Last Updated: 1 June 2025

 

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This Privacy Policy for Grants Office LLC ("we," "us," or "our"), describes how and why we access, collect, store, use, and/or share ("process") your personal information when you use our services ("Services"), including when you:

  • Visit our website at www.grantsoffice.com, the subscription-based platform “Grants Office Communities”, or any website of ours that links to this Privacy Policy; and
  • Engage with us in other related ways, including any with our sales, marketing, or support teams, or at events.

 

Questions or concerns? Reading this Privacy Policy will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. We are responsible for making decisions about how your personal information is processed. By continuing to use our websites and our Services, you agree to our privacy and data sharing policies and practices. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

 

(1) WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

 

In short: We collect the personal information that you provide to us and we also automatically collect personal information when you visit our website.

 

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you register for our Services, express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in Service activities, or otherwise contact us.

 

Personal Information Provided by You. The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us, the choices you make, and the Service products and features you use. The personal information we collect may include, but is not limited to, the following:

  • names
  • phone numbers
  • email addresses
  • mailing addresses
  • billing addresses
  • job titles
  • usernames
  • passwords
  • contact preferences
  • debit/credit card numbers
  • organization name
  • grant-seeking preferences
  • grant project information
  • grant proposal information

 

Sensitive Personal Information. We do not process sensitive personal information, other than payment card information you may provide to us. As noted below, we only use your payment card information in relation to our Services.

 

Payment Data. For most online purchases, we rely on a third-party payment processing tool (Chargent) to collect and process your payment information.  Your use of this tool is governed by Chargent’s Terms and Conditions; and Chargent’s processing of your personal information is governed by the Chargent Privacy Policy.  Should you choose an alternative method of payment (e.g. physical check), we may collect and store data necessary to process that payment, such as your payment instrument number, and the security code associated with your payment instrument.

 

Personal Information We Collect Automatically. When visiting our site, we automatically collect information about your computer hardware and software. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses.  This information is used for the operation of the site, to maintain quality of the Service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of our site and Services.

 

Cookies and other technologies

 

We use cookies to allow us to personalize your visits, keep track of your preferences and learn about the way in which you use our site.  A cookie is a small file that is placed on your computer when you visit our site and allows is to recognize you as a user.  We employ both “Essential” and “Non-essential” cookies.  Essential cookies are necessary to the effective operation of our site and make the interaction between you and the site faster and easier.  Non-essential cookies are not required for a website to function but are used for other purposes, such as analytics or advertising. 

 

We also use web beacons, which allow us to count users who have visited our site (and particular pages on the site) and to recognize users by accessing our cookies.  In addition, a web beacon can be used in HTML-formatted email to determine responses to our communications and measure their effectiveness.

 

We may also use services hosted by third parties, such as Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc., to assist in providing our Services.  Google Analytics uses cookies and other tracking technologies to help us analyze how users use the site.  The information generated by the cookie or other tracking technology about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to, and stored by, Google on their servers.  Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the site, compiling reports on site activity for us and providing other services relating to site activity and internet usage.  Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf.  By using the Services, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above. To opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, click here.

 

Your browser settings may also allow you to transmit a “Do Not Track” signal when you visit various websites. Like many websites, our Site does not use or respond to “Do Not Track” signals in your web browser.

 

 

(2) HOW DO WE PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

 

In short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process your information for other purposes with your consent.

 

We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, depending on how you interact with our Services, including, but not limited to the following:

