Donor Privacy Policy

• The Washington Area Humane Society is committed to the highest standards of ethics and integrity in all fundraising efforts and to maintaining donors’ privacy rights. WAHS will not sell, share, trade or give our donors’ personal or contact information to any non-affiliated organizations; nor send mailings on behalf of other organizations.
• WAHS compiles and uses information about donors including name, address, phone number, email address and mailing preferences. In addition, the Washington Area Humane Society stores a record of each donor’s giving history in donor software. This information is kept on file for IRS purposes and is also used by the WAHS development staff to analyze overall giving patterns in order to make more accurate budget projections and plan for the future of the organization.
• Information on donors is password protected and may only be viewed by individuals approved by the Executive Director and Board of Directors. This includes individuals or companies who prepare mailings, work in a fundraising capacity for the organization, or prepare budgets and tax accounting.
• To publicly recognize and thank donors for their generosity, WAHS may produce an annual report that includes a list of donors’ names in qualifying annual giving society levels. Additionally WAHS hosts a donor wall in the facility for donors $5,000 and up that will recognize donors. Any donor wishing to remain anonymous should notify WAHS at the time of their gift.
• Donation amounts for in memory donations will only be shared with those who donors specify to be notified of the gift.
• The Washington Area Humane Society does not sell, rent, trade or share its donor list with any other organization.

Security

We are committed to protecting donor personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. Among other things, we undertake a range of security practices, including measures to help secure web access to sensitive data and undertake efforts to address security vulnerabilities for various tools and databases. WAHS uses Donor Perfect to collect online donations and manage donors. SofterWare and DonorPerfect are committed to ensuring that your data is safe, secure, and available when you need it. To this end, we rely not only on our own expertise, but they also partner with industry experts in both the technology and the non-profit industries, commit the proper resources, and engage regular independent reviews to ensure your security and peace of mind.

Computer Tracking and Cookies

Our web site is not set up to track, collect or distribute personal information not entered by its visitors. Our site logs do generate certain kinds of non-identifying site usage data, such as the number of hits and visits to our site. This information is used for internal purposes by technical support staff to provide better services to the public, but the statistics contain no personal information and cannot be used to gather such information.

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. WAHS’s website does not use any cookies.

WAHS Supports the Donor Bill of Rights.

Philanthropy is based on voluntary action for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To assure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the not-for-profit organizations and causes they are asked to support, we declare that all donors have these rights:

1. To be informed of the organization’s mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes.
2. To be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization’s governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities.
3. To have access to the organization’s most recent financial statements.
4. To be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.
5. To receive appropriate acknowledgment and recognition.
6. To be assured that information about their donations is handled with respect and with confidentiality to the extent provided by law.
7. To expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature.
8. To be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers, employees of the organization or hired solicitors.
9. To have the opportunity for their names to be deleted from mailing lists that an organization may intend to share.
10. To feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.

The text of the Donor Bill of Rights statement in its entirety was developed by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and the Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits.