Website Privacy & Communications Policy
Family Digital Foundation — familydigital.org
Effective date: October 1, 2025
Last updated: July 20, 2026
This page covers every way you might interact with the Family Digital Foundation ("FDF," "we," "us") before you sign up for our Product — visiting familydigital.org, joining our mailing list, contacting us, expressing interest in the beta, attending an event, or making a donation. FDF is a Virginia nonprofit corporation recognized as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
The short version: we collect only what you choose to give us, we use it only to communicate with you and advance our mission, and we never sell it. You can walk away at any time.
Once you create a Product account, the Product's own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy take over for everything inside the Product. This page covers everything before and outside of that.
1. The Ways You Might Interact With Us
This policy covers:
Visiting our website — browsing familydigital.org and reading our essays;
Joining our mailing list — signing up for email and/or text (SMS) updates;
Contacting us — emailing us, using a contact form, or reaching out with questions or feedback;
Expressing interest in the Product — signing up as a prospective Founding Family, joining a waitlist, or requesting beta access;
Events — registering for or attending an FDF event or webinar;
Donating — supporting our mission financially.
2. What We Collect
You give us: your name, email address, and/or phone number when you subscribe, write to us, register interest, or sign up for an event — plus whatever you include in your message. Interest and waitlist forms may also ask basic questions about your family's interest in the Product (only what you choose to answer).
Donations: donations are processed by our third-party donation platform. We receive your name, contact information, and donation details for receipts and acknowledgment; we never see or store your full payment card number — that stays with the payment processor, under its own privacy policy.
Automatically: like most websites, our hosting infrastructure collects basic technical logs (IP address, browser type, pages visited) to keep the site working and secure. We do not use advertising trackers and we do not sell or share browsing data for targeted advertising.
Children: our website, mailing list, and forms are intended for adults (18+) and are not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through the website; if we learn we have, we will delete it. (Children participate in the Product itself only under its separate Privacy Policy, with parental consent.)
3. How We Use Your Information
Only to:
Respond to you when you contact us;
Send you the updates you signed up for — news about the Foundation and the Product, our essay series, events, and opportunities to support our mission;
Manage waitlists and beta interest, and contact you when the Product is ready for you;
Process and acknowledge donations, including tax receipts;
Keep our website and systems secure;
Comply with the law.
We do not sell, rent, or trade your information with anyone for marketing purposes. We don't build advertising profiles, and we don't send you messages on behalf of other organizations.
4. Email Communications
Every update or marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. You can also unsubscribe any time by emailing privacy@familydigital.org. We may still send you individual, non-marketing replies when you write to us, or transactional messages like donation receipts.
5. Text Message (SMS) Terms
If you give us your phone number and opt in to texts:
You consent to receive recurring text messages from FDF, which may be sent using automated technology. Consent is not a condition of any donation or purchase.
Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply, depending on your mobile plan.
To stop: reply STOP to any text and you'll be unsubscribed from texts (you may receive one final confirmation message).
For help: reply HELP, or contact privacy@familydigital.org.
Mobile carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
If you change or give up your phone number, please text STOP first or let us know, so messages don't reach the number's next owner.
Email and text are managed separately — unsubscribing from one doesn't stop the other, though we're glad to remove you from both at once if you ask.
6. Who We Share Information With
We share limited data only with trusted service providers who help us operate — email and text delivery services, website hosting, donation processing, and secure data storage. They may use your information only to provide those services to us. We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the safety of our users or the public.
7. How Long We Keep It
We retain your information only as long as necessary for the purposes above — for example, mailing list contacts for as long as you're subscribed, correspondence for as long as it's useful to serve you, and donation records as long as tax and nonprofit accounting rules require. If you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your information, we keep only the minimal record needed to honor your request (such as a suppression-list entry so we don't message you again).
8. Your Choices and Rights
Leave any list at any time — unsubscribe link (email), STOP (text), or privacy@familydigital.org (anything).
Access, correction, deletion — email privacy@familydigital.org to ask what contact information we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under state privacy laws; we'll honor valid requests regardless of where you're writing from, and we will never treat you differently for exercising them.
9. Changes to This Page
We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be posted here with a new "Last updated" date and, where appropriate, announced by email or text.
10. Contact Us
Family Digital Foundation
295 Bendix Road, Suite 260
Virginia Beach, VA 23452
privacy@familydigital.org
https://familydigital.org
The Family Digital Foundation Product (currently in beta) has its own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which govern once you create a Product account. This page covers your relationship with FDF before and outside the Product.