Welcome to Purpose Commons ("Purpose Commons," "we", "us," or "our"), a partner project of the Fund for the City of New York (the "Fund"). Purpose Commons is committed to helping young people cultivate their sense of purpose. We collect and use information to create environments where all young people have opportunities to explore and develop their purpose, while respecting your privacy rights. This Privacy Policy (the "Privacy Policy") provides information about how we collect, store, use, and disclose information when you use or access our website at purposecommons.org and any of our other websites (the "Website") and the services we provide (the "Services"). Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, capitalized terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms of Use.

Your use of any feature on the Website indicates your agreement to the Privacy Policy, as in effect at such time, and your acknowledgement that any personal information collected will be subject to this Privacy Policy. Purpose Commons reserves the right to modify the Privacy Policy at any time, without notice. Such changes will be incorporated into this Privacy Policy and posted on the Website and will become effective as soon as they are posted on the Website.

If you have any questions about the contents of the Privacy Policy, please contact us at hello@purposecommons.org or by post to:

Purpose Commons
121 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10013

Information Collected through the Website and Services

Purpose Commons collects any information that you provide when you use the Website and Services, including when you use our web applications, complete any of our online forms, sign up for our newsletters, or contact us with a question ("Personal Information"). Personal Information may include:

• Contact information, including your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number;

• Demographic information, including your date of birth, gender identity, and race; and

• Other data not specifically listed here, which will be used as described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection.

Information Collected from Devices

We also may collect certain information automatically from your device, which may be considered personal information under applicable data protection laws. For example, we may collect the domain name or URL from which you accessed the Website, your IP address, browser types and anonymous demographic information (such as ZIP codes), date and time you accessed each page of the Website, and the web browser you used and pages you accessed.

Cookie Policy

The Website uses "cookies" or other tracking technology such as pixels, in order to enhance a user's experience when viewing the Website and to compile statistical information regarding the use of the Website. A cookie is a file that is transmitted by a website to a user's browser. The browser then saves that file in a designated file for cookies on the user's computer. We use cookies to personalize the user's experience on the Website as well as to compile statistics about how the Website is used, including to help us identify features in which you may have the greatest interest.

You may have the ability to change your browser settings to refuse to accept cookies. Please note, however, that without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of all our Website features.

Cookies on the Website generally fall into the following categories:

• Necessary Cookies: These are required for the operation of our Website.

• Analytical Cookies: These allow us to recognize and count the number of users of our Website and see how those users navigate through the Website. This helps to improve how the Website works.

• Functional Cookies: Functional cookies record information about the choices you have made and allow us to tailor the website to you.

Some content or applications on our Website are served by third-parties. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our Website. The information they collect may be Personal Information or they may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content. We do not control these third parties' tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

Use and Disclosure of Information

We may use information, including Personal Information, collected through the Website and We may use information, including Personal Information, collected through the Website and Services to provide you with the products, services, or information you request; to deliver communications that you request; to send you marketing and promotional communications that may be of interest to you; to maintain, develop, support, improve, analyze, and troubleshoot the Website and Services; to customize the content you see when you use the Website; to operate our business; to detect, prevent, or respond to fraud, unlawful or criminal activity, or unauthorized use of the Website and Services; and to comply with other legal obligations.

Whatever the purpose may be – whether we share with service providers or other third-parties – we only process and share your Personal Information to the extent reasonably necessary to fulfill your requests and meet our business and legal objectives. We may also use what we know about you to potentially offer you other services in the future. We may combine your online information with information collected from offline or online sources, or information we already have for purposes including, without limitation, to better tailor and personalize our offerings and our communications with you. We may also use and disclose certain Personal Information to others for any purpose allowed by law.

Research and Purpose Science

With appropriate consent and privacy safeguards, anonymized and aggregated data may be shared with our research partner, the Purpose Science and Innovation Exchange (PSiX) at Cornell University, to advance the science of purpose and youth development. All research activities comply with applicable ethical standards and privacy laws. When data is used for research, we implement measures to protect individual privacy, including data minimization, de-identification techniques, and secure transfer protocols. Research findings may be published in academic journals or presented at conferences, but will never contain personally identifiable information without explicit consent.

