Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated on: December 1, 2025

The Valerie Fund (“The Valerie Fund”) respects your privacy and preferences. This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) sets forth the terms under which you share your personal data with The Valerie Fund, what information The Valerie Fund processes, how The Valerie Fund collects and uses your data, and your rights with respect to understanding and modifying how it will be collected and used.

The Valerie Fund is a New Jersey–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides support to children with cancer and blood disorders and their families. The Valerie Fund is not a healthcare provider and is not subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”). However, we recognize that some information you may share with us could relate to your or a child’s health, and we handle such information confidentially in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable law.

1. How does this Privacy Policy apply to you?

Generally: This Privacy Policy applies to the personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) provided to The Valerie Fund when you make a donation, register for an event, sign up for a newsletter, visit our Website, or otherwise provide us with information via The Valerie Fund Website located at  thevaleriefund.org, or any other domain names owned or controlled by The Valerie Fund, including any content, functionality, and/or services offered on or through same (the “Website”). It also applies to the Personal Information you may provide to The Valerie Fund via telephone, email, regular mail, social media, texting, mobile applications, at a special event, in response to a solicitation, or face-to-face.

Minors: The Valerie Fund will not knowingly solicit, collect, or otherwise process any Personal Information from children under the age of 16 without parental consent. Children under 16 are not authorized to make a donation or purchase, sign up for an event or program, or otherwise provide any personally identifiable information without consent from a parent or legal guardian. All Personal Information of a child—including health-related information—will be collected and used only with verifiable consent of a parent or legal guardian. We do not knowingly collect information directly from children under 13.

1. Categories of Information We Collect

It is optional for you to engage in any event or activity; however, if you choose to do so, we may require that you provide certain Personal Information. Depending upon the activity, some of the information we ask you to provide is required and some is voluntary. If you do not provide required information for a particular event or activity, you may not be permitted to engage in that event or activity.

We collect Personal Information in three ways. First, we collect Personal Information that you provide to us. Second, we collect certain Automated Information (as defined below) that may contain Personal Information when you use our Website. Third, we may collect Personal Information from public sources or from third parties who have obtained such Personal Information in compliance with applicable laws and have the legal authority to provide such Personal Information to us.

The Valerie Fund will only collect Personal Information about you that is relevant to the type of transaction or project you have engaged in with us.

Contact information: We may receive and retain Personal Information about you when you contact The Valerie Fund to make a donation; apply for a position with The Valerie Fund; sign up for any of The Valerie Fund’s activities or online content (such as newsletters or message boards); or when you telephone, email, or write to us, or engage with us via social media channels. Data such as your name, email or postal address, telephone or mobile number are necessary both to execute these transactions as well as to enable us to contact you for further engagement.

Credit card and billing information: When you make a donation or purchase, in addition to your contact information, The Valerie Fund asks for your billing address and credit card or other financial services information. All payment transactions are processed by third-party platforms that maintain their own privacy and security policies, which we encourage you to review. The Valerie Fund does not receive, store, or have access to your full payment card information. Any financial data you provide is transmitted directly to the payment processor and handled in accordance with that provider’s own privacy and security policies. While The Valerie Fund selects reputable service providers that maintain commercially reasonable security measures, we cannot guarantee or represent the specific security protocols used by those providers, and we disclaim any liability for their acts or omissions.

Sensitive Personal Data: We do not collect your “Sensitive Personal Information” (e.g., mental or physical health or dietary information, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, citizenship or citizenship status) unless there is a clear reason for doing so--and then only to the extent that we have your permission to collect such data and it is required to ensure that we provide appropriate facilities or support to enable you to participate in the event or to have access to The Valerie Fund’s services or programs. This may include limited health-related information, such as details about a diagnosis or treatment, that you voluntarily provide to request assistance, share your story, or participate in a Valerie Fund program. Such information is collected only with your consent and handled as Sensitive Personal Information. All Personal Information of a child will be treated as Sensitive Personal Information and collected and retained only with explicit consent of a parent or legal guardian.

Automated Information: We also collect information, some of which may be Personal Information, through automated means when you visit our Website (“Automated Information”) such as:

• the IP address of the device you use to connect to the internet (which may include information about your geographic location)
• the unique identifiers of your device
• your browser characteristics
• your device characteristics
• your operating system
• your language preferences
• the websites you visited before coming to our Website or through which you were referred to our Website
• information on actions taken by you on our Website
• dates and times of your visits to our Website
• the pages you accessed on our Website

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. If you do not wish to have cookies on your system, you can set your browser to refuse them. Please review the specific instructions from your browser in order to do this. However, please note that not accepting cookies may make certain features of our Website unavailable or difficult to view or use.

