history — to estimate your likely level of interest (intent scoring), identify the topics most relevant to you, and prioritize our outreach. These activities, which include the use of predictive (“propensity”) models, constitute “profiling” under applicable state privacy laws.

We do not use profiling to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you without human involvement, and we do not use it to determine eligibility for any scholarship.

E. Text Messaging (SMS)

If you opt in to text messages, we will send recurring campaign and program SMS messages to the number you provide. SMS consent is separate from email and any other sign-up: it is its own, specific choice, and we will not enroll you in text messaging based only on a form submission or an email subscription. Message and data rates may apply. You may opt out at any time by replying “STOP”; reply “HELP” for help.

Your participation in our SMS program is also governed by our Mobile Terms & Conditions, which describe the SMS program, including enrollment, message frequency, opt-out procedures, and other terms applicable to the program.

F. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookie and similar technologies to operate and improve the website, remember your preferences, analyze website usage, understand how visitors interact with the website, measure the effectiveness of our communications and outreach, and support certain website functionality. When you first visit, our consent management tool (Cookiebot) allows you to accept or decline non-essential cookies, including analytics and advertising cookies. You may change your choice at any time through the cookie settings link on our site, and you may set your browser to refuse cookies. If you decline or disable cookies, some parts of the site may not function properly.

We honor recognized browser-based opt-out signals, including the Global Privacy Control (GPC). When we detect a GPC signal, advertising and sale/sharing categories start turned off, we display a confirmation that the signal has been honored, and we do not pre-select “accept all”; you remain free to make granular choices, but no action is needed to keep the opt-out in effect.

We also use essential cookies and tracking technologies for security purposes on our website.

G. How We Use Personal Information

In addition to the purposes described above, we may also use personal information for the following purposes:

to provide you with services and to otherwise operate our organization;
to provide information about our organization and activities, including updates and notifications;
to assist us in improving the content of this website;
to contact you to participate in a research survey;
for our own marketing and research purposes;
to make the website easier to use by eliminating the need for you to repeatedly enter the same information or by customizing the website to your particular interests or preferences;
to analyze information for trends and statistics;
to comply with our legal obligations or requests from law enforcement and government agencies;
to enforce or protect the terms, rights, property, safety, or that of our users or third parties; and
as part of due diligence for, or the consummation of, a transaction involving our organization.

H. Your Privacy Choices and Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights regarding your personal information:

to request access to the personal information we maintain about you;
to request that we correct or delete your personal information, where appropriate; or
to opt out of receiving marketing emails or messages.

How to exercise these choices:

Cookies and tracking: use the Cookiebot settings on our site, or enable Global Privacy Control in your browser.
Email: use the unsubscribe link in any message.
Text messages: reply “STOP.”

Requests regarding your personal information (including request to access, correction, opt out of marketing messages): contact us at [email protected]. We will verify your request as required by law and will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

I. Children’s Privacy

Our website is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will take reasonable steps to delete such information.

J. Data Security

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information. Donations made through our website are transmitted over a secure (SSL) connection, and payment-card information is handled by our payment processor and is not stored on AFC SF systems.