Privacy Policy

We keep this simple: we only ask for what we need to help, we treat what you share as private, and we never sell your information.

What we collect, and when

Only what you choose to share with us. Depending on how you reach out, that means:

• The Get Support form: your name, email, and optionally your phone number, age range, rough location, how you’d like to be reached, what kind of help you’re interested in, whether you’re reaching out as a patient, survivor, caregiver, or someone who lost a loved one, and anything you choose to tell us about your situation.
• The Volunteer form: your name, contact details, rough location, availability, how you’d like to help, and whether cancer has touched your own life.
• Program waitlists (such as our after-treatment programs): your name, email, an optional note, and, only if you choose to share it, the month you finished treatment, so we can celebrate milestones with you.
• Newsletter: your email, only if you subscribe or check the “stay in the know” box on a form.
• Email and messages: whatever you include when you write or DM us.

We never require an account, we don’t ask for diagnoses or medical records, and our forms remind you that no medical details are needed. Optional means optional.

Anything related to your health

By its nature, reaching out to a cancer foundation says something about your life, and some people choose to share more. We treat anything health-related you share as sensitive consumer health information, whether or not a specific law requires it. In plain terms:

• We collect it only when you volunteer it, and only use it to support you.
• We never sell it, never share it with advertisers or ad platforms, and never use it for marketing beyond what you asked to receive.
• We don’t disclose it to anyone else without your permission, unless the law genuinely requires it or someone’s safety is at risk.
• You can ask us to delete it at any time, and we will.

One honest note: we’re a charity, not a healthcare provider, so laws like HIPAA don’t apply to us. This policy is the standard we hold ourselves to instead, and we wrote it to align with state consumer health privacy laws such as Washington’s My Health My Data Act.

How we use your information

• To respond to you and provide support and connection.
• To match you with a companion or program, when that’s what you’re looking for.
• To keep you posted about a program whose waitlist you joined.
• To mark milestones with you, only if you shared them with us.
• To send our newsletter, only if you asked for it. Every email has a way out, and unsubscribing is instant and final.
• To understand, in aggregate, what kinds of help people need most, so we build the right programs.

Where your information lives

We don’t sell your information, ever, and we don’t share it with data brokers or advertisers. A small number of trusted services help us operate, and your information passes through them only so we can do the things above:

• Tally runs our forms, and Airtable is the private database where what you share is stored.
• Resend sends our confirmation and notification emails, and Google Workspace handles our inbox.
• Substack hosts our newsletter and stories, if you subscribe.
• Vercel hosts this website, and n8n runs our internal automations, such as nightly data backups.

Access to what you share is limited to the small team that supports you, today, that’s effectively our founder. We’ll disclose information beyond this only if the law genuinely requires it or to protect someone’s safety.

Cookies and tracking

Our site is intentionally light. We use Google Analytics to understand how people find and use the site, such as which pages are visited and roughly where visitors come from. It sets its own cookies, and you can read how Google handles that data in its privacy policy. We also use Vercel’s privacy-friendly analytics, which doesn’t set cookies. We load fonts from Google Fonts, and embedded content (like a form or newsletter sign-up) may set its own cookies under that provider’s policy. We don’t use advertising trackers, we never connect what you share in a form to analytics, and we never sell your data.

How long we keep it

We keep your information for as long as we’re supporting you or you’re on a list you asked to join, and we periodically clear out records we no longer need. If you ask us to delete your information, we will, promptly.

Your rights and choices

Wherever you live, we offer the same rights: you can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, withdraw any consent you gave, and unsubscribe from anything at any time. Email info@katherinepalenofoundation.org and we’ll take care of it, normally within 30 days. We’ll never treat you differently for exercising these rights.

Security

Your information is stored with reputable providers, protected in transit by encryption, and accessible only to the people who need it to support you. No system is perfect, but we deliberately collect little, which is the best protection there is.

Children

Our support is for young adults (roughly 18 and older) and the adults around them. This site isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has shared information with us, email us and we’ll delete it.

Changes

As the Foundation grows, this policy may change. We’ll update the date at the top when it does, and if a change meaningfully affects how we handle what you’ve already shared, we’ll tell you before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email info@katherinepalenofoundation.org. It goes straight to a person, not a queue.