Information We Obtain from Third Parties: We may obtain Personal Information from third parties in a number of ways:

• We may obtain Personal Information from third parties for marketing and business purposes. If we obtain Personal Information from third parties for any of these purposes, we will require that any third parties from whom we may obtain such Personal Information represent to us that they have acquired the Personal Information in compliance with all applicable laws and have the right to provide us such Personal Information for our marketing purposes;
• We may collect Personal Information from publicly available sources.

III.       How will The Valerie Fund use your personal data?

The Valerie Fund may use your Personal Information for the following purposes:

1. For administrative reasons, including:

• “service administration,” which means that The Valerie Fund may contact you for reasons related to administering any donations you have made, the completion of donation or event transactions you have entered into with us, or the activity or online content you have signed up for;
• to confirm receipt of donations (unless you have asked us not to do this), and to say thank you and provide details of how your donation might be used;
• in relation to correspondence with us whether by letter, email, text, social media, message board or any other means, and to contact you about any content you provide;
• for internal recordkeeping so as to document your relationship history with us;
• to implement any instructions you give us with regard to withdrawing consent to send marketing information;
• to use IP addresses to identify the location of users, to block disruptive use, and to establish the number of visits from different countries.

1. For marketing and fundraising

Sections III and IV describe what data may be used for marketing and fundraising purposes and under what circumstances. We may use health-related information you voluntarily provide to us (for example, to respond to your inquiry, process a patient assistance request, or share your story). Such information will not be shared publicly or used for marketing without your explicit consent.

1. Analysis

To analyze and improve the activities and content offered by The Valerie Fund Website to provide you with the most user-friendly navigation experience. We may also use and disclose Personal Information in aggregate (so that no individuals are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.

1. Why do we hold and process personal data?

The Valerie Fund may request from you, or you may volunteer to provide, your contact information, including your name, mailing address, phone number(s), social media handles and email address(es), and payment information. We hold and process supporters’ Personal Information for a number of reasons:

• to keep a record of donations made and actions taken by our supporters and our communications with them;
• to send supporters marketing information about our projects, fundraising activities and appeals where we have their consent or are otherwise permitted to do so;
• to fulfill contractual obligations entered into with supporters;
• to support volunteers, such as during builds or fundraising events;
• to support community-based fundraising and campaigning;
• to ensure we do not send unwanted information to supporters or members of the public who have informed us they do not wish to be contacted;
• to manage supporters’ accounts and provide customer service;
• to offer contests, giveaways, or other promotions;
• to enforce the Website Terms of Use; and/or
• to perform other functions as described at the time The Valerie Fund collects information.

1. When will we send you personalized marketing communications?

The Valerie Fund will contact you for marketing purposes—for example, to keep you up to date on our work, or let you know how you can support that work—only where we have your consent or we are otherwise allowed to do so because of your prior engagement with The Valerie Fund.

We will make it easy for you to tell us if you would like to receive marketing communications from us and hear more about our work and the ways in which you would like to receive this information. We will not send you marketing material if you tell us that you do not wish to receive it. Instructions for how to do so are below (see Section IX below “How to control what we send you or update your Personal Information”).

1. How and when do we obtain information about you?

In addition to the means otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, including with respect to the information we collect, The Valerie Fund may obtain your personal data in the following circumstances:

1. When you access The Valerie Fund’s Website or social media

We might also obtain your Personal Information through your visit to our Website or your use of social media, depending on your settings or the privacy policies of these social media and messaging services. To change your settings on these services, please refer to their privacy notices, which will tell you how to do this. 

1. When the information is publicly available

We might also obtain Personal Information about individuals who may be interested in giving major gifts to organizations like The Valerie Fund. In these cases, we may seek to find out more about these individuals’ interests and motivations for giving through publicly available information. The information sources may include newspaper or other media coverage, open postings on social media sites and services that aggregate data on charitable giving.

