Privacy & Confidentiality Commitment

We collect only what a grant decision or a reply actually requires: your name, contact details, city and state, your relationship to the ALS patient, the category and amount you are requesting, and any documents you choose to send us.

We deliberately do not collect Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, full tax returns, medical charts, imaging, prescription histories, credit reports, or immigration status. If a document you send contains a Social Security number, we delete that document and ask for a redacted copy.

This site sets no advertising cookies, runs no third-party trackers, and does not build a profile of you. Donation pages are served by our fiscal sponsor's payment provider and are governed by their privacy policy.

Every page and form on this site is served exclusively over HTTPS with TLS, so anything you submit is encrypted between your device and our infrastructure.

Application materials, medical attestations, and financial documents are stored encrypted at rest in access-controlled storage. Documents are never emailed between volunteers, posted in group chats, stored on personal devices, or uploaded to shared drives.

Payment details never touch this website. Card data is collected directly by Stripe through our fiscal sponsor's donation page, and Cover The Caregiver never sees, handles, or stores a card number.

Grant applications are visible only to the named members of the grant review board. General volunteers, club officers, donors, and partner organizations have no access to applications, attestations, or financial documents at any time.

Access is granted by role, reviewed each quarter, and revoked immediately when a board member's term ends. Board members sign a written confidentiality agreement before receiving access.

Decisions are recorded against an anonymized family ID. The mapping between that ID and a real family is kept separately from the published ledger and is never exported.

We never publish an ALS patient's name, photograph, diagnosis date, clinical details, or any fact that could identify them. This applies to our website, social media, grant reports, press coverage, and school presentations.

Caregiver stories are published only with written, specific, revocable consent, and only using a first name and last initial. Where a story would still be recognizable within a small community, we alter identifying details or decline to publish it.

Consent can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason, with no effect on a current or future grant. Email us and the content comes down.

We do not sell, rent, trade, or share donor lists with anyone, for any purpose, ever. There is no exception for partner nonprofits or for advocacy campaigns.

Donation records are held by our fiscal sponsor for tax-receipt and compliance purposes. Our fiscal sponsor's platform publishes transaction amounts on a public ledger as a condition of its transparency model; you can request that your donation be displayed anonymously.

We email donors only about the work they funded, and every message includes a one-click unsubscribe.

Most of our volunteers are high school students. We publish role titles rather than personal contact details, and we do not publish the last name, photograph, school schedule, or personal email of any volunteer under 18 without written parent or guardian permission.

This site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has submitted information, email us and we will delete it.

Volunteers receive only the information a specific task requires: a first name, a neighborhood, and a scheduled time. Volunteers never receive medical or financial information about a family.

Medical attestations and financial documents are deleted once a grant round closes and the associated transaction has been reconciled, unless a longer period is required by our fiscal sponsor's compliance obligations.

Application text and anonymized outcome data are retained so we can report aggregate need to funders and legislators. That data carries no names or contact details.

You may request deletion of your information at any time by emailing us. We confirm deletion in writing, and a deletion request never affects your eligibility for a future grant.

Cover The Caregiver is not a healthcare provider, health plan, or healthcare clearinghouse, so we are not a HIPAA covered entity. We nonetheless treat every medical document we receive with the confidentiality standards a covered entity would apply, because that is what families deserve.

California residents have rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, including the right to know what personal information we hold, to request its deletion, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We honor these requests for everyone who asks, regardless of where they live.

All funds and financial records are administered by our fiscal sponsor under 501(c)(3) rules and its own audit obligations.

If we become aware of unauthorized access to application materials, we will notify every affected family directly and promptly, describe exactly what was exposed, and publish what we changed to prevent a recurrence.

We will not minimize it, delay it while we manage our reputation, or wait for a legal deadline to force our hand.

To see what we hold, correct it, withdraw a story consent, or delete your records entirely, emailhello@coverthecaregiver.org. For anything involving medical or financial documents, usegrants@coverthecaregiver.org. We respond within 30 days and usually much sooner.

Cover The Caregiver is fiscally sponsored by The Hack Foundation (d.b.a. Hack Club), a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN: 81-2908499).

This page describes our practices in plain language and is not legal advice. We update it whenever our practice changes, and the date above always reflects the current version.