As nonprofits and advocacy groups collect more and more information from the people that use their websites, strong and well communicated privacy policies - disclaimers that explain just how organizations will use this information they collect - become very important. In fact, a survey by the Customer Respect Group found that 22% of people won't provide personal information if a website doesn't have a privacy policy, and 26% go as far as to a leave websites with privacy policies they don't find acceptable.

We asked the NTEN community for advice on how to write exceptional privacy policies. Here's what you had to say:

Dan Michel, America's Second Harvest
"Work in concert with a legal person to make sure that the policy is tailored to your specific organization, mission, and most importantly audience. Also keep in mind if the policy works for the website and for your online donation efforts."

Jana Waterworth, American Red Cross
“Try to address all realms of communication you may have with constituents and allow yourself breathing room. If you are too specific, you may not be able to adhere to your own privacy policy.”

Cynthia Leonard, Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management
“Look at the website that declares the rules governing public sector websites. I think if you stuck to their listed best practices, you probably couldn’t go wrong.”

You all also responded to our request by sending in your own privacy policies. Below are a few highlighted excerpts. You can find an entire list of the privacy policies we received in our affinity groups library.

Idealist.org

Idealist does a great job of telling you all of the information they collect from you.

“Like many other websites, we automatically collect information about your internet connection, such as:

• The IP address of the server you used to access the internet;
• The name of the website from which you linked directly to our Site;
• The date and time you access our Site; and
• The pages you visit.

This information (“Non-Personal Information”) does NOT identify you personally. We use this Non-Personal Information to monitor the effectiveness of the Site, identify areas of interest, and consider potential improvements to the Site.

If you choose to use certain features and functions of the Site, we ask you to provide certain personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) without which these features cannot work. By providing such information, you consent to our collection and use of it, as described in this Privacy Statement. We do not collect any Personal Information about you when you visit the Site unless you give us that information.” Read the full policy.

Business for Social Responsibility

In its privacy policy, Business for Social Responsibility gets right to the point and says what they don’t do.

“No release of personally identifiable information to third parties
We do not rent, sell, give, exchange, or otherwise share personally identifiable information with other individuals or organizations.

Personally identifiable information is collected only on a voluntary basis
Personally identifiable information such your name, postal address, telephone number, or credit card number are collected only if you “opt in” by choosing to give us this information on a voluntary basis by registering to receive products or services.” Read the full policy.

YMCA of San Diego County

The YMCA of San Diego County clearly explains the reasons it collect information in the first place.

“The information is used by YMCA of San Diego County to build anonymous behavioral profiles, which are written to the YMCA of San Diego County Knowledge Database—securely housed at the YMCA of San Diego County data center. These profiles are accessed by YMCA of San Diego County-enabled computers to offer you personalized content and promotions, and to target relevant, more interesting content—all without knowing your identity. Again, there is no association between a YMCA of San Diego County Knowledge profile and a visitor’s identity.” Read the full policy.

You can find a list of privacy policies sent in by our members online.