Privacy Policy

Who we are

Be A Number, International is a U.S. 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN: 93-1948872), incorporated in 2023. We operate the website at beanumber.org and partner with Youth Development Organisation Uganda (YDO) to fund community programs in Northern Uganda.

For any question about this policy or about information we hold, email kevin@beanumber.org.

Information we collect

We only collect what we need to do what you’ve asked us to do. Specifically:

When you buy a shirt or donate: your name, email address, shipping address (if shipping is involved), phone number (if you provide one), and how you heard about us. Payment card information is collected directly by Stripe, our payment processor. We never see or store your full card number; we only see the last four digits and basic transaction metadata.

When you become a sponsor: the above, plus a sponsor code we generate for you and a record of your sponsorship (which child, monthly amount, start date).

When you log into the sponsor portal: we set a session cookie on your browser so you stay logged in. We do not use third-party tracking cookies, advertising pixels, or analytics beacons on this site.

When you contact us: whatever you choose to include in your message. We keep correspondence so we can follow up.

How we use your information

We use your information to:

Process shirt purchases and donations. Issue tax receipts for your charitable contributions. Send you the sponsorship correspondence you signed up for (monthly campus newsletter, photos, a year-end report card, and occasionally a handwritten letter from the child you sponsor). Answer your questions. Keep financial records for our auditors, our Board, and the IRS.

We do not use your information for behavioral advertising, profile-building, or resale. We do not sell your data to anyone, ever.

Who we share your information with

We share information only with the service providers who help us run the organization, and only to the extent they need it to do their job for us. Those providers are:

Stripe processes your payments and holds your card information on their secure, PCI-compliant systems. Airtable holds our donor, sponsorship, and child records. Google (Gmail) and SendGrid send the transactional and newsletter emails you receive from us. Vercel hosts the website itself.

Each of these providers has their own privacy practices, and we only send them what they need to do their piece. We do not share your information with advertisers, data brokers, or other nonprofits.

We may disclose information if required by law (a subpoena, court order, or government investigation) or if disclosure is necessary to protect someone from harm. If that happens we will, where lawful, tell you.

Cookies and tracking

beanumber.org uses one first-party cookie: sponsor_session. It’s set when you log into the sponsor portal and lets you stay signed in. It contains only a signed session token and your sponsor code; it expires automatically.

We do not use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Hotjar, or any other third-party analytics or advertising trackers on this site. Stripe’s checkout page (on checkout.stripe.com) sets its own cookies for fraud prevention and to remember your session; those cookies are governed by Stripe’s privacy policy.

Your rights and choices

You can ask us, at any time, to:

Tell you what information we have on file about you. Correct anything that’s wrong. Delete your information (subject to the records we’re legally required to keep for tax and audit purposes). Export the information we hold so you can take it elsewhere.

To make any of these requests, email kevin@beanumber.org. We’ll respond within 30 days. If you live in a state or country with specific privacy rights (California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, the EU, the UK, and others), those rights apply and we honor them for all users regardless of location.

We will not retaliate against you for exercising any of these rights.

Email and unsubscribing

We send two kinds of email:

Transactional email. Receipts, sponsorship confirmations, password-style notifications, and anything you need for a transaction you initiated. We will keep sending these as long as you have an active relationship with us, because they are not marketing.

Marketing email. The monthly campus newsletter, photos from the campus, and occasional updates. Every marketing email includes a one-click unsubscribe link in the footer. Clicking it removes you from the list immediately. Major inbox providers also show an “Unsubscribe” button at the top of these emails; that works the same way.

If you want us to stop sending both kinds of email (including transactional), email us directly and we’ll mark your record. Note that we may still need to contact you about your active sponsorship, and some things (like an annual tax receipt) can’t be suppressed without ending the sponsorship itself.

Children’s privacy

Our website and services are not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 in the United States (or under 16 in the EU / UK) without verifiable parental consent. If you believe we have information about a child under 13 (or 16), contact us and we will delete it.

Some children whose information appears on our site and in the sponsor portal are children in Northern Uganda whose families or legal guardians have given YDO permission to share their photo, first name, and grade level with sponsors. This information is used only to connect sponsors with the children they support and is never used for advertising or sold to third parties.

We take child safety seriously. Sponsors agree, as a condition of their account, not to share child photos or identifying information publicly. See the Terms of Service for details.

Security

We use industry-standard security measures to protect your information: HTTPS on every page, encrypted storage at all our service providers, short-lived signed tokens for session and unsubscribe links, and access controls limiting who on our team can see donor records.

No system is perfect. If we ever discover a breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you and the appropriate regulators as required by law.

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy from time to time as our practices change or as the law requires. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. If we make a change that meaningfully affects what we do with your information, we’ll email active sponsors and donors at least 30 days before the change takes effect.

Contact us

Questions, corrections, deletion requests, or anything else: kevin@beanumber.org.