Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Comunidad Connect is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. We operate community health, housing, youth development, and cultural exchange programs in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. Our website allows visitors to learn about our mission, contact us, subscribe to our newsletter, register for Cultural Connections trips, and make donations.

2. Information We Collect

Contact Form Submissions

When you submit our contact form, we collect your name, email address, message topic, and message content. We also automatically record your IP address and browser user agent for spam prevention and security purposes.

Newsletter Subscriptions

When you subscribe to our newsletter, we collect your email address. We also record your IP address and browser user agent for spam prevention.

Cultural Connections Trip Registration

When you register for a Cultural Connections trip, we collect your first name, last name, email address, phone number, emergency contact information (name, relationship, phone number), medical conditions, dietary restrictions, and any required documents you upload (such as passport copies, medical forms, liability waivers, and insurance cards). We also track your registration status and payment information (amounts and status, though we do not process credit card numbers directly).

Donations

Donations are processed by our third-party payment partner, Neon CRM. When you click a donation link on our site, you are directed to Neon CRM's secure platform. Comunidad Connect does not directly collect, process, or store your credit card numbers, bank account details, or other payment card information. Please review Neon CRM's privacy policy for details on how they handle payment data.

Automatically Collected Information

When you visit our website, we may automatically collect certain technical information, including your IP address, browser type and version, device type, operating system, pages visited, time spent on pages, and referring URLs. If you accept analytics cookies, Google Analytics 4 collects additional behavioral data such as page views, button clicks, and navigation patterns. We use Google Consent Mode v2, which means analytics cookies are only set after you provide explicit consent. Without consent, Google Analytics operates in a cookieless mode that does not identify individual users.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Respond to your inquiries and provide customer support via our contact form
• Send you our newsletter and organizational updates (with your consent)
• Process and manage Cultural Connections trip registrations, including coordinating logistics, safety, and emergency preparedness
• Process donation acknowledgments and provide tax receipts for your contributions
• Improve our website, programs, and services through analytics and user feedback
• Prevent spam, fraud, and unauthorized access to our systems
• Comply with legal obligations and protect our rights
• Measure the effectiveness of our outreach through Google Analytics and Google Ads (with your consent for cookie-based tracking)

4. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions with similar data protection laws, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

• Consent: For newsletter subscriptions, analytics cookies, and marketing communications. You may withdraw consent at any time.
• Contractual Necessity: To fulfill trip registrations and service requests you have initiated.
• Legitimate Interests: To improve our services, prevent fraud, and ensure website security, where these interests do not override your fundamental rights.
• Legal Obligation: To comply with tax reporting requirements, nonprofit regulations, and applicable laws.

5. Cookies and Analytics

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. We categorize them as follows:

Essential Cookies

These are necessary for the website to function and cannot be disabled. They include Firebase authentication session cookies (for admin users), your theme preference (light/dark mode stored in your browser's local storage), and your cookie consent preference.

Analytics Cookies (Google Analytics 4)

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors interact with our site. These cookies (such as _ga, _gat, and _gid) track page views, session duration, and user interactions. Analytics cookies are only activated after you click "Accept" on our cookie consent banner. Without your consent, Google Analytics operates in Advanced Consent Mode, which sends cookieless, anonymized pings that do not personally identify you.

Your Cookie Choices

When you first visit our site, a cookie consent banner appears at the bottom of the page. You can choose to Accept (enabling full analytics tracking) or Decline (keeping analytics in cookieless mode). You can change your preference at any time by clearing your browser's local storage for our site. We honor Do Not Track browser signals by defaulting to denied consent.

6. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may process your data:

• Google Cloud Platform (Firebase/Firestore): Hosts our website, database, file storage, and authentication system. Data is stored in the United States. Google's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
• Google Analytics 4: Website analytics and conversion tracking (only with your consent for cookies). Google's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
• Neon CRM: Processes donations and manages donor records. Neon CRM's privacy policy is available on their website at neoncrm.com.
• YouTube (Google): Embedded videos on trip and program pages. YouTube may set cookies when you play a video. Google's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
• Gmail (Google Workspace): We send transactional emails (contact confirmations, newsletter welcome, trip confirmations) through Gmail SMTP from ccinfo@comunidadconnect.org.

7. Information Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information. We may share information in the following limited circumstances:

• With service providers who help us operate our website and programs (Google Cloud, Neon CRM), under contractual obligations to protect your data
• With university and institutional partners coordinating Cultural Connections trips, limited to the information necessary for trip logistics and safety
• When required by law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request
• To protect the rights, safety, or property of Comunidad Connect, our participants, or the public

8. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your personal information, including encrypted data transmission (HTTPS/TLS), secure cloud infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform, Firebase Authentication with OAuth 2.0, role-based access controls limiting data access to authorized staff, rate limiting and spam protection on all forms, and secure file upload via signed URLs. While we strive to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this policy, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Contact form submissions and newsletter subscriptions are retained until you request deletion. Trip registration data is retained for at least seven years to comply with IRS record-keeping requirements for 501(c)(3) organizations. You may request deletion of your data at any time by contacting us at ccinfo@comunidadconnect.org.

10. International Data Transfers

Comunidad Connect operates in the United States, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. Your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in any of these countries. If you are located outside the United States, please be aware that your information will be transferred to the U.S. where our servers are hosted. We are committed to complying with applicable data protection laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Nicaragua's Law 787 on Personal Data Protection, and the Dominican Republic's Law 172-13 on Data Protection. By using our website, you consent to the transfer of your information to these countries.

11. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of Access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Right to Erasure: Request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Right to Restrict Processing: Request that we limit how we use your data.
• Right to Data Portability: Request your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including direct marketing.

To exercise any of these rights, please email us at ccinfo@comunidadconnect.org. We will respond within 30 days. If you are in the EEA and believe we have not adequately addressed your concerns, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

12. Children's Privacy

Our website is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. Our youth development programs serve participants under 18, and for these programs, we obtain written parental or guardian consent before collecting any personal information. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information without appropriate consent, please contact us at ccinfo@comunidadconnect.org and we will promptly delete it.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements. We will post the updated policy on this page and update the "Last Updated" date. For significant changes, we may also notify you via email or a prominent notice on our website. Your continued use of our website after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

14. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, your personal data, or wish to exercise your rights, please contact us: