Privacy Policy

Overview

Desert Knights Foundation, Inc. (“Desert Knights Foundation,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through this website, how we use it, who we may share it with, and the choices you have.

It covers three different things you can do here: contact us, make a donation, and apply for housing assistance through Bridge to Stability. The housing application collects considerably more sensitive information than the other two, so it has its own section below, and that section governs where it differs from the general practices described here.

Information we collect

We collect information you provide directly to us. Through our contact form, this may include your first and last name, email address, phone number, and any message or details you choose to share, including your reason for contacting us, for example volunteering, donating, or partnership inquiries.

Through a Bridge to Stability application, we collect the information described under Bridge to Stability housing assistance below, which includes identity documents and financial hardship documentation.

We do not collect or store payment or financial account information on this website. Donations are handled by a third-party platform, described below.

Donations

Donations to Desert Knights Foundation, Inc. are processed through Givebutter, a third-party giving platform. When you donate, the information you provide, including your name, contact details, and payment information, is collected and processed by Givebutter and its payment processors under their own privacy practices, not ours. We never receive or store your full payment card number.

We do receive donor details such as name, email address, and gift amount so that we can issue tax receipts, acknowledge your gift, and keep accurate records as a nonprofit organization. We encourage you to review Givebutter’s privacy policy.

Bridge to Stability housing assistance

Bridge to Stability provides short-term emergency rent and utility assistance. Applying means telling us about your housing, your household, and your finances at a difficult moment, and sending us documents that identify you. This section explains exactly what happens to that information.

The eligibility check stays in your browser

The three-question eligibility check at the top of the Bridge to Stability page runs entirely in your own browser. Your answers are used only to show you what to prepare. They are not sent to Desert Knights Foundation, not stored, and not recorded anywhere. Nothing you do on that page reaches us until you choose to continue to the secure application.

The application is hosted by Tally

The application itself is hosted on Tally (tally.so), a third-party form service. When you continue to the secure application you leave this website, and the information and documents you submit are collected by Tally and delivered to us. Tally states that form responses are stored on servers in the European Union. We encourage you to review Tally’s privacy policy. We use Tally as a service provider acting on our instructions; the decisions about how your application information is used are ours.

What the application collects

• About you and your household: your name, contact details, address, and information about who lives in your household.
• About your housing situation: your monthly rent or utility obligation, the amount past due, what you are at risk of, and the name and contact or account details of your landlord, property manager, or utility company.
• About your hardship: the circumstances that led to the request, such as job loss, reduced hours, a medical event, or another emergency, and information about your household income.
• Documents you upload: a government-issued photo ID, your lease or housing agreement, any eviction notice or court document, a past-due rent or utility statement, and proof of income or hardship such as a recent pay stub or benefits letter.

We ask only for what we need to verify your situation and make a payment on your behalf. If a document you need to send contains information we have not asked for, such as a full Social Security number or a full bank account number, you may black it out before uploading. Please do not send us information we have not requested.

Why we collect it

• To confirm who you are and that the housing or utility account is yours.
• To confirm the amount owed and that the hardship is recent.
• To decide whether we can help, and how much we can provide from available funding.
• To pay your landlord, property manager, or utility company directly on your behalf.
• To coordinate with partner organizations so that help is not duplicated and so we can refer you to assistance we cannot provide ourselves.
• To follow up with you after assistance, and to keep the records required of us as a nonprofit organization and by the funders who make this assistance possible.

Who we may share it with

• Your landlord, property manager, or utility company, limited to what is needed to verify the amount owed and make a payment on your behalf.
• Partner organizations, where coordinating avoids duplicate benefits or connects you with help we cannot provide. We will ask your permission before sharing your application with another organization for this purpose, except where the law requires us to share it.
• Service providers that host our application form, email, and file storage, acting on our instructions and not for their own purposes.
• Funders and auditors, where we are required to report on how assistance was used. We provide aggregate or de-identified information wherever that satisfies the requirement.
• Law enforcement, courts, or others where we are required to do so by law.

We do not sell, rent, or trade applicant information. Applying for assistance does not add you to a fundraising list, and we will not solicit donations from you because you applied.

How long we keep it

We keep application materials only as long as we need them. Applications that do not result in assistance are deleted once the request is closed and any appeal window has passed. Where we have made a payment, we retain the records needed to document that payment for our own accounting and for any funder or audit requirement that applies to it, and we delete supporting identity documents once they are no longer needed for that purpose.

Access to application materials is limited to the staff and volunteers who review requests and make payments.

Your choices about an application

At any time you may ask us for a copy of the information you submitted, ask us to correct it, ask us to withdraw an application that is still open, or ask us to delete your information. Contact us at [email protected] or 602.398.0089 and we will respond as promptly as we can.

We will honor a deletion request except where we are required to keep a record, for example documentation of a payment we already made on your behalf. If that applies, we will tell you what we are keeping and why, and we will delete everything else.

Withdrawing an application or asking us to delete your information will not affect how you are treated if you apply again later.

How we use your information

• To respond to your questions, requests, and inquiries
• To follow up regarding volunteering, donations, or partnership opportunities
• To review and act on requests for assistance
• To maintain internal records of community outreach
• To improve our website and programs

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties.

How your information is handled

Our contact form is processed using Formspree, a third-party form service, which delivers your submission to our email inbox. We encourage you to review Formspree’s privacy policy. Bridge to Stability applications are processed using Tally, as described above. We may also share information with service providers who help us operate this website, and as required by law.

Cookies and analytics

This website may use basic analytics tools to understand general traffic patterns, such as the number of visitors and pages viewed. This information is used in aggregate and is not used to personally identify you.

Photographs and media

We photograph our programs, events, and community service activities, and we publish selected images on this website and on our social media channels. Before publishing an identifiable image of a program participant, volunteer, or community member, we obtain that person’s consent. Where the person pictured is a minor, we obtain the consent of a parent or guardian.

We do not publish the names of program participants or beneficiaries alongside their images without separate permission. We never publish the identity of a Bridge to Stability applicant, or any indication that a particular household received assistance, without that household’s written permission. If you appear in a photograph on this website and would like it removed, contact us using the information below and we will remove it promptly.

Children’s privacy

This website is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children through this site. A Bridge to Stability application may include information about minors who live in the applicant’s household; that information is provided by the adult applying, is used only to review the request, and is subject to the same protections described above. We publish photographs of minors only with the consent of a parent or guardian, and we do not publish a minor’s full name without that same consent.

Your choices

You may request that we correct, update, or delete personal information you have submitted to us at any time by contacting us using the information below. For information submitted through a Bridge to Stability application, see Your choices about an application above.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with a revised effective date.

Contact us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected] or 602.398.0089. For questions about a Bridge to Stability application specifically, contact [email protected].