Privacy Policy

The Council on Foundations (COF or the Council) has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate its firm commitment to the privacy of COF members and website users. The following paragraphs describe the Council's information gathering and dissemination practices. The privacy statement may change at any time; any changes will be posted on this page. Should you have additional questions, comments or concerns please contact:

The following topics describe how the Council uses information voluntarily submitted by its members and other visitors to this site, WWW.COF.ORG.

Email Privacy

Your email address will only be used within the Council. The Council does not sell or rent email addresses to anyone outside the organization. If you do not wish to receive email correspondence, please email you request to membership@cof.org  or call the Council's Service Center at 703/879-0600.

Use of IP addresses and Cookies

A unique number called an IP address identifies every computer on the Internet. Each time you connect to the Internet your machine is assigned an IP address. An IP address is a number that identifies each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packets across the Internet. The Council uses your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer the Council website.

"Cookies" are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer's hard drive. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in the future. The Council uses cookies to maintain user session identity, and, in some non-member areas, to store your username and password locally for ease of access.

www.cof.org Site/Membership Registration Forms

The Council's website registration forms require users to give us contact information (such as name and email address), method of payment, and demographic information. The Council may use customer contact information from the registration forms to send the user information about the Council. The customer's contact information is also used to contact the visitor when necessary. Information regarding method of payment is collected for member enrollment, registration and to process orders for products and services.

External Links

www.cof.org contains links to other external websites that do not fall under the cof.org domain. cof.org is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such external websites. If you choose to follow such links to external websites, you do so at your own risk.

E-Commerce for Conference Registration/Publications Sales/Foundation News & Commentary Subscriptions

www.cof.org uses an order form for customers to request information, products and services. The COF collects visitor's contact information (such as email address) and method of payment. Contact information from the order form is used to process orders and to send information about the Council. User payment information that is collected is used to check the users' qualifications and bill the user for products and services. This information is transmitted via a secure email.

Surveys

cof.org online surveys ask respondents for contact information (such as email address) and demographic information (such as zip code and age). The Council also may use contact data from its surveys to send information about the Council.

Public Forums

This site makes chat rooms, forums, email lists and message boards available to its users. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information. Although the Council tries to protect your personal information when you are using these public forums, the Council cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to the Council in the course of using any one or more of these areas, and you do so at your own risk.

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under the Council's control.