My Spark Website Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 06/16/2023

This My Spark Website Privacy Policy (the “Website Privacy Policy”) covers information that My Spark (“My Spark”, “we”, “our”, or “us”) collects from users and visitors of websites operated and controlled by My Spark that link to this Website Privacy Policy, including https://mysparkdenver.org (referred to collectively as the “Sites”). This Website Privacy Policy does not apply to other websites that do not link to this Privacy Policy, including https://garycommunity.org.

This Privacy Policy explains: 

Our Privacy Policy is designed to provide transparency into our privacy practices and principles. We’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible, but if you’re not familiar with terms like cookies, IP addresses, pixel tags and browsers, then read about these key terms first. Your privacy is important to us at My Spark and a responsibility we take seriously, so we encourage you to review our Privacy Policy. 

By accessing or using the Sites, you are consenting to the collection, use, disclosure and other handling of your information as described below. If you have any concern about providing information to us or having such information used in any manner permitted in this Privacy Policy, you should not use the Sites.

Quick Reference: 

Types of Information We Collect

How We Use the Information We Collect

Sharing Your Information

Online Analytics, Advertising and Do-Not-Track 

Data Security and Retention

Your Rights 

International Users

Communications from My Spark

Social Media Features 

Third-Party Services

Children

Online Surveys and Feedback

California Privacy Disclosures 

Changes and Updates to This Privacy Policy

Contacting My Spark

Types of Information We Collect

We collect two types of information about you: (1) information that you may choose to voluntarily provide us while using the Site (described below under “Information You Provide to Us”) and (2) information collected automatically as result of your use of the Site (described below under “Information Collected Automatically”). We may also receive information about you from third-party sources (as described below under “Information Received from Third- Party Sources”). 

Information You Provide to Us

You may choose to voluntarily provide certain personal information to us — such as name, telephone number or email address, organization name and organization contact information in order to access certain features of our Site or request information from us. For example, the Site allows you to join our email list, request help from our support team, and indicate interest in being a My Spark provider or participant. To support these activities, we will ask for information about you and/or the organization for which you work.

When you send us a message using the “Contact Us” page or via email, we retain the content of the message, your email address, and any information you provide to us such as your name, phone number, your company, experience with our service, your contact preferences, and the response we send back to you. This helps us manage any follow-up questions you may have, measure how effectively we address your concerns and improve the Sites. Any information retained would be used to assure the delivery of the services or information you requested and to optimize your experience and enhance the quality of the time you spend with us online. When you send us a message using the “Contact Us” page or via email, the email addresses and phone numbers collected are not further used to market to the individual beyond providing the services requested or responding to the requests.

This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us, for our legitimate interest in being able to provide and improve the Site, and to allow us to comply with our legal obligations. Without it, we may not be able to provide you with all the requested services.

Information Collected Automatically 

To provide a personalized and high-quality experience for our users, we (or our service providers) may use various technologies that automatically record or collect certain information from your browser or your device when you use the Site, read our emails or otherwise engage with us. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us, to enable us to comply with legal obligations and given our legitimate interest in being able to provide and improve the Site. For example, this could include the frequency and duration of your visits to the Site (similar to TV ratings that indicate how many people watched a particular show). If you visit the Site on different devices, we may link the information we collect from those different devices to help us provide a consistent service across your different devices or to provide you with relevant My Spark advertisements. If we do combine any automatically collected information with personal information, we will treat the combined information as personal information, and it will be protected as per this Privacy Policy.

The technologies and information we automatically collect include:

This information helps us make decisions about what we should work on next – for example, by showing which features are most (or least) popular. We may use your IP address and share it with third parties to help diagnose problems with our servers, for security purposes, to manage the Sites, to enhance the Sites and services based on usage pattern data, for analytics and for advertising.

Information Received from Third-Party Sources

We may also obtain information, including personal information, from third-party sources to update or supplement the information you provided or we collected automatically. This may include aggregated anonymous information or certain personal information that may be provided to us. If we receive personal information from third parties we will handle it in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If we directly combine information we receive from other third parties with personal information that we collect on the Sites, we will treat the combined information as personal information and handle it in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Additionally, we may use any aggregated anonymous information received by third parties as set forth below under the heading “Aggregated Information and Non-Identifying Information”. Local law may require you to authorize the third-party to share your information with us before we can acquire it. We do not control, supervise, or respond to how third parties providing your information process your personal information, and any information request regarding the disclosure of your personal information to us should be directed to such third-parties.

