Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 5, 2026

About this policy

Luv Michael is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that creates employment and training for autistic adults. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

It covers our main website at luvmichael.com, our student volunteer app at volunteer.luvmichael.org, and our team fundraising platform at team.luvmichael.com.

We wrote this in plain language on purpose. Many of the people who use our programs are high school students and their families, and a policy nobody can read protects nobody.

Information we collect from volunteers and team participants

When you create an account — either as a self-start volunteer or as a participant on a fundraising team — we collect your name, email address, and, if you choose to receive text reminders, your mobile number and your consent to be texted.

As you work through a program we keep a record of your progress: the steps you have completed, the community resources you submit to our national database, the number of advocacy letters you report sending, the fundraising page you create, the total it has raised, the number of people who donated to you, and the service hours you have earned.

Some information you give us only if you want something specific. If you earn a graduation cord we ask for a mailing address so we can ship it. If you add a profile photo, a personal note or story about why you are fundraising, or a written reflection at the end of the program, we store what you provide. None of these are required to earn your certificate.

We also keep basic account records: when you created your account and joined a team, when you last signed in, sign-in links we email you and when they expire, whether you have opted out of email or text, your time zone (so we do not text you at five in the morning), which reminder messages we have already sent you, and a log of the text messages we send including delivery status.

If you refer a friend, we record your referral code, who referred you, and how many people you brought in. If you arrived from a specific link or campaign, we may record that source so we understand which outreach is working.

Information we collect from team organizers

If you organize a fundraising team — a dance studio, a school club, a company, a family — we collect your name, email address, phone number, and the display name you choose for your team, along with the team's cause, goal, and dates.

Because we send teams a share of the funds they raise, we are legally required to collect tax information from organizers who receive payments. That means a completed IRS Form W-9, which includes your legal name or entity name and your taxpayer identification number (a Social Security Number for an individual, or an EIN for an organization). We collect and use this strictly for tax reporting and payment, and for nothing else.

To send your payout we collect either a mailing address, if you are paid by check, or bank details, if you are paid by ACH. Bank details are collected by our finance team through a secure channel and are not stored in our fundraising systems.

We keep a record of each payout request: the amounts, the approval, and when it was sent.

Information we collect from donors

When you donate we collect your name, email address, the amount, and any message you choose to leave. We may also collect a phone number, and a shipping address if your gift earns a physical thank-you item.

We never see or store your full card number. Payments are processed by Stripe, which handles card details directly under its own security standards and gives us only a confirmation and transaction references. If a donation is refunded or disputed, we keep a record of that too.

You may donate anonymously. If you do, your name is hidden from the public fundraising page, though we still retain it in our records for receipting and accounting.

What appears publicly

Fundraising pages are public by design — that is how they work. When you create one, the following may be visible to anyone with the link: your first and last name, your profile photo if you add one, your story if you write one, your fundraising goal, the amount you have raised, and the number of people who have donated.

Donor names and messages may also appear on the page you gave to, unless the donor chose to give anonymously.

If you are a student under 18, or a parent who would rather your child's full name or photo not appear publicly, email info@luvmichael.com and we will limit what is shown on their page. You can complete the program with a first name only and no photo.

Cookies and tracking

Our sites use cookies that are necessary to work — keeping you signed in, remembering your progress, and maintaining security. These cannot be turned off without breaking the site.

We do not run advertising or analytics trackers anywhere: not on luvmichael.com, not on team.luvmichael.com, not on the student volunteer app, and not on our appointment booking pages.

We used to. Until August 5, 2026 we ran a Meta (Facebook) advertising pixel in two places — on the student volunteer app, and on the Calendly-hosted pages where people book an information call. On that date we removed the pixel from the app, disconnected it from our booking pages, and turned off the setting that had allowed it to read information people typed into our forms. Nothing about our advertising requires it: we can already see how many people book a call and how many students sign up, using our own records.

If we ever add advertising or analytics technology, we will update this policy before it goes live and ask for your consent before it runs. For anyone under 16, we would ask for permission first rather than assume it.

We do not respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals, because there is no common standard for them. We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals as a valid opt-out request under California law.

How we use your information

To run our programs: creating your account, tracking your progress, verifying your work, issuing your certificate, letter of recommendation, or graduation cord, publishing your fundraising page, and answering your questions.

To keep you moving: reminders by email or text about steps you have not finished, encouragement when your fundraiser stalls, and notice when you hit a milestone. You can opt out of these at any time and still complete the program.

To process and acknowledge donations, issue receipts, send teams their share of funds raised, and meet our accounting and tax obligations as a nonprofit.

To improve our programs: understanding, in aggregate, where participants come from and where they get stuck, so we can make things work better.

To protect our programs and the people in them: preventing fraud and abuse, and meeting our legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertising platforms for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Who we share information with

We share information only with service providers who need it to operate our programs, and only for that purpose. Each is bound by contract to protect it. We do not authorize any of them to use your information for their own marketing.

Vercel hosts our websites and apps. Airtable stores volunteer, participant, organizer, and donation records. Stripe processes donations and handles all card data. Twilio delivers our text messages. Resend delivers transactional email such as sign-in links, receipts, and certificates. Mailchimp delivers program and newsletter email. Calendly hosts our appointment booking pages. Give Lively hosts fundraising pages for volunteers who joined before we moved to our own system.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or in connection with a merger or transfer of our operations to another nonprofit — in which case we would notify you first.

