Our
‍Privacy Policy

Our legal name is Scholar Fund, and we also do business as Scholarship Junkies. Scholar Fund (DBA Scholarship Junkies) is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Seattle, WA. Our website is operated in the United States, and the data that we collect will be processed in the United States. 

We collect information, including personal information, that you voluntarily submit to us.
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The type of information that we collect depends on your actions and the context for which the information is provided. For example, if a donor or a website visitor contacts us by email, they may provide us with their email address and name. Similarly, donors may also provide us with their name, additional contact information, and payment information. Providing data is required in these contexts in order for us to process donations, requests, or respond to inquiries. 
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In addition, we may use personal information to keep you updated about our work if you indicate (by giving consent) that you would like us to do so. You can choose to stop receiving marketing/fundraising information by following the unsubscribe instructions included in the materials you receive or by contacting us at privacy@scholarfundwa.org.

Another example is in the case of our relief fund applicants and recipients. Applicants and recipients may provide us with personal information (such as name, address, email address, telephone number, demographic information, and identity and residency verification documents) to allow us to carry out the intended services. In order to disburse funds, we may need to collect specific payment information for our disbursement agent and/or the IRS.
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We may share personal information with third party service providers we work with to perform these functions on our behalf, such as processing credit card payments, understanding an end user’s experience on our website, and sending communications.  In addition to the personal information that you submit to us, we may collect verifying or additional information about you from third parties and/or automatically collect information using web server logs, which may collect certain information such as IP address, pages visited, time of visits, and referring website.

We collect information primarily to carry out our services. Additional ways we may use your information:

• to provide you with the information or services you have requested, and communicate with you in general
• to analyze, evaluate, and improve our work, programs, services, activities or information
• to provide updates on our work and request donations
• to invite you to talks and events hosted by us
• to accept donations and thank donors for their support
• to administer any financial transaction between us
• to recruit employees and volunteers
• to ensure we are not contacting people who have told us not to
• to satisfy our contractual, legal, auditing, and relayed obligations 
• for research or analytical purposes to be used to improve user experience or to understand aggregate impact of our services
• for the prevention of fraud or misuse of services
• for the establishment, defense or enforcement of legal claims.

We do not trade, share, or sell information that you provide to us with other organizations who intend to use it only to market their products or services to you. We may disclose aggregate statistics regarding donations or users to third parties, but these statistics do not include any personally identifying information.
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There may be instances in which we share your information with others. We may share your information, for example, in conjunction with your sponsorship of a certain project, as required by law, to comply with valid requests from court orders, to protect our rights, to protect the safety or security of a person, to protect against fraud, criminal acts, or misconduct, to transfer or assign IP and assets to a successor legal entity, and/or with your consent. We may also share your information with third parties that support our ability to provide the services to you or with a successor legal entity. For applicants in the Best Start for Kids child care subsidy program, we may also share your personal information with the King County Department of Community Services for audit purposes.

When appropriate, Scholar Fund only shares aggregate and anonymized information with third parties so as not to include personally identifying information. For example, Scholar Fund submits periodic reports to its clients, but such reports may only include your data at an aggregate-level in de-identified format, such as residence ZIP code, service outcomes, and demographic information.
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Scholar Fund may also share your information with third parties that support our ability to provide the services to you. Such third party vendor services include hosting our donor personal information database, sending communications, modeling data, and processing payments. In addition, Scholar Fund consults third party advisors in making organizational decisions and developing long term plans; these third parties may have access to personal information as needed to perform their functions. Scholar Fund requires that they keep such personal information confidential and that they not use such information for purposes other than as necessary to provide the services to us.

To help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of your personal information, we implement appropriate technical and operational procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect. For example, we secure our machines with mandated encryption protocols to secure our user/company data. We also use industry accepted tools and techniques to protect against unauthorized access to our systems. Additionally, all sensitive information is stored in secure in-house and cloud-based repositories.
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Please be aware that, despite our best efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable and any transmission of personal information is at your own risk.

If you would like to access the data that we received from you, or make corrections to it, you may contact us at the email or mailing addresses provided at the end of this policy.
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If you registered to receive communications from us and subsequently change your mind, you may ask that your name and contact information be removed from our distribution list. 

Personal information that we process shall not be kept for longer than is necessary in connection with the purposes for which it was collected, there is an ongoing legitimate purpose to retain the data (such as contractual obligations or reasonable belief that it is necessary to retain personal information for auditing and/or identity verification purposes), and/or to comply with legal, regulatory, tax, or accounting requirements..

Changes to this privacy statement: We may modify this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be reflected on this website. If we make a material change to this policy that will impact  personal information that you provided to us before the change was made, we will attempt to contact you and obtain your consent to the change.
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Communicating with us: If we need to contact you about the privacy or security of your information, we may do so by email or mail. If you have any questions, concerns, requests, or comments about privacy, you can contact us by email or mail at:
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privacy@scholarfundwa.org
300 Lenora St, PMB 1750, Seattle WA 98121
Last updated: August 18, 2022