How We Use the Information We Collect

We use information, including personal information, collected through our Site for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including as set forth above under “Information Collected Automatically”.

In addition, we may use the information, including personal information, we collect for the following purposes: 

We process this information given our legitimate interest in improving the Sites and our users’ experience with it, in protecting the Sites, where necessary for the adequate performance of the contract with you, and to comply with applicable laws. Additionally, we will process your personal information for the purposes listed in this section related to marketing given our legitimate interests in undertaking marketing activities to offer you products and services that may be of your interest. You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by following the unsubscribe instructions included in our marketing communications. 

Sharing Your Information

We don’t sell your personal information to third parties for their promotional purposes. We do not share personal information with third parties except for the limited circumstances set forth in this Privacy Policy, including:

Third-Party Integrations on Our Sites: When you use third-party apps, websites or other services that use, or are integrated with, our Sites, they may receive information about what you post or share. For example, when you share via Facebook or Twitter, these services receive the information that you share through this functionality, and information that you are sharing from our Sites. Information collected by these apps, websites or integrated services is subject to their own terms and policies. 

Service Providers: We do work with vendors, service providers, and other partners to help us provide the Sites and other services by performing tasks on our behalf. These service providers may be located inside or outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”). We may need to share or provide information (including personal information) to them to help them perform these business functions, for example sending emails on our behalf, database management services, database hosting, providing customer support software, and security. We may also authorize these third-party companies to collect information on our behalf. These providers have limited access to your personal information to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are contractually bound to protect and use it only for the purpose for which it was disclosed. Additionally, these partners and service providers must adhere to confidentiality and security obligations in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Analytics Services: We use analytics services, including mobile analytics, to help us understand and improve how the Sites and our service is being used. These services may include third-party analytics providers and may collect, store and use information in order to help us understand things like how often you use the Sites, the events that occur within the Sites, usage, performance data, and from where the application was downloaded. More information can be located below in the Section “Online Analytics, Advertising and Do-Not-Track.”

Business Partners: From time to time, My Spark may partner with other companies to jointly offer products or services. If you purchase or specifically express interest in a jointly-offered product or service from My Spark, we may share information collected in connection with your purchase or expression of interest with our joint promotion partner(s). My Spark does not control our business partners’ use of the information we collect, and their use of the information will be in accordance with their own privacy policies. If you do not wish for your information to be shared in this manner, you may opt not to purchase or specifically express interest in a jointly offered product or service. If you choose to share your information with business partners in the manners described above, your information will be subject to the business partners’ respective privacy statements.

Social Media Platforms: Where permissible according to applicable law, we may share certain limited personal information with social media platforms (such as Google or Facebook) and other websites, applications or partners, to generate leads, drive traffic to our Sites or otherwise market and advertise our products or services on those websites or applications. These processing activities are based on our legitimate interest in undertaking marketing activities to offer you products and services that may be of your interest. These social media platforms with which we may share your personal information are not controlled or supervised by My Spark. Therefore, any questions regarding how your social media platform processes your personal information should be directed to such provider.

Aggregated Information and Non-Identifying Information: We may share aggregated information (information about our users that we combine together so that it no longer identifies or references an individual user) and other de-identified or non-personally identifiable information (such as statistics about visitors, traffic and usage patterns), including with users, partners or the press in order to, for example, demonstrate how the Sites are used, spot industry trends, or to provide marketing materials for My Spark.

Legal Requirements: We may disclose information, including personal information, if we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to comply with the law, such as complying with a subpoena or other legal process. We may need to disclose personal information where, in good faith, we think it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of My Spark, our employees, our community, or others, or to prevent violations of any other agreements entered into by us. This includes, without limitation, exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection or responding to law enforcement and government requests. Where appropriate, we may notify users about the legal requests, unless (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law; (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon My Spark, or its users. In instances where we comply with legal requests without notice for these reasons, we will attempt to notify that user about the request after the fact where appropriate and where we determine in good faith that we are no longer prevented from doing so.

Fraud Protection: We may share information to assist with security operations for scheduled penetration testing, auditing, and continuous improvement of our security practices, including without limitation, exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection. Authorized parties of the information would comply with our current privacy and security policies.