Users Providing Third-Party Information

Do not provide or allow others to provide Personal Information about anyone unless you, on your own behalf and on behalf of anyone whose information you provide: (a) have reviewed and agree with this Privacy Policy, and (b) are authorized to and do consent to have all data used and transferred to us. By submitting any personal information about others you represent and warrant that you received such authorization beforehand.

Sharing Your Information with Third-Parties

We will not sell, rent, or share your Personal Information without your permission and will treat it in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. We reserve the right to share such information in certain limited ways described below.

We may also use and share information, including your Personal Information, collected through the Website and Services with third party vendors to enable those vendors to provide services to us or the Fund for which they have been retained and/or to enhance Website functionality. We make reasonable efforts to ensure that these parties only use personal information we provide to perform services for us and to protect such personal information in a commercially reasonable manner.

Research and Collaboration Partnerships

Purpose Commons collaborates with researchers, youth-serving organizations, and other stakeholders to advance understanding of purpose development. These collaborations may involve sharing de-identified, aggregated data with appropriate confidentiality agreements and privacy protections in place. Our collaborative work focuses on advancing purpose science and promoting youth development while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and data protection. When we engage in such collaborations, we implement appropriate data governance policies, including data sharing agreements that limit the use of shared data to specific research purposes and prohibit attempts to re-identify individuals.

Retaining Information

We will retain your Personal Information on our systems for as long as we need to for business and legal purposes and in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. We may keep contact information (such as mailing list information) until a user requests that we delete that information from our systems.

Fund for the City of New York

The Fund’s website contains links to our Website and other partner projects’ websites. This Privacy Policy only applies to our Website and Services and does not apply to the Fund’s website or other partner project websites.  We encourage you to read the privacy statements of these linked websites as their privacy policies may differ from this policy.

Linked Sites and Social Media

As a service to you, our Website may contain links to other third-party websites, including social media sites, such as Instagram®, LinkedIn®, Bluesky®, YouTube®, and other sites including media and publication websites, and governmental websites.  Our Website also may contain a link to share, e.g., an action you took on our Website, on social media sites. By clicking on a link, you will be redirected off our Website and onto third-party websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to such websites, and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of such websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of these linked websites as their privacy policies may differ from ours.

Children

Our Website and Services are not intended or designed to be used by any individual under the age of 13 years, and we do not knowingly collect or maintain any information about any individual under the age of 13 through our Website without verifiable parental consent.

For youth between the ages of 13 and 18, we implement appropriate privacy protections and encourage review of this Privacy Policy with a parent or guardian.

However, we may conduct activities that may involve the collection of Personal Information from children through means other than our Website as part of specific Purpose Commons programs and initiatives. In such cases, we will always obtain the consent of a parent or legal guardian before collecting Personal Information from a child under the age of 13 years, and we will provide age-appropriate explanations and safeguards for participants between 13 and 18 years of age. We apply enhanced protections to all youth data, including minimizing the data we collect, limiting data retention periods, and restricting access to such data to authorized personnel only.

Information Security

We have implemented reasonable measures to protect the security of Personal Information that you provide through your use of the Website and Services. The transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure and as such, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information. Any transmission of information is at your own risk.  

Claims of Copyright Infringement

If you believe your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please contact us at hello@purposecommons.org. 

Visitors from Outside New York

Your California Privacy Rights. The California Consumer Privacy Act grants residents of California the right to request certain information regarding the disclosure of personally identifiable information to third-parties, if the information is used for the third-party’s direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please contact us at hello@purposecommons.org. 

Outside the United States. If you reside outside the United States, any information that you may provide us through the Website will be transferred out of your country and into the United States. If you do not wish for your personal information to leave your country, please do not provide such information. By providing personal information via the Website, you expressly consent to the transfer of your information to the United States.

Visitors’ GDPR Rights. If you are in the European Union, we collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable EU laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"). You may have certain rights regarding the Personal Information we hold about you. These may include the rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our use of, or receive a portable copy in a usable electronic format of your personal information. You also may have a right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection or privacy regulator. To exercise any of your GDPR rights, including to request a record of the information we have on file for you, by sending an email to hello@purposecommons.org.