How we handle your information.

What we don't collect.

The most important thing first: most people who use this service remain completely anonymous, and we want it that way.

The intake form on our homepage doesn't require an email address, a name, or any contact information for the first three steps. You can complete a full mental health screening and receive personalised resource recommendations without telling us who you are.

Ground Chat requires no sign-in. Nothing you type in the chat is stored against your identity. We don't track you across the internet. We don't use advertising pixels. We don't sell data. There is no account to create unless you choose to become a donor.

If you use the service anonymously and never give us contact information, we have nothing that identifies you — and that is by design.

What we do collect, and why.

When you choose to share information with us, here is what we collect and what we use it for:

• Email address — collected only if you create a donor account or ask for a care navigator follow-up. Used to send you what you asked for. Never used for general marketing without separate consent.
• Name and ZIP code — collected if you request affiliate matching (to find local in-person support near you). Used only to run the search. ZIP codes are stored as aggregate data; full names are not retained after the session unless you've also given an email for follow-up.
• Payment information — collected only when you make a donation. In a production implementation, payment processing is handled by Stripe, a PCI-compliant payment processor. We receive a transaction record but never store your full card number.
• Intake responses — if you complete the full 5-step intake and provide an email for follow-up, your responses are stored so a care navigator can personalise their outreach. If you don't provide an email, intake responses are not stored against any identity.

How long we keep it.

We keep information only as long as it's useful or required:

• Donation records — 7 years. This is a legal requirement for charitable organisations under IRS regulations.
• Intake records — 2 years from the date of intake, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
• Chat logs — 90 days. Chat logs are retained only in aggregate, anonymised form for service improvement. No personally identifiable information is attached.
• Account data — retained while your account is active. If you close your donor account, your personal data is deleted within 30 days except where required by law.

Who can see your information.

Very few people inside our organisation have access to any given piece of data, and nobody outside it does — with two narrow exceptions.

• Care navigators see the intake records for people assigned to them. They don't see records for anyone else.
• Finance staff see donation records for operational and compliance purposes. They don't see intake or chat data.
• No third parties receive your information for marketing, research, or any other commercial purpose.
• Legal exceptions — we may be required to disclose information in response to a valid court order or subpoena, or in situations where we have a mandatory reporting obligation because someone's life may be at risk. We will always inform you of any disclosure unless prohibited by law from doing so.

Your rights.

You have the right to know what information we hold about you, to correct it if it's wrong, and to ask us to delete it. These rights apply regardless of where you live.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@example.com. We'll respond within 10 business days. For deletion requests, we'll confirm completion within 30 days unless legal retention requirements prevent it — and we'll tell you clearly if that's the case.

We don't charge fees for exercising these rights. We don't require you to prove your identity in any invasive way — a reasonable description of what you shared with us is usually enough.