Privacy & cookies

Effective September 16, 2026 (draft for review; replaces the September 9, 2026 version)

The short version

You can search, view, print and share resources without an account and without giving us any personal information. We never ask for a family's name, student information, diagnosis, immigration status or the reason they need help. We don't store what you type into search. We never sell information.

What we collect

• Information submitted through the Become a Community Partner form: your organization's name and details, a contact name, email, and optional phone and address.
• If you use “Report an update”: the listing, the type of problem and any details you write. We don't ask who you are. Please don't include personal details.
• If you are a partner confirming a listing: your name and role, kept privately so we know who confirmed. It is not published.
• Anonymous daily counts of how the guide is used (see “Measurement” below).
• The Join form has a hidden field and a timing check to stop automated spam. These are used only to decide whether a submission came from a person, and are not stored.
• Our hosting provider (Vercel) automatically processes basic technical data, such as IP addresses, in server logs to deliver the site securely.

How we use it

• To review, publish, and maintain resource listings.
• To contact you about your listing or your participation in Community Collective events.
• We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

What gets published

Only listing information intended for the public appears in the directory: your organization's name, services, area, public phone, and website. Your contact name and email are used for review and communication and are not published.

Measurement

To learn whether families get usable help, we keep daily totals of a few actions: which need category was chosen, the school district or county searched (never an address), whether a listing was opened, called, texted or added to a Toolkit, Toolkits created, printed or shared, searches with no useful match, reports of incorrect information, and two optional questions staff can answer after printing. We store only the action name, a coarse category and a count per day. We don't store search text, IP addresses, device identifiers or cookies for this.

Toolkits, Collections and this browser

The places you add to a Toolkit, and any Collections you save, are remembered only in your own browser (local storage) so they survive a page reload. Nothing about the family is part of it, and you can clear it at any time by removing the places from the Toolkit or delete a Collection.

Translation

When someone chooses a language for a Toolkit, the public listing text and Toolkit labels (for example “What to bring”) are sent to our translation provider, Microsoft Translator or Google Cloud Translation, and the result is saved so it can be reused. No information about a family or the person using the site is sent, and names, phone numbers and addresses are left untranslated. If you use your browser's own translate button, that happens between you and your browser company, not Community Collective.

Cookie statement

Community Collective does not use advertising, analytics, or tracking cookies. Stewards who sign in to the dashboard receive one strictly necessary session cookie. Our hosting provider may set strictly necessary technical cookies for security and site delivery. Because we only use strictly necessary technology, no cookie consent banner is required, and there is nothing you need to opt out of.

Storage & retention

Form submissions are stored in a secured database hosted in the United States. We keep listing information while it remains published. If a partner signup is declined (for example because a service is not free or is outside the area we currently cover), we keep the organization details and the reason so we can reach out again if that changes, and we delete them when you ask (see “Your choices”). Duplicate submissions and spam are deleted automatically 30 days after they are marked. Update reports and partner confirmations are kept with a listing's change history so we can show how information was checked. Rate-limit records use a one-way, daily-rotating code instead of an IP address and are deleted within a day.

Your choices

You can ask us to update or remove your information at any time by reaching out through the Become a Community Partner form and noting your request in the description field. We'll act on it promptly.

Children

This site is a general-audience resource directory and does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and its effective date.