1. When and why we use cookies

Cookies are a useful way for us to understand how supporters use The Valerie Fund’s Website. When you visit our Website, we will use cookies to collect data from your computer or other device, such as a smart phone or tablet. Cookies are created by your web browser when you visit our Website. Every time you return to our Website, your browser will send the cookie file back to the Website’s server. Cookies improve your experience of using our Website by, for example, preserving your preference settings so that you are shown information likely to be most relevant to you, and measuring your use of the Website so that we may continuously improve it. Cookies can also be used to show you relevant The Valerie Fund content on social media services.

The Valerie Fund Website may contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by other organizations. These third-party websites have their own privacy policies, including policies on the use of cookies, which would apply to the use of Personal Information you submit, or which is collected by cookies while visiting those websites. The Valerie Fund cannot accept responsibility for the privacy practices of such third-party websites, and we recommend therefore that you familiarize yourself with their policies.

Other ways we use cookies to enable us to improve our services:

• remembering if you are logged in so you can move around the Website without having to log in again on each page (for example if you are in checkout);
• measuring how many people are using each page of the Website and for how long so that we can try to improve the quality of our Website;
• enabling you to view content shared on social media or sharing sites;
•  “re-targeting” in advertising campaigns so that third-party vendors can display advertising to you about The Valerie Fund or other related entities as you use the internet.

How to manage and delete cookies. If you wish to restrict or block the cookies set by The Valerie Fund Website, you can do this through your computer or device’s browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer as well as more general information about cookies.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may affect the functionality of The Valerie Fund Website. 

If you visit our Website as an anonymous visitor (e.g., you switch off cookies), The Valerie Fund may still collect certain information from your browser, such as the IP address (which uniquely identifies a computer or other internet device).

VII.      How we share your information inside and outside The Valerie Fund

Unless you instruct us otherwise by opting out, The Valerie Fund may share your personal data with organizations with which The Valerie Fund partners, as well as other companies whose products and services may be of interest to you. In these cases, we may also provide you with information about services from third parties, unless you inform us that you do not want to receive this information.

The Valerie Fund’s service providers and business partners: We may need to share your information with service providers, data brokers, third-party advertisers, payment processers, and/or government agencies who help deliver our mission, services, objectives, and fundraising activities. The Valerie Fund does not sell, rent, or exchange donor or patient information. We may share limited information with trusted service providers (such as payment processors or event platforms) who are contractually obligated to maintain confidentiality and use the data only to perform services on our behalf.

Social Media Sites: We may also use your email address and phone number to match to your Facebook or other social media account(s) in order to show you The Valerie Fund content while you use those services. We only do this where you have consented to receiving marketing emails. In addition, we may also use your email address and phone number to link to Facebook or other social media sites in order to identify other users of these sites whom we believe would be interested in The Valerie Fund.

Where legally required: We will also comply with legal requests where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies for tax purposes or law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime, subject to such bodies providing us with a relevant request in writing).

VIII.    Security and Retention:

We implement administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect Personal Information, including Sensitive Personal Information, from unauthorized access, disclosure, or misuse. Donation transactions are encrypted and processed by PCI DSS–compliant vendors. We will hold your Personal Information on our contact lists only for as long as you continue to provide your consent. If you request that we stop sending you marketing materials, we will keep a record of your contact details and appropriate information to enable us to comply with your request not to be contacted by us. “We retain personal and health-related information only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Policy or to comply with applicable legal and tax requirements.

1. To exercise your privacy rights or to change the way we communicate with you:

• email us at bflanders@thevaleriefund.org
• or write to us at:

The Valerie Fund

2101 Millburn Ave

Maplewood, New Jersey 07040

You can opt out of marketing emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any marketing email from The Valerie Fund.

For your protection, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to verify your identity when you are exercising your right to have personal data corrected or deleted or to receive a copy of your personal data before implementing your request. If you are submitting a request on behalf of someone else, we may ask for additional verification, such as written documentation or other proof of authority. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable, consistent with applicable law.

Residents of certain U.S. states may have additional rights regarding the collection and use of their personal information under applicable state laws. We will honor valid requests to access, correct, or delete personal data as required by such laws. We will not discriminate against any individual for exercising their privacy rights under applicable state laws.

1. Changes to The Valerie Fund’s Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated as of the date written above. It may be updated from time to time, so you may wish to check it each time you submit Personal Information to The Valerie Fund. If you do not agree to these changes in this update, please review the instructions in Section IX to update your preferences and discontinue use of the Website. If material changes are made to the Privacy Policy, we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on the Website.