Privacy Policy

Effective 5/15/2023

Resource Area For Teaching (“RAFT,” “we,” or “our”) respects your privacy.

This Privacy Policy explains how we use and disclose Personal Information collected through web sites owned and operated by us, namely www.raft.net and www.raftstore.net (the “Sites”), as well as from other sources, including but not limited to membership registrations, event registrations, and financial or material donations.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. You should check here periodically to review our current Privacy Policy, which is effective as of the effective date listed above.

Personal Information

“Personal Information” is information that identifies you personally or relates to you as an identifiable individual, such as your name, address, telephone number, and email address. In general, we may collect the following types of Personal Information through the Sites and via the other sources listed above:

Customer Information. We request personal information when you sign up as a customer, such as your name, address, phone number, email address, payment card information, and other information.

We may also collect certain optional information, including:

the subject(s) you teach;
the name, address, and phone number of the organization at which you teach;
proof of your membership eligibility/affiliation with a qualifying educational or child care institution or program (proof of affiliation includes a pay-stub, current Teachers Association card, school ID, child care license, business card, or note on letterhead from an eligible organization, such as a school, community program, or licensed childcare facility);
information about how you were referred to our Site;
the principal of the school at which you teach; and
additional contact information, (mentioned above), mobile number, or fax number.

We will use the information that you provide to us to confirm your eligibility for membership with RAFT. Upon confirmation, we will assign a RAFT ID number to you.

If you are renewing your membership to RAFT, we ask for your first and last name and RAFT ID number.

Donor Information. We collect your name, address, email address, telephone number, and payment information when you make a contribution, either on our website, at a special event, over the phone, or by mailing in a check.

Events, Program & Volunteers. When you register for an event or program, or sign-up to be a volunteer, we collect certain information from you, including your name, email address, address, phone number and other contact information, as well as the name of your school or organization, the grade and subject you teach.

Other Sources. We also may collect information about you from our affiliates and non-affiliated third parties and sources. For example, we may collect information about current or potential members or donors from public records, public sources, and third parties. We may combine this information with the Personal Information we have collected directly from you.

Information We Collect Automatically. We may use cookies, web beacons, and other similar technologies to collect information about you when you visit our Sites. Specifically, we may collect the following information about your use of our Sites via these technologies: your browser type and operating system; web pages you view; links you click; your IP address; your interaction with the Sites; length of time you are logged in to our Sites; and websites visited before our Sites. Please see the section “Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies” below for more information about our use of cookies and similar technologies. We may use the information collected through these methods in anonymous or aggregated form to analyze ways to improve our Sites or services. We may also associate this information with the Personal Information that we collect about you.

How We Use Personal Information

We use the Personal Information we collect about you for the following types of purposes:

to complete your orders and transactions, process returns, respond to your requests or inquiries, and for similar customer-service-related purposes;
to administer events, surveys, questionnaires, and programs;
to evaluate your eligibility for membership;
to process payments, including membership payments and donations;
to adjust our offerings or services to you and to tailor the information we send or display to you;
to provide you with information that we believe you may find of interest, including to send you marketing and promotional emails and to solicit donations;
to communicate with you about your membership;
to authenticate visitors to our Sites; and
to improve our Sites, offerings or services and to better understand how users access and use our Sites and offerings, on an aggregated or individualized basis.

Notwithstanding anything else in this Privacy Policy, we may use and disclose aggregate or non-Personal Information for market analysis, research, marketing or other purposes.

How We Disclose Personal Information

We may disclose Personal Information to third parties for the following sorts of purposes:

to our contractors or service providers (such as service providers who help us to administer our website) who provide services or perform functions on our behalf;
to protect against potential fraud in the course of processing a payment or donation (for example, if you use a credit or debit card on the Sites, we may use card authorization and fraud screening services to verify that your card information and address match the information that you supply to us and that the card being used has not been reported lost or stolen);
in response to a subpoena or other legal process by a governmental entity or third party, or if otherwise required by law;
to enforce our terms and conditions, protect or enforce our rights, privacy, safety, or property and/or that of you or others; and
in connection with the transfer or other disposition of assets, in whole or in part, of RAFT or any of its affiliates (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

Except as stated above, we will not share your Personal Information with other organizations. We will not send you mailings on behalf of other organizations.

We may publicly recognize you as a member or a donor, or otherwise use your Personal Information or other content that you voluntarily submit to us via our Sites or social media pages, for referral, testimonial, example, or publicity purposes.

Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies

When you interact with our Sites, we strive to make your experience easy and meaningful. We and our third party service providers may use cookies, web beacons (clear GIFs, web bugs) and similar technologies, described below, to track user activity and collect information. We may combine such information with Personal Information we have collected from or about you.

Browser or device. Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device, such as your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type (Windows or Mac), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, and Internet browser type and version. We use this information to ensure that our Sites function properly.

Cookies. We use cookies to track visitor activity on the Sites. A cookie is a text file that a website transfers to your computer’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Our cookies assign a random, unique number to each visitor’s computer. They do not contain information that would personally identify the visitor, although we can associate a cookie with any identifying information that is or has been provided to us while visiting our Sites. We use cookies that remain on your computer for a specified period of time or until they are deleted (persistent cookies). These cookies record clickstream information (data reporting the URLs, or names of the pages, on our Sites that have been visited and other traffic data). We may also use cookies that exist only temporarily during an online session (session cookies)—these cookies allow us to identify you temporarily as you move through the Sites. We use information collected through cookies for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, to display information more effectively, and to personalize your experience. We also gather statistical information about use of the Sites in order to continually improve their design and functionality, understand how they are used, and assist us with resolving questions regarding them. We may also use cookies or other technologies in online advertising to track responses to our ads. We do not currently respond to browser do-not-track signals. Most browsers allow users to refuse cookies, but doing so may impede the functionality of some portions of our Sites. You may wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html. We also use cookies in our restricted client and sales representative limited-access portions of our Sites.

Web Beacons. Web beacons (also known as pixel tags and clear GIFs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, that are used to track the online movements of Web users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer’s hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on webpages and may not be disabled or controlled through your browser. They may be used to, among other things, track the actions of our users (including email recipients), measure the success of our marketing campaigns, and compile statistics about usage of our services and response rates.

Surveys and Questionnaires

We may administer surveys and questionnaires to members. Your participation is entirely voluntary. If you do participate, we may combine your responses with the other information we have collected about you. We will not share your individual responses with third parties, other than our service providers who help us to administer and analyze the results, unless we notify you first and obtain your consent. We may share aggregated or de-identified responses that do not individually identify you.

Third-Party Services and Links

At times, our Sites may contain links to other, third-party websites. Any access to and use of such linked websites is not governed by this Privacy Policy, but, instead, is governed by the privacy policies of those third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy, information, or other practices of such third party websites.

Newsletters & Marketing Communications

We may send you emails from time-to-time about information that we believe may be of interest to you, including our newsletter. If, at any time, you would like to stop receiving these emails, you may follow the opt-out instructions contained in any such email. Please note that it may take up to 10 business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt-out of receiving emails or promotions from us, we still may send you important administrative emails about your account, your membership or any products or services you have requested or received from us, or for other non-promotional purposes, from which you cannot opt out.

We may send direct mail to your postal address for reasons related to your RAFT member account. You may also receive periodic mailings from us with information on new products and services or upcoming events.

Security

We use physical, technical, and administrative measures designed to protect the security of the Personal Information that you provide to us. Despite our efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security all of the time. You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your password, computer, and web-enabled devices, among other things, by signing off after using a shared computer, choosing a password that nobody else knows or can easily guess, and keeping your password private. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contact Us” section below.

Children Under 13

Our Sites are designed for, and membership available to, educators, not students. We do not knowingly collect any Personal Information online from children under 13. If we become aware that we have received any such information, we will take immediate steps to delete it.

Sensitive Information

Unless we request it, we ask that you not send us, and you not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., Social Security numbers, information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, or criminal background) on or through the Sites or otherwise to us.

Third-Party Payment Services

Our Sites may provide functionality allowing you to make payments or donations to RAFT using third-party payment services with which you have created your own account. When you use such a service to make a payment to us, your Personal Information will be collected by such third party and not by us, and will be subject to the third party’s privacy policy, rather than this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, this third party’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Policy from time to time, so be sure to check back periodically. We will post any changes to our policy to our Sites, at https://raft.net/privacy-policy. Any changes will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy. The effective date at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at raft@raft.net, or:

RAFT Bay Area
1355 Ridder Park Drive
San Jose, CA 95131

Because email communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails to us.