Sharing with My Spark Companies: Over time, My Spark may grow and reorganize. We may share your information, including personal information with affiliates such as a parent company, subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us, in which case we will require those companies to agree to use your personal information in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Change of Control: In the event that all or a portion of My Spark or its assets are acquired by or merged with a third party, or in any other situation where personal information that we have collected from users would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by that third party, we may disclose, share or transfer the information. This Privacy Policy will continue to apply to your information, and any acquirer would only be able to handle your personal information in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy (unless you give consent to a new policy). We will provide you with notice of an acquisition within thirty (30) days following the completion of such a transaction, by posting on our homepage, or by email to your email address that you provided to us. If you do not consent to the use of your personal information by such a successor company, you may request its deletion from the company. We may also make information, including personal information, available to a potential investor or purchaser (or their advisors) in advance of any such transaction completion.

With your consent: Other than the cases above, we won’t disclose your personal information for any purpose unless you consent to it. 

Online Analytics, Advertising and Do-Not-Track

Online Analytics Providers

We may collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools such as Google Analytics, to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Sites and to understand more about the demographics of our users. You can learn more about Google’s practices at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners, and view its currently available opt-out options at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. These third parties use the sorts of technologies described in the “Information Collected Automatically” Section above. The information collected by this technology will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers. A current list of analytics providers that we use is located here.

Advertising Technology Providers

Data about your activities on our Sites may be collected by us or by third-party advertising technology providers for use in delivering online advertising tailored to your individual characteristics, activities, interests and other factors. These ad services may track your online activities over time and across the web by collecting information through automated means, including through the use of the various technologies described above, and they may use this information, and other information they receive from us or other sources, to deliver advertisements to you on our website, our emails, and other websites. We and third-party vendors may use first-party cookies and third-party cookies together, and other automated technologies, and in some cases additional information, (i) to inform, optimize, and serve ads based on past visits to our Sites or other factors and (ii) to report how ad impressions, other uses of ad services, and interactions with these ad impressions and ad services are related to visits to our Sites or other factors.

Please read our Online Tracking Technologies Policy for more details, including how to remove or modify your cookie settings, the various ways to opt-out, and a list of the advertising tracking technologies we use. The opt-outs described in this Privacy Policy or the Online Tracking Technologies Policy do not block or delete cookies, or prevent the use of cookies or other technologies for purposes other than selecting ads based on your interests as inferred by your online behavior. If you opt out, data may still be collected about your web browsing activities and you will still see advertising. Ads may be delivered based on other factors, such as the content of the web page in which they are shown, or demographic information obtained through other means.

Do Not Track Disclosure

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers to inform websites and services that they do not want certain information about their webpage visits collected over time and across websites or online services. However, we do not recognize or respond to browser-initiated DNT signals, as the Internet industry is still working to determine what DNT means, how to comply with DNT, and how to create a common approach to responding to DNT. For more information on “do not track”, please visit www.allaboutdnt.org.

Data Security and Retention

The security of your personal information is important to us. To prevent unauthorized access, disclosure, or improper use of your information, and to maintain data accuracy, we’ve established physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect the personal information we collect. Although we make concerted good faith efforts to maintain the security of personal information, and we work hard to ensure the integrity and security of our systems, no practices are 100% immune, and we can’t guarantee the security of information. Outages, attacks, human error, system failure, unauthorized use or other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time. 

If we learn of a security breach, we will attempt to notify you electronically (subject to any applicable laws) so that you can take appropriate protective steps; for example, we may post a notice on our homepage (https://www.mysparkdenver.org) or elsewhere on the Sites, and may send email to you at the email address you have provided to us. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.

We will retain your personal information for the length of time needed to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

Your Rights

Your Rights 

As you can see, we try to be transparent about what information we collect, so that you can make meaningful choices about how it is used. You may have certain rights relating to your personal information, subject to local data protection laws. Please review local data protection laws for more information. Depending on the applicable laws these rights may include the right to:

If you are a California resident, you may have additional rights as set forth under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended and its implementing regulations (“CCPA”). Please see the Section “California Privacy Disclosures ” for more information if you are a California resident. 

How to Exercise Your Rights 

To exercise your rights, please contact us by using the information in the “Contacting My Spark” section, below. Your personal information may be processed in responding to these rights. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month unless otherwise required by law, and will contact you if we need additional information from you in order to honor your request or verify your identity . Occasionally it may take us longer than a month, taking into account the complexity and number of requests we receive. 

