Privacy Policy

Effective Date: March 27, 2023
Last Updated Date: March 28, 2023

Introduction

Nature Forward is committed to protecting your privacy when you visit our websites or use our websites to make donations, purchase memberships, products, or to update your personal information. See below for details of NF’s privacy policy.

PLEASE NOTE THE ARBITRATION PROVISION SET FORTH BELOW, REQUIRING YOU TO ARBITRATE ANY CLAIMS YOU MAY HAVE AGAINST US ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS. ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE, AND YOU WAIVE, THE RIGHT FOR A JUDGE OR JURY TO DECIDE YOUR CLAIMS, AND THAT YOU MAY NOT PROCEED IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE CAPACITY.

1. Use of Links

Throughout our Web pages, we provide links to other sites which may contain information of interest to our readers. We take no responsibility for, and exercise no control over, the privacy practices and organizations, views, or accuracy of the information contained on other sites. Creating a text link from your website to our site does not require permission. If you have a link you’d like us to consider adding to our website, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject “Link request.”

2. Disclosure of Information

Nature Forward will not sell, rent, or trade your email address. We may from time to time share information in collaboration with our partners who support our Conservation, Restoration, and Education Programs.

3. Collection and Purpose

We collect and store only the following information about you: the name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com, if you are connecting from an America Online account, or princeton.edu if you are connecting from Princeton University’s domain), the date and time you access our site, the browser used, the type of device used, and the Internet address of the website from which you linked to our site.

We use the information we collect to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our site, and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.

4. Online Profile Updates and Donations

If you complete the Profile update form and share your personally identifying information, this information will be used only to provide you with more targeted content. We may use your contact information to send further information about our organization or to contact you when necessary. You may always opt-out of receiving future mailings; see the “Opt Out” section below.

5. Sending Nature Forward an Email

You also may decide to send us personally identifying information, for example, in an electronic mail message containing a question or comment, or by filling out a Web form that provides us this information. We use personally identifying information from email primarily to respond to your requests. We may forward your email to other employees within our organization who are better able to answer your questions. We may also use your email to contact you in the future about our programs that may be of interest.

We want to be very clear: We will not obtain personally identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Providing such information is strictly voluntary. Except as might be required by law, we do not share any information we receive with any outside parties.

6. Email Addresses

Nature Forward does not sell, rent, exchange, or otherwise share e-mail addresses. However, we do use e-mail addresses to send occasional updates about our work and special offers or other invitations which we believe may be of interest to you.

7. Children and Privacy

For children who visit our site, special rules apply. We do not request personal information about children, such as first and last name or street address and city. When kids send email to us, their online contact information (email address) is not used to re-contact them and is not maintained in retrievable form.

In compliance with The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) NF does not solicit personal information from children. Visitors twelve years of age and under should remember that they are required to obtain an adult’s permission before submitting any personal information to any website. In the event that we learn that a person under the age of 13 has provided personally identifying information to us, we will delete such personally identifying information as soon as possible.

8. Opt-Out or Change Your Contact Information

For email marketing, you will have an opportunity to change your subscription preferences by clicking on an “unsubscribe” hyperlink contained in all promotional emails sent by us or on our behalf. You may also update your contact information or opt-out of receiving communications from us by contacting us by email or phone at [email protected] or 301-652-9188 x.35. Please note that while we honor and process all subscription requests as soon as possible, it may take some time to become effective and you may receive a few more messages until the unsubscribe request is processed.

9. Member and Donor Information

Member and donor information is not sold or rented. However, Nature Forward may periodically exchange the names and mailing addresses of a limited number of members and donors with other nonprofits (primarily conservation organizations)  to obtain mailing lists for member acquisition. Additionally, Nature forward may occasionally partner with other organizations on product offers or promotions that we believe may be of interest to our members and donors.

Members and donors who wish to opt out of these exchanges and offers may contact [email protected]. You can help Nature Forward maintain the accuracy of your information and facilitate the timely receipt of your membership benefits by contacting [email protected] with any changes to your name, mailing address, phone number, or e-mail address.

10. Security of Your Information

We have made every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies. Please be aware that, although we endeavor to provide reasonable security for information we process and maintain, no security system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure from all potential security breaches. Consequently, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us and you understand that any information that you transfer to us is done at your own risk. We recommend that you take additional measures to protect yourself, including by making sure that you regularly update software. If you are still concerned about the safety of your credit card information online, you may also submit contributions or other payment to Nature Forward by mailing a check as directed by instructions on the appropriate pages of our website or to Contributions, 8940 Jones Mill Rd, Chevy Chase, MD 20815.

11. Public Posting Areas and Social Media

Please note that any information you include in a message you post to any chat room, forum, blog, or other public posting area is available with anyone with Internet access. If you do not want people to know your email address, for example, don’t include it in any message you post publicly. PLEASE BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WHEN DISCLOSING ANY INFORMATION IN CHAT ROOMS, FORUMS, BLOGS, AND OTHER PUBLIC POSTING AREAS. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE BY OTHERS OF THE INFORMATION THAT YOU DISCLOSE IN CHAT ROOMS, FORUMS, BLOGS, AND OTHER PUBLIC POSTING AREAS.

