Privacy policy.

Effective 2026-10-06.

Overview

This policy explains what Sponsor-A-School collects through www.sponsoraschool.org, how we use it, and the choices you have. We collect only what we need to run our programs, and we never sell or rent your personal information.

Information we collect

• Contact form: your name, email address, topic, organization (optional) and message.
• Donation form: your name, email address and phone number (optional); gift amount; the books you chose; how you want to be recognized (public or anonymous, display name, company, whether to show the amount); and any schools or libraries you name, including their address, official directory ID and an optional contact person's work name, email and phone. We also create a reference number for your gift.
• Nomination form: your name, role, email address and phone number (optional); the school or library you nominate (name, city, state, and its address and official directory ID if you choose it from the search); grades or ages served, an approximate number of readers, and your note about why books would help. We use it only to review the request and coordinate deliveries, and we never publish a nomination without permission.
• Payment: you pay on PNC Bank's secure page. PNC shares payment details with us (such as your name, amount and date) so we can match your gift. We never receive your full card or bank account number.
• School and library search: the words, state or ZIP code you type are sent from our server to the U.S. Department of Education's public school directory, or searched in our copy of the IMLS public library list. We do not link searches to you.
• Technical information: like most websites, our hosting provider processes your IP address and basic request details to deliver pages and protect the site. We use IP addresses briefly, in memory only, to limit spam and abuse.

How we use it

• To process, match and acknowledge your donation and send your tax acknowledgment.
• To buy and deliver the books you chose, and to coordinate with the schools or libraries you named.
• To reply to your messages and keep you updated about your gift.
• To recognize donors who choose public recognition.
• To keep the site secure, prevent fraud and spam, and meet legal and accounting requirements.

How we share it

• Service providers that work for us: PNC Bank (payments), SendGrid (delivering form emails to our team), and Vercel (website hosting). They may use your information only to provide their services to us.
• Schools, libraries and book suppliers, only as needed to deliver your books (for example, a school's name and address).
• The public donor wall and donor list, only as you choose on the donation form.
• When required by law, or to protect the rights and safety of donors, students, schools or our organization.
• We do not sell or share personal information for advertising.

Cookies and local storage

This site does not use cookies. We do not use advertising cookies, analytics or tracking pixels, and we do not track you across other websites.

When you add books to your basket or save schools and libraries, your browser keeps them in its own local storage on your device (keys: sas-basket-v1 for the book list and copies, sas-places-v1 for your saved schools and libraries, which hold only public directory details such as a school's name and address). Nothing in local storage is sent to us until you submit a donation. The basket clears when you submit your gift or press “Empty basket,” and you can clear your saved list on the School Visits page or in your browser settings at any time.

PNC Bank's payment page and any other site you visit from ours may use their own cookies under their own policies.

How long we keep it

We keep donation records as long as needed for tax, audit and accounting purposes (generally seven years), and contact messages only as long as needed to respond and follow up. The book basket and saved schools stay on your device until you clear them.

Security

The site is served only over encrypted HTTPS connections with strict security settings, and payments happen on PNC Bank's own secure page. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your information.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us to show you, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, to change how you are recognized, or to stop sending you updates. Email info@sponsoraschool.org. We honor these requests from everyone, wherever you live, except where we must keep records by law (for example, donation records for tax purposes). Because we do not track you or sell your information, there is nothing to opt out of for targeted advertising, and we treat browser privacy signals such as Global Privacy Control as a request not to sell or share.

Children's privacy

This site is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through the site. Photos of students are published only with written permission from the school and a parent or guardian, and we never publish students' full names.

Changes and contact

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows the current version, and each form records the version you agreed to. Questions? Email info@sponsoraschool.org or use our contact form.

See also our Terms of Use and Legal & Transparency page.