We may reject requests for access, change or deletion that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort (for example, developing a new system or fundamentally changing an existing practice), risk the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup systems). In some cases, we won’t be able to guarantee complete access due to legal restrictions – for example, you will not be allowed to access files that contain information about other users or information that is confidential to us. Where we can provide information access and correction, we will do so for free, except where it would require a disproportionate effort. 

Information that you have shared with others, others have shared about you, or content other users may have copied and stored, is not part of your account and may not be deleted when you delete your account. We aim to maintain our Sites in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction. Because of this, even after you update or delete personal information you have provided us from our Sites, your personal information may be retained in our backup files and archives for a reasonable period of time as necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud detection and prevention and enhancing safety. 

Please note that the withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing activities based on such consent before its withdrawal. My Spark provides users with the opportunity to withdraw consent or ‘opt-out’ of receiving any future marketing communications from My Spark and its partners at any time. Please see the “Communications from My Spark” section for more information. Additionally, you can always decline to share personal information with us, or even block all cookies. However, it’s important to remember that many of the Site’s features may not be accessible, or may not function properly – for example, we may not be able to remember your language preferences for you.

International Users

The Sites are hosted and operated in the United States. If you use the Sites from the European Union or the United Kingdom, or any other region with laws governing data collection, protection and use that may differ from United States law, please note that you may be transferring your personal information outside of those jurisdictions to the United States. Where we transfer, store and process your personal information outside of the United Kingdom, European Union or EEA, we have ensured that appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure an adequate level of protection for the rights of data subjects based on the adequacy of the receiving country’s data protection laws. 

By using the Sites, you consent to the transfer of your personal information outside your home jurisdiction, including to the United States, and to the storage of your personal information in the United States, for the purpose of hosting, using and processing the personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You further acknowledge that these countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country from which you provided your personal information, and that My Spark may be compelled to disclose your personal information to U.S. authorities.

Communications from My Spark

If you registered on the Sites, provided an email or phone number to us, or otherwise opted-in to receive communications from us, we may send you messages and updates regarding your account, including privacy and security notices, updates regarding the Sites or service, and information regarding products, features or services from My Spark (or third parties we believe you may be interested in). These communication methods may include, but are not limited to, email, SMS text messages, postal mail, social media communications, telephone calls, and push notifications. If you have an account with us, we’ll also use your email address to contact you for customer service purposes, or for any legal matters that arise in the course of business. We may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us if your device supports it. We use this confirmation to help us understand which emails are most interesting and helpful.

You can always unsubscribe from receiving any of our 1) marketing emails or other marketing communications whenever you’d like by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email; 2) marketing SMS texts by replying or texting ‘STOP’; or 3) marketing push notifications by turning off push notifications on your device. You can also always send us an email at privacy@garycommunity.org. 

You can further indicate your preferences by contacting us using the information in the “Contacting My Spark” section below. Please note that opting-out of marketing communications does not affect your receipt of business communications that are important to your interaction with My Spark, such as support/service communications, security updates, or account management communications. You may not opt-out of receiving these communications.

Social Media Features

The Sites may now or in the future include social media features, such as the Facebook Like button or the Twitter Tweet button, or incorporate certain other functions that allow you to interact with the Sites through your accounts on certain supported third-party social network or network storage sites (collectively “Social Media Features”). These Social Media Features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Sites, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. You may be given the option by such Social Media Features to post information about your activities on our Sites to a profile page of yours that is provided by a third-party social media network in order to share with others within your network. Social Media Features are either hosted by a third-party or hosted directly on our Sites. Your interactions with these Social Media Features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing each Social Media Feature. If you are not comfortable accessing such social media websites and using such Social Media Features, please don’t use them!

Third-Party Services

The Sites may contain links to websites, applications and services, including social media services, provided by third parties, as well as embedded images or other third-party content and features. Your use of these features may result in the collection, processing and sharing of information about you, depending on the features. Any information you choose to provide to or that is collected by these third parties is subject to that third party’s policies governing privacy and security and is not covered by our Privacy Policy. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. The fact that we link to a website or other third-party content is not an endorsement, authorization or representation that we are affiliated with that third party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. We are not responsible for the content, features, privacy and security practices and policies of any third-parties. We encourage you to learn about third parties’ privacy and security policies before providing them with personal information.