12. Assignment

In the event that all or part of our assets are sold or acquired by another party, or in the event of a merger, you grant us the right to assign the information collected via our website.

13. Arbitration

BY VISITING AND/OR USING OUR WEBSITE, YOU AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURE: IN THE EVENT OF ANY CONTROVERSY, CLAIM, ACTION OR DISPUTE ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO ANY ACTIVITY CONDUCTED ON THE WEBSITE, OR THE BREACH, ENFORCEMENT, INTERPRETATION, OR VALIDITY OF THIS AGREEMENT OR ANY PART OF IT, EXCEPT FOR DISPUTES THAT QUALIFY FOR SMALL CLAIMS COURT, THE PARTY ASSERTING THE DISPUTE SHALL FIRST TRY IN GOOD FAITH TO SETTLE SUCH DISPUTE BY PROVIDING WRITTEN NOTICE TO THE OTHER PARTY DESCRIBING THE FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES (INCLUDING ANY RELEVANT DOCUMENTATION) OF THE DISPUTE AND ALLOWING THE RECEIVING PARTY 30 DAYS IN WHICH TO RESPOND TO OR SETTLE THE DISPUTE.

NOTICE SHALL BE SENT TO:

(1) To us at: Woodend Nature Sanctuary – Headquarters, 8940 Jones Mill Road, Chevy Chase, MD 20815,  OR

(2) To you at: your email address provided through the website or other information we have on file for you

BOTH YOU AND NATURE FORWARD AGREE THAT THIS DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURE IS A CONDITION PRECEDENT WHICH MUST BE SATISFIED PRIOR TO INITIATING ANY LITIGATION OR FILING ANY CLAIM AGAINST THE OTHER PARTY.

IF ANY DISPUTE CANNOT BE RESOLVED BY THE ABOVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURE, YOU AGREE THAT THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION FOR SUCH DISPUTE WILL BE DECIDED BY BINDING ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS. ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS MENF THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE, AND YOU WAIVE, THE RIGHT FOR A JUDGE OR JURY TO DECIDE YOUR CLAIMS, AND THAT YOU MAY NOT PROCEED IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE CAPACITY. OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU AND NF WOULD HAVE IN COURT WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE OR WILL BE MORE LIMITED IN ARBITRATION, INCLUDING DISCOVERY AND APPEAL RIGHTS. ALL SUCH DISPUTES SHALL BE EXCLUSIVELY SUBMITTED TO JUDICIAL ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION SERVICES, INC. FOR BINDING ARBITRATION UNDER ITS RULES THEN IN EFFECT IN MARYLAND, USA AREA, BEFORE ONE ARBITRATOR TO BE MUTUALLY AGREED UPON BY BOTH PARTIES.

14. Cookies

Our website uses a browser feature known as a “cookie.” Cookies are small files placed on your hard drive that assist us in providing you with a customized browsing experience. Our website uses cookies to provide you with the convenience of not having to reenter information multiple times during your visits to our websites. Cookies can also be utilized to help us provide you with information targeted to your interests, based upon your prior browsing on our websites. Different cookies are used to perform different functions, which we explain below:

Essential. Some cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around our websites and use their features, such as accessing secure areas of our websites. Without these cookies, we cannot enable appropriate content based on the type of device you are using.

Analytics. Personal information collected via cookies for analytics purposes may include: information about your browser, network, and device; web pages you visited prior to coming to our websites; IP address; clicks; internal links; pages visited; scrolling; and searches. We use this information to learn about website traffic and activity. In particular, we use Google Analytics to measure how you interact with our websites. For more information about Google Analytics and how it collects and processes data, please go to “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ websites or apps”, located at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. Google also provides instructions on opting-out of Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.       

Targeted Advertising. Cookies may be placed by our third-party advertising companies. These companies may use aggregated statistics about your use of our websites and third party media in order to provide you with advertisements about goods and services that you may be interested in. If you would like to opt-out of such advertising practices on the particular device on which you are accessing this privacy policy, please go to http://optout.aboutads.info/.

The “help” section of the toolbar on most browsers will inform you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you upon the receipt of a new cookie, or how to disable the use of cookies completely. As our websites have been designed to take advantage of the use of cookies, should you configure your browser to decline their use, certain features of our websites may not function correctly.

15. How We Respond to Do Not Track Signals

At this time our website does not recognize automated browser signals regarding tracking mechanisms, which may include Do Not Track instructions.

16. Retention 

We will retain personally identifying information for as long as it is needed to fulfill the purpose for which it is collected.

17. Changes to the Privacy Policy

This privacy policy may be updated from time to time for any reason. We will notify you of any changes to our privacy policy by posting the new privacy policy here and updating the “Last Updated” date at the top of the policy. You are advised to consult this privacy policy regularly for any changes, as continued use is deemed approval of all changes.  That said, if we make material changes to our data practices, we will attempt to provide more direct notice to our users.

18. Questions About Our Policies

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, you can contact us at: [email protected] or 301-652-9188 x.35.