Privacy Policy
Your Privacy
The Merit School of Music respects the privacy of your personal information.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use non-public personal information collected at our website www.meritmusic.org as well as other information sent to us offline.
While we attempt to limit the collection of such information to a minimum, we feel that you should be aware of what types of information we do collect, where we collect it from, how we use it and what and to whom we disclose this information.
Information Collection
We collect personally identifiable information including names, postal addresses and email addresses when voluntarily submitted by our visitors at several places on our website. The information you provide is used to fulfill your specific request.
We use third-party companies to assist us with our email communications and online donation payment processing. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes other than to fulfill your specific request on behalf of the Merit School of Music.
Emails
Visitors to www.meritmusic.org may voluntarily opt-in to receive promotional emails. To do so, visitors are asked to provide personally identifiable information. This information is shared with and stored by our email distribution partner, HubSpot, solely for the purpose of distributing promotional email communications from the Merit School of Music. HubSpot does not have permission to use this information for any other purpose.
All Merit School of Music emails allow you to opt out of further mailings by selecting the unsubscribe link on every email.
Online Donations
The Merit School of Music has contracted with Qgiv and Blackbaud to provide secure methods of making online donations to our organization. The majority of online donations—including donations made on Merit’s donation page, www.meritmusic.org/donate—are processed via an encrypted Qgiv form. Blackbaud’s online donation platform is used only for a limited number of online donations, including the sponsorship of and ticket purchases to Merit’s annual Gala.
Qgiv and Blackbaud do not have permission to use your information for any other purpose other than to process your donation payment for the Merit School of Music.
Please see our Donor Privacy Policy and Commitment for further details.
Donor Privacy Policy
Our Donor Privacy Policy assures our valued donors and supporters that Merit values and respects its donors’ right to privacy and understands that the philanthropy of its supporters should be accompanied by mutual respect and trust.
To ensure that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in Merit, we affirm that our fundraising practices protect against unauthorized use of contributor lists, and we permit no general solicitation of the public.
Merit utilizes donors’ personal information such as names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses only for purposes of donor acknowledgment and/or when the donor voluntarily provides this information. Merit does not share any of the above donors’ personal or contact information with any third-party organizations and will not trade, share, or sell a donor’s personal information with anyone else, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations. This policy applies to all donors, including offline as well as online donors.
Visitors to the Merit website remain anonymous. Merit does not require visitors to register or provide personal information to view the site.
There are instances when site visitors are asked for additional information to provide requested services. For example, information will be requested when making an online donation to Merit so that the gift may be properly processed and receipted. Merit’s online donors choose the personal information that Merit receives and can opt to remain anonymous. All credit card transactions are conducted over a secure server.
Merit welcomes comments and questions about this policy. We are committed to protecting your personal information and will make every reasonable effort to keep that information secure.
Cookie and Tracking Technology
Our website uses cookies and tracking technology for gathering information such as browser type and operating system, tracking the number of visitors to our website, and understanding how visitors use the site.
Personal information cannot be identified via cookies and other tracking technology.
If you wish, you can set up your browser to refuse cookies. However, we encourage you to accept cookies when surfing our website so we can do our job of providing you useful information as effectively as possible.
Links
Our website contains links to other websites. Please note that when you click on one of these links, you are entering another website for which the Merit School of Music has no responsibility.
We encourage you to read the Privacy Policies on these sites as their policies may be different from ours.
Legal Disclaimer
Although user privacy is a top priority of Merit, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law.
Notification of Changes
We reserve the right at any time, and without notice, to change this Privacy Policy by posting changes on our website.
Any such changes will be effective immediately upon posting. Changes will not apply retroactively.
Contact Information
Questions regarding this Privacy Policy should be directed to Merit School of Music by sending an email to info@meritmusic.org. Please reference this Privacy Policy in your subject line.
Or you may contact us at:
Merit School of Music
Re: Privacy Policy
38 South Peoria Street
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone: 312-786-9428
