Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is intended to help you understand how and why we collect, use, and share your information. It also explains how you can update, manage, and delete your information as you wish.  

Information we collect from you

In order to provide more relevant and rewarding experiences, VGA may request of you:

  • Demographic Information that you choose to provide, such as your age, gender, and ethnicity in order to better serve our diverse community

  • Organization, institution, and other memberships, in order to connect you with these or similar organizers

  • Location Information, if you choose to share it with us, to show you volunteering opportunities near you

  • Payment Information, to process donations or other payments that you may choose to make

  • Background check verification status, if you request a background check

In order to make your volunteering experience as seamless as possible, we also partner with several background check providers. If you choose to use these services, one of these providers may collect information directly from you. Their use of your information will be governed by separate policies available on their websites. 

VGA may also collect certain information from your device or browser as you use our services. Examples of the types of information we may collect and the purpose for which we may use this information include:

  • Information about your device or browser, to ensure that our services are optimized for your device. This information may include your IP address, browser type and settings, device type and settings, operating system, mobile network information including carrier name and phone number, and application version number. 

  • Unique identifiers, to protect your security, remember your preferences, or personalize our services to you.

  • Information about your interaction with our services, in order to remember your preferences, personalize our services to you, or connect you with organizers. This information may include the volunteer opportunities you’ve searched for, viewed, shared, or saved.

How we use your information

In addition to the examples provided above, we may use your information for additional purposes including to:

  • Provide and personalize our services to you, including by providing customized content or opportunity search results 

  • Offer recognition for your volunteer efforts, which may include celebration of your stories

  • Maintain and improve our services, for example by troubleshooting problems or otherwise ensuring our services are working as intended  

  • Develop new features or services to provide you with a more rewarding, productive experience

  • Measure performance by collecting aggregated statistics, in order to better understand how visitors are using our services

  • Communicate with you via SMS, email, or push notifications, if you give us permission to do so

  • Protect the safety and security of our community members and our services by detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud, abuse, security risks, or other technical issues

How we share your information

Your data is, of course, your data. You can choose with whom to share it and if you no longer wish to share it. We don’t share any of your identifiable information with any entity associated with VGA or any Third Party outside of VGA without your permission. 

We also are enthusiastic to promote the benefits that you will experience if you choose to share identifiable and anonymized data through VGA. These benefits apply to you, to the organizations you support, and to the collective global service ecosystem. In order to provide you with these benefits, we may share the following information with these audiences: You are in control of sharing your identifiable data with these audiences:

Audiences within the VGA network:

Organizers:

  • If you volunteer with an organization, the organization and its authorized users can see certain fields of your user profile, such as contact information, background check status, Affiliations, emergency contact, specific data points the organizer requests of you and you provide to the organizer, and that you have indicated you plan to attend an opportunity.

  • If you enable location permissions, the organization will know if you attend, how long you attend, or if you do not attend.

  • If you do not enable location permissions, the organization may mark you as having attended or not attended from their Dashboard.

  • If you cancel a reservation, the organization will know that you have cancelled and will not record you as having attended.

  • If you donate to an organization, they will see your user profile and the details of your donation.

  • Groups are used only by organizers to separate privately-managed audiences; you cannot join a group on your own.

  • An organizers’ Groups may be separated according to skill, experience, certification, interest, or other meaningful classifications.

  • Being in a group can allow you to see and become eligible to participate in certain opportunities organized by that organizer.

  • An organizer can add or remove you from a Group from their Dashboards.

Affiliations:

  • These are entities with which you have an established relationship, such that you would like to see which opportunities they recommend or list privately for approved volunteers, and with whom you would like to receive credit for your contributions.

  • Affiliation is a double-opt-in relationship, meaning you must request to be an Affiliate, and the Administrator of the Affiliate Entity must confirm your status as an Affiliate.

  • Common examples of Affiliations are your employer, school, place of worship, or a special interest club.

  • If you are an Affiliate, you give permission to that entity to see where you go to volunteer, how much you volunteer, how much you donate, and feedback on your activities from all the organizations you support.

  • Either you or the Affiliate may remove your status as an Affiliate through your Settings or their Dashboard.

Anonymized Statistics Subscribers:

  • VGA offers a service to certain members such that they may be able to see anonymous data about forms of engagement through VGA.

  • Examples of Anonymized Statistics Subscribers include policy makers and foundations who are interested to know market trends, like popular days of week to volunteer or postal codes where volunteering is being completed, so they can direct their resources toward advancing their missions.

  • Anonymous data subscribers will never know if your profile exists with VGA or what data it may contain.

  • We reserve the right to publish certain anonymized data trends we believe may offer a public benefit.

Third Parties beyond VGA:

Technical Infrastructure Providers:

  • VGA licenses technology solutions from these providers in order to support our ecosystem.

  • Examples of Infrastructure Providers include cloud hosting, databases, analytics services, communication distributors, mapping solutions, and payment processing.

  • In most cases these services are fundamental and inseparable from the experience of digitally interacting with VGA, but in certain cases you can opt into using features that take advantage of their specific benefits.

  • All information is always stored securely, and, in most cases, anonymously.

  • Technical Infrastructure Providers are prohibited from contacting you directly or using contact you directly or use Data for their own business purposes.


External Data Sources:

  • By registering with VGA, you agree that VGA may enrich your profile information, based on the information you provide us, to offer you a more complete and tailored user experience.

  • An example of enrichment is using an organization’s website to pull publicly available information like address and FEIN, so you don’t have to take the time to enter it in your profile yourself.

  • Should you choose to authorize a background check through VGA, VGA will contact the issuing agencies in order to procure your records.

Data transfer and storage

In order to provide our services efficiently and effectively, we may transfer your data for storage and processing to other jurisdictions whose privacy laws are different from your own. When doing so, we will observe all applicable privacy laws relating to the transfer and storage of your data.

In general, we delete your data from our systems within a reasonable time after you ask us to or when we no longer need your data to provide our services to you. In some cases, we may need to retain your data for longer periods of time for legal reasons or for other limited purposes such as security, fraud, and abuse prevention.

Your privacy choices

You are in control of the data you provide to VGA and our partners. There are no settings within VGA that share any of your personal information by default. Data is only produced when you choose to engage in some way through VGA, and, in each case, your data is only shared with the party you contact or authorize. We secure your information and our infrastructure consistent with industry practice and the capability of available technology.

When you log in to a VGA product, we may save your settings and certain other data using authentication, cookies, or other common tools. You can choose whether or not to allow cookies for these conveniences through your web browser or operating system. As you enjoy VGA, you can always control your privacy options from the My Account and Settings sections of our products, including by accessing, correcting, or deleting your information. Should you care to access, correct, or delete all of your data from VGA, please send a written request to volunteergroupsalliance@gmail.com, and your historical data will be erased.