Text messaging

We send SMS to volunteers, team participants, organizers, and supporters who opt in. By providing your mobile number and consenting during signup, you agree to receive texts about your account, including welcome messages, onboarding reminders, milestone notifications, and fundraising program updates.

Message frequency varies by activity, typically a few messages per week. We use your time zone so that messages arrive at a reasonable hour. Message and data rates may apply through your carrier; Luv Michael does not charge for texts. Reply STOP at any time to unsubscribe, or HELP for assistance. All major U.S. carriers are supported, and carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

Phone numbers and message content are never sold, rented, or shared for marketing. Twilio delivers our messages under its own privacy policy.

You must be 13 or older and own or have permission to use the phone number you provide.

Participants under 18

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account in any of our programs. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If we learn we have, we delete it promptly — if you believe a child under 13 has given us information, email info@luvmichael.com and we will remove it.

If you are between 13 and 17, you need permission from a parent or guardian before signing up, and we ask you to confirm that when you join.

A parent or guardian may at any time review what we hold about their child, ask us to correct or delete it, ask us to limit what appears on a public fundraising page, or ask us to stop contacting them. Email info@luvmichael.com from an address we can verify, and we will respond within 30 days.

We do not sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16 for advertising purposes, and we never use anyone's information to target advertising at children. California law requires affirmative permission before an under-16's information may be shared for advertising; rather than ask students to make that choice, we removed the advertising technology entirely.

Your choices

Email: every program and newsletter email has an unsubscribe link. Transactional messages — your sign-in link, your receipt, your certificate — will still be sent because they are how the programs work.

Text messages: reply STOP to any message.

Your account: email info@luvmichael.com to see what we hold, correct it, or close your account.

Your public page: photos, stories, and notes are optional, and you can remove them or ask us to show less at any time.

California privacy rights

If you live in California, the CCPA as amended by the CPRA gives you the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it, to request a copy, to correct inaccuracies, to request deletion, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. You have the right not to be treated differently for exercising any of these rights, and we will not deny you a program, charge you more, or give you less for doing so.

We do not sell personal information and, since August 5, 2026, we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. There is nothing to opt out of today. We publish a "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" section anyway, so the choice is there and findable if that ever changes.

Sensitive personal information: the taxpayer identification number on an organizer's Form W-9 is treated as sensitive personal information under California law. We collect it only to meet our tax reporting obligations and to pay you, we do not use it to infer anything about you, and we do not disclose it for any other purpose. Because our use is limited to what the law permits, no separate "limit the use of my sensitive personal information" request is necessary — but you may still contact us with any question about it.

To exercise any right, email info@luvmichael.com or call 201-523-4305. We will verify your identity — usually by confirming you control the email address on the account — and respond within 45 days, extending once by another 45 if a request is complex. An authorized agent may act for you with written permission.

In the past twelve months we collected the categories of personal information described above: identifiers such as name, email, phone and mailing address; commercial information such as donation and payout records; a taxpayer identification number from team organizers; internet activity limited to essential site function; and, if you choose to provide it, a photograph and written content. We collected it for the program purposes described above and disclosed it only to the service providers named above.

How long we keep information

We keep volunteer, participant, organizer, and donor records for ten years, and we do not delete accounts simply because they have gone quiet. We are a charity and the people in our programs are volunteers. A student may need to verify service hours for a college application years after finishing, a school counselor may write to confirm a certificate we issued, an organizer may need the record of a payout, and a donor may need a receipt reissued. Keeping the record is how we are able to answer.

Donation records, payout records, and organizer tax forms are kept for at least as long as our nonprofit accounting and tax obligations require, and in any case no less than the ten years above.

Two things we deliberately do not keep. Sign-in links and access tokens expire quickly and are cleared once used or expired, because they are security credentials rather than records. And we never store payment card details at any point — Stripe handles those directly.

Ten years is our default, not a limit on your rights. You can ask us to delete your information at any time and we will, unless the law requires us to keep it. See "Your choices" and, if you live in California, "California privacy rights" below.

How we protect information

Information is encrypted in transit. Access to participant, organizer, and donor records is limited to the small number of staff who need it, protected by multi-factor authentication. Payment card data never touches our systems — Stripe handles it directly. Bank details for payouts are not stored in our fundraising systems.

No system is perfectly secure, and we will not pretend otherwise. If a breach affects your personal information we will notify you as the law requires.

Changes to this policy

If we make a material change — particularly anything involving new tracking technology or a new category of data — we will post the updated policy here with a new date and notify active participants by email before it takes effect.

Contact us

Questions, requests, or concerns — including any request to see, correct, or delete your information — reach us at info@luvmichael.com or 201-523-4305.

By mail: Luv Michael, 42 Walker Street, New York, NY 10013.

Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

We never sell your personal information, and as of August 5, 2026 we no longer share it with any advertising platform. The Meta pixel that previously ran on our volunteer app and our booking pages was removed that day. There is nothing to opt out of.

If we ever reintroduce advertising technology, we will update this policy before it takes effect and provide a working opt-out here. If you would like your preference recorded in advance, email info@luvmichael.com and we will note it on your account.