Privacy Policy

Last Updated: November 19, 2025

At Banyan Collaborative, we believe in building trusted relationships, and that starts with respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy is our commitment to you, outlining how we responsibly handle your personal information, why we collect it, and how we keep it safe. We recognize the importance of protecting your personal information and want to ensure you feel confident in how we operate.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information to operate our website, provide our services, and understand how users interact with our site. This information generally falls into two categories:

Information Collected Automatically (Browse Data)

When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain non-personally identifiable information about your device and browse activity. This helps us analyze website traffic, troubleshoot technical issues, and improve your experience. While this information generally doesn’t identify you directly, some elements, like IP addresses, can be considered personal data in certain jurisdictions.

This data may include:

  • IP Address: Your device’s unique numerical identifier on the internet.
  • Device Information: Type of device (e.g., desktop, mobile), operating system, browser type and version, and screen resolution.
  • Usage Data: The date and time of your visit, the pages you viewed, the time spent on those pages, referring website addresses, and clickstream data.
  • Approximate Location Data: A general geographic location derived from your IP address, not precise GPS coordinates.

We use trusted third-party analytics services, such as Google Analytics, to anonymously understand how our website is used. This helps us optimize our content and design, making your experience more intuitive and valuable. These services may collect and process information about your usage, including your IP address (which may be anonymized), device information, and browse activities.

Information You Volunteer (Provided by You)

We collect personal information that you knowingly and voluntarily provide to us when you interact with our site, for specific purposes. This includes:

  • Contact Information: Your name, email address, mailing address, and telephone number, if you provide them through our contact forms, email inquiries, or other online forms.
    • Purpose: To respond to your questions, address your concerns, process your requests, or forward your inquiry to the appropriate person within Banyan Collaborative for a response, ensuring you receive the information and support you need to engage with our work effectively and explore new possibilities together.
  • Email Content: The contents of your email messages, including attachments and signature blocks, when you send us an email.
    • Purpose: To understand and respond to your specific communication, enabling us to provide tailored insights and support.
  • Survey Responses: Information you volunteer when participating in online surveys.
    • Purpose: To gather feedback that informs our program development and content creation, allowing us to better address complex challenges and generate more effective, positive outcomes for the communities we serve.
  • Other Information: Any other information you choose to provide through online forms or other interactive features on our site for specific purposes (e.g., event registration, downloading resources).
    • Purpose: As explicitly stated on the form or associated with the specific service you are engaging with, always with the aim of enhancing your experience and delivering value.

    We may use third-party service providers (e.g., email platforms, CRM systems) to help us manage and process the information you volunteer.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

  • To Operate and Maintain our Website: Ensuring our website functions correctly, detecting and resolving technical issues, and improving site performance.
  • To Respond to Your Inquiries: Addressing your questions, requests, and providing customer support.
  • To Understand and Improve User Experience: Analyzing website usage patterns to enhance website features, content, and overall user experience. This helps us tailor our website content and service offerings to better meet your needs and interests, ensuring we’re providing the most relevant insights and solutions.
  • For Analytics and Reporting: Generating aggregate insights about our website’s audience and performance. These insights help us understand what resonates most with our audience, enabling us to continuously refine and enhance the value we provide through our content and services, ultimately contributing to positive outcomes for our clients and the broader community.
  • To Comply with Legal Obligations: Fulfilling any applicable legal, regulatory, or governmental obligations.

3. How We Share Your Information

We value your privacy and do not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their independent commercial use. We may share your information in the following limited circumstances:

  • Service Providers: We may share information with trusted third-party service providers who perform functions on our behalf, such as web hosting, analytics, email management, and customer support. These providers are obligated to protect your information and use it only for the purposes for which it was shared.
  • Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court order or government agency request).
  • Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the acquiring entity adhering to this Privacy Policy.

4. Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Our website uses “cookies” and similar tracking technologies to enhance your browsing experience and collect information about how you use our site. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by your web browser.

We use the following types of cookies:

  • Strictly Necessary/Essential Cookies: These cookies are essential for our website to function properly. They enable core functionalities like security, network management, and accessibility. You cannot opt-out of these cookies.
  • Analytics/Performance Cookies: These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our website by collecting and reporting information anonymously. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. If you use Google Analytics, these cookies are set by Google.
  • Functionality Cookies: These cookies enable enhanced functionality and personalization, such as remembering your preferences (e.g., language selection).
  • Third-Party Cookies: We may also use cookies from third-party services, such as Google Analytics, to provide us with website analytics. These third parties may collect information directly from your browser.

Your Cookie Choices: Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. You can manage your cookie preferences directly through your browser settings to decline cookies or delete existing cookie files. Please be aware that disabling essential cookies may impact your experience and limit some website functionalities.

5. Data Security

We take the security of your information seriously and have put measures in place to protect it. We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include using secure servers, access controls, and encryption where appropriate. However, please be aware that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

6. Data Retention

Our goal is to keep your information only as long as we need it to fulfill our commitment to you or meet our legal obligations. To determine the appropriate retention period, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process your personal data, and applicable legal requirements.

7. Your Privacy Rights

Your trust is important to us. Depending on your location and applicable privacy laws, you have specific rights regarding your personal data. We are committed to empowering you to control your information and will respond to your requests with transparency and care. These rights may include:

  • Right to Access: The right to request copies of the personal data we hold about you.
  • Right to Rectification: The right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Right to Erasure: The right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • Right to Restrict Processing: The right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • Right to Object to Processing: The right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions (e.g., for direct marketing).
  • Right to Data Portability: The right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
  • Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we rely on your consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact@banyancollaborative.com. We will respond to your request in accordance with applicable law.

8. Children’s Privacy

We recognize the particular importance of protecting privacy where children are involved. Banyan Collaborative does not knowingly collect personal information online from children under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at contact@banyancollaborative.com. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to remove that information from our servers promptly.

9. Links to Third-Party Websites

Our website may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. Once you leave our site to go to another site, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of that other site. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of all websites you visit, especially if you share any personal information. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy at any time. Any such changes will be effective immediately upon posting the updated policy on this page. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Privacy Policy here and updating the “Last Updated” date at the top of the page.

11. Privacy Contact Information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, our data practices, or if you wish to exercise your privacy rights, please do not hesitate to contact us at contact@banyancollaborative.com.