Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 22, 2025

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how Crafting the Future ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and safeguards your information when you visit our website, www.craftingthefuture.org (the "Site"), including any other media form, media channel, mobile website, or mobile application related or connected thereto.

Who We Are

Our website address is: https://www.craftingthefuture.org

Crafting the Future is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our mailing address is: P.O. Box 65211, Los Angeles, CA 90065-0211.

For any privacy-specific concerns, you can contact us at info@craftingthefuture.org.

What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It

We collect information from you when you voluntarily provide it to us, such as when you make a donation, sign up for our newsletter, make a purchase, or use our contact form. We also collect some technical data automatically, such as through cookies and analytics.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact Forms and Contact Update Forms

When you use the contact forms on our "Connect" page, we collect the personal data you provide, such as your name, email address, and message. We use this information solely to respond to your inquiries and for customer service purposes. We retain these submissions for up to one year to ensure we have a record of our correspondence, but we do not use this information for marketing purposes unless you separately opt in to our newsletter.

Donation and Newsletter Forms

We use Bloomerang, a third-party service, to process online donations and manage our newsletter subscriptions. When you make a donation or sign up for our newsletter, you provide personal information (such as your name, email address, mailing address, and payment information) directly to Bloomerang.

We use this information to process your donation, maintain records of our donors, send you donation receipts, and send you our newsletter and other communications if you have opted in. Bloomerang’s privacy policy can be viewed at https://bloomerang.co/privacy-policy/.

Shop and E-commerce Data (via WooCommerce)

We collect information about you during the checkout process on our store.

What we collect and store. While you visit our site, we’ll track:

• Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed.
• Location, IP address, and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping.
• Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order.

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details, and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

• Send you information about your account and order.
• Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints.
• Process payments and prevent fraud.
• Set up your account for our store.
• Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes.
• Improve our store offerings.
• Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them.

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email, and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

Cookies

Our site uses cookies to enhance your experience.

• Comments: If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
• Login: If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
• Editing: If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
• Shop: We use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors engage with our site. Google Analytics collects information anonymously, such as your IP address, browser type, and the pages you visit. We use this data to improve our website and marketing efforts. We do not combine this information with personally identifiable information.

You can learn about Google’s practices at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/, and you can opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who We Share Your Data With

We do not sell your personal data. We only share it with third-party service providers who help us operate our website and organization. These include:

• Bloomerang: For processing donations and managing our email lists.
• WooCommerce Payment Processors (e.g., PayPal): We accept payments through services like PayPal. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to them, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information. Please see the privacy policy for the specific payment processor (e.g., the PayPal Privacy Policy) for more details.
• Google Analytics: To analyze website traffic.
• Gravatar: To display profile pictures for comments.
• Spam Detection Services: Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service to prevent spam.

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

Who on Our Team Has Access

Members of our team (such as our Communications Coordinator, Executive Director, and Director of Development) and designated site administrators have access to the information you provide us to fulfill their roles. For example, Administrators and Shop Managers can access:

• Order information like what was purchased, when it was purchased, and where it should be sent.
• Customer information like your name, email address, and billing and shipping information. Our team members have access to this information to help fulfill orders, process refunds, and support you.

How Long We Retain Your Data

We retain data for different periods depending on its purpose:

• Comments: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically.
• Contact Form Submissions: We retain entries for up to one year for customer service purposes.
• Analytics Records: We retain analytics data for 26 months.
• Shop/Purchase Records: We generally store order information for 7 years for tax and accounting purposes. This includes your name, email address, and billing and shipping addresses.
• Donor and Subscriber Records: We retain donor and newsletter subscriber information in our Bloomerang database indefinitely for relationship management, financial records, and to maintain a history of our engagement with you, unless you request its deletion.
• User Profiles: For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What Rights You Have Over Your Data

If you have an account on this site, have left comments, made a purchase, or made a donation, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you.

This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes (such as donation and purchase records for tax purposes).

To make such a request, please contact us at info@craftingthefuture.org.

Where Your Data Is Sent

Your data may be processed and stored on servers located outside of your country or region, including outside the European Union. For example:

• Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
• Our third-party services (like Bloomerang, Google Analytics, and PayPal) operate globally. We rely on the data protection safeguards provided by these third-party services (such as Standard Contractual Clauses or other approved mechanisms) to ensure your data is protected.

How We Protect Your Data

We use a variety of technical and administrative measures to protect your personal data. Our website uses SSL encryption (HTTPS) to protect data transmitted to and from the site. Access to backend systems is restricted to trained team members. While we have taken reasonable steps to secure the personal information you provide to us, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by a "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed.