Privacy Policy

By visiting this website, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use this website.

The Community Foundations National Standards Board (CFNSB and also commonly referred to as Community Foundations National Standards®) created this privacy statement to demonstrate its firm commitment to the privacy of all individuals who access our websites and with whom we do business.

Please note the CFNSB is a supporting organization of the Council on Foundations (the Council). All references to CFNSB in this Privacy Policy also include the Council.

The following describes the CFNSB’s information gathering and dissemination practices. The privacy statement may change at any time; any changes will be posted on this page. Should you have additional questions, comments or concerns please contact:

Community Foundations National Standards Board
1255 23rd Street NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20037
submissions@cfstandards.org
202-991-2225

The following topics describe how the CFNSB uses information voluntarily submitted by visitors to this site, www.cfstandards.org and application.cfstandards.org. When applicable, this Privacy Policy also applies to information that you may submit to us offline. This Privacy Policy does not apply to third party websites you may visit through a link on our website(s). Similarly, the CFNSB does not assume responsibility for any data sharing you may engage in on third party websites.

What Information We Collect

You do not need to give us any personal information to browse cfstandards.org. As a general matter, when we do request your information it is completely voluntary to provide it to us and is a combination of personal and business-related information. Information we typically collect and store includes:

  • Your name
  • Your job title
  • Your organization/company/related business name
  • Your email address (can be either business or personal depending on what you provide us)
  • Your phone number (can be either business or personal depending on what you provide us)
  • Your mailing and billing address (can be either business or personal depending on what you provide us)

In some circumstances, we may also ask you to provide the following information:

  • Your professional photograph/headshot
  • Your demographic information
  • Your resume/CV
  • Your social media handles (can be either business or personal depending on what you provide us)
  • Your professional biography
  • Your professional interest areas and expertise

When you create an account for application.cfstandards.org, you must provide a password to be able to log in. All passwords are encrypted, and only you have the ability to edit your password. If you need to reset your password, you can request a password reset at https://application.cfstandards.org or contact submissions@cfstandards.org to send you a password reset email. 

Other information not outlined here may be requested depending on the circumstances, but it is completely voluntary to provide it. 

In addition, when you interact with cfstandards.org, our servers may keep a log that does not identify you personally (“non-personal information”) since we do not combine it with any identifying information. We use this data to ensure the security and performance of our websites and mitigate website and server issues. This data includes:

  • Device information used for accessing the website such as device type, platform, IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information; and
  • Other “traffic data” such as time of access, date of access, error reports, pages accessed, and referring website addresses.

Other non-personal information we may collect includes:

  • Demographic data such as age, gender, general interests, and five-digit zip code;
  • Usage information about what is accessed on the website including pages viewed and time spent on the website; and
  • Search terms and search results.

You can learn more about this in the How We Use Cookies section.

There are many ways you can control non-personal data your computer sends to us, but it depends largely on privacy settings you control through your internet browser. We suggest that you visit your internet browser setting options to limit or stop this data from being sent to us.

How We Collect Information

The following lists the most common ways in which we collect your identifying information:

  • When you request an account for application.cfstandards.org;
  • When you sign up to receive email from us;
  • When you request information or assistance;
  • When you fill out a National Standards assessment;
  • When you apply to become a CFNSB Reviewer;
  • When you nominate someone to become a CFNSB Board Member;
  • When you request extensions for your National Standards accreditation;
  • In conjunction with any other place on our websites where you knowingly enter personal information.

How We Use Your Information

In general, we use the personal information we collect from you to engage in the activity for which we collected it. Most commonly, we also use your personal and non-personal information in theses specific ways:

  • Processing your National Standards accreditation and/or reaccreditation assessment;
  • For editorial purposes;
  • Responding to your inquiries;
  • Communicating with you about your account or transactions with us;
  • Sending you newsletters, mailings, and information about programs, initiatives, activities, for-sale items, and events by email or another medium;
  • Optimizing or improving our programs, services, and operations;
  • Verifying your account and account activities;
  • Detecting, investigating, and preventing activities that may violate our policies or be illegal;
  • Improving and personalizing our websites and communications;
  • Performing statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses regarding website traffic and usage patterns; and
  • Managing our organization.

We may use your personal and non-personal information in other ways as stated in this privacy policy.  

How We Share Your Information

The CFNSB is dedicated to ethical practices in all of our operations and to protecting the privacy of all visitors to our websites and all individuals whose data we collect and store. Except as outlined in the paragraphs below, we do not sell, barter, give away, rent, or permit anyone outside the CFNSB to use or access your personal information.

We use independent contractors and third-party agents, affiliates, platforms, and partners to perform functions and provide services such as marketing, analytics, e-commerce, customer record retention, assessment processing, etc. on our behalf. These entities have access to the personal information needed to perform their functions and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of any personal information we collect. They are restricted from using, selling, distributing, or altering this data in any way other than to provide the requested services to the CFNSB.

Your email address will only be used within the CFNSB. The CFNSB does not share, sell or rent email addresses to anyone outside the organization. If you do not wish to receive email correspondence from us, please email your request to submissions@cfstandards.org or call 202-991-2225. Please note, the CFNSB may still contact you via email for business related matters (e.g. application processing, invoices, etc.).

The CFNSB sometimes shares publicly some of the data we collect (e.g. your name, job title, organization affiliation, personal biography, professional photograph, etc.) with approval. If the CFNSB were ever to share publicly any of your information, we request permission to do so beforehand.