Children

The Sites are not directed toward individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and we request that such individuals do not provide personal information. Additionally, we do not knowingly collect (or knowingly allow any third party to collect) or maintain personal information from anyone under the age of 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information or that personal information has been collected from a child under 13, then we will delete this information from our files as quickly as possible. If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child under 13 who you believe has provided personal information to My Spark, please send an email to us at privacy@garycommunity.org, or contact us as set forth in the “Contacting My Spark” section below to have that child’s information deleted.

Online Surveys and Feedback

We like feedback, which means we may conduct online surveys to solicit your opinions and comments. Participation in these surveys is of course optional. If you choose to participate, the information you provide will be aggregated with information from other users to make improvements to the user experience and develop appealing content, features, and promotions. 

You can also ask us questions and share comments or suggestions with us. Your questions, comments, and suggestions may not be kept confidential. We may use your questions, comments, and suggestions to improve the Sites and our service, but we will have no obligation to compensate you for any such contributions. 

California Privacy Disclosures

Your Rights and Choices

If you are a California resident you have the right to request that My Spark disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past twelve (12) months. 

California consumers also have specific rights of access, deletion and data portability regarding their personal information under the CCPA. If you are a California resident you have the right to request that My Spark provide the specific pieces of information that we have collected about you. You also have the right to request deletion of your personal information collected or maintained by My Spark. We provide these same rights to all users. Please see the “Your Rights” Section for more detail on how to exercise these rights, including how we will verify requests. If you are a California resident, you may also designate a natural person or business entity registered with the California Secretary of State to act on your behalf to exercise these rights. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights under CCPA. 

Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

DO NOT SELL

As stated throughout this Privacy Policy, My Spark does not sell personal information of any user of our Sites to any third-party for any purpose – including for advertising or marketing purposes. Furthermore, we do not share or disclose personal information with any third-parties except in the limited circumstances described in this Privacy Policy and as set forth here.

DO NOT TRACK

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers to inform websites and services that they do not want certain information about their webpage visits collected over time and across websites or online services. However, we do not recognize or respond to browser-initiated DNT signals, as the Internet industry is still working to determine what DNT means, how to comply with DNT, and how to create a common approach to responding to DNT. For more information on “do not track”, please visit www.allaboutdnt.org.

Third-parties that have content embedded on the Sites, such as a social feature, or an embedded video player, may set cookies on a user’s browser and/or obtain information about the fact that a web browser visited the service from a certain IP address. Third-parties cannot collect any other personally identifiable information from the service unless you provide it to them directly.

NOTICE FOR MINORS (USERS UNDER 18)

If you are under the age of 18, or the parent of a child using the Sites under the age of 18 residing in California, you are entitled to request removal of content or information you (the minor) have publicly posted on our Sites. Currently, we do not allow minors to post content to share publicly on the Sites.

“SHINE THE LIGHT” LAW 

Pursuant to California Civil Code Section 1798.83(c)(2), My Spark does not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes unless you affirmatively agree to such disclosure. If we do share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes and you authorize us to include your information, we will only share that information in connection with that specific promotion. To prevent disclosure of your personal information for use in direct marketing by a third party, do not opt-in to such use when you provide personal information on our Sites. If you later decide that you do not want that third party to use your personal information, you will need to contact the third party directly.

California customers can receive more information about our compliance with this law or to make a request under California Civil Code Section 1798.83 by sending us an email at privacy@garycommunity.org or by writing to us as set forth in “Contacting My Spark” Section below.

Changes and Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may revise our Privacy Policy from time to time as our business practices and legal requirements evolve. You can see when the last update was by looking at the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We won’t reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your consent. If we make any material changes, we’ll provide prominent notice by posting a notice on the Site and/or notifying you by email (using the email address you provided), so you can review and make sure you know about them. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy from time to time, to stay informed about our collection, use, and disclosure of personal information through the Site. By continuing to use the Site after the revised Privacy Policy has become effective, you acknowledge that you accept and agree to the current version of the Privacy Policy.

Contacting My Spark

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy, practices or how we protect our community, please contact us at privacy@mysparkdenver.org – we’d love to help. If you’d like, you may also write to us at:

My Spark

1705 17th Street, Suite 200

Denver, CO 80202 

(303) 628-3800

Attention: James Lukens, Director of Operations