  • To facilitate account creation and authentication and otherwise manage user accounts. We may process your information so you can create and log in to your account, as well as keep your account in working order.
  • To deliver and facilitate delivery of Services to users. We may process your information to provide you with the requested Service.
  • To respond to user inquiries/offer support to users. We may process your information to respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the requested Service.
  • To send administrative information to users. We may process your information by sending you details about our Services, changes to our terms and policies, and other similar information.
  • To enable user-to-user communications. We may process your information if you choose to use any of our offerings that allow for communication with another user.
  • To request feedback from users. We may process your information when necessary to request feedback and to contact you about your use of our Services.
  • To send marketing and promotional communications to users. We may process the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes. You can opt out of our marketing emails at any time by clicking the link provided in those emails.
  • To deliver targeted advertising to users. We may process your information to develop and display personalized content and advertising tailored to your interests, location, and more.
  • To post user testimonials. With your consent, we post testimonials on our Services that may contain personal information, including organization names, project names, award information, and grant-seeking preferences.
  • To protect our Services. We may process your information as part of our efforts to keep our Services safe and secure, including fraud monitoring and prevention.
  • To evaluate and improve our Services, products, marketing, and user experience. We may process your information when we believe it is necessary to identify usage trends, determine the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, and to evaluate and improve our Services, products, marketing, and your experience.
  • To identify usage trends. We may process information about how you use our Services to better understand how they are being used so we can improve them.
  • To determine the effectiveness of our marketing and promotional campaigns. We may process your information to better understand how to provide marketing and promotional campaigns that are most relevant to you.
  • To comply with our legal obligations. We may process your information to comply with our legal obligations, respond to legal requests, and exercise, establish, or defend our legal rights.

 

 

(3) WHAT LEGAL BASES DO WE RELY ON TO PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION?

 

In short: We only process your personal information when we believe it is necessary and we have a valid legal reason (i.e., legal basis) to do so under applicable law, like with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with our Services to enter into or fulfill our contractual obligations, to protect your rights, or to fulfill our legitimate business interests.

 

We may process your personal information if you have given us specific permission (i.e., express consent) to use your personal information for a specific purpose, or in situations where your permission can be inferred (i.e., implied consent). You can withdraw your consent at any time.

In some cases, we may be legally permitted under applicable law to process your information without your consent, including, but not limited to the following:

  • For our legitimate business purposes.
  • If collection is clearly in the interests of an individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way.
  • For investigations and fraud detection and prevention.
  • For business transactions (i.e. acquisition, sale or merger of business) provided certain conditions are met.
  • If it is reasonable to expect collection and use with consent would compromise the availability or the accuracy of the information and the collection is reasonable for purposes related to investigating a breach of an agreement or a contravention of applicable law.
  • If disclosure is required to comply with a subpoena, warrant, court order, or rules of the court relating to the production of records.
  • If it was produced by an individual in the course of their employment, business, or profession and the collection is consistent with the purposes for which the information was produced.
  • If the information is publicly available and is specified under applicable law.

 

 

(4) WHEN AND WITH WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

 

In short: We may share information in specific situations described in this section and/or with the following categories of third parties.

 

Vendors, Consultants, and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents ("third parties") who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. We have contracts in place with our third parties, which are designed to help safeguard your personal information. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They also commit to protecting the data they hold on to our behalf and to retain it for the period we instruct.

 

We also may need to share your personal information in the following situations:

  • Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
  • Affiliates. We may share your information with our affiliates; in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include our parent company and any subsidiaries, joint venture partners, or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us.
  • Business Partners. We may share your information with our business partners to offer you certain products, services, or promotions.
  • Other Users. When you publicly share personal information (for example, by posting comments, contributions, or other content in relation to our Services) or otherwise interact with public areas of our Services, such personal information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly made available outside our Services in perpetuity. Similarly, other users will be able to view descriptions of your activity, communicate with you within our Services, and view your profile.

 

 

(5) WHAT ABOUT THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES?

 

In short: We are not responsible for the safety of any information that you share with third parties that we may link to or who advertise on our Services, but are not affiliated with, our Services.

 

We may link to third-party websites, online services, or mobile applications and/or contain advertisements from third parties that are not affiliated with us, and which may link to other websites, services, or applications. Similarly, users may link or refer to third parties as part of their Submissions or Contributions.

 

Accordingly, Grants Office does not make any guarantee regarding any such third parties, and we will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by the use of such third-party websites, services, or applications. The inclusion of a link towards a third-party website, service, or application does not imply an endorsement by Grants Office. We cannot guarantee the safety and privacy of data you provide to any third-party websites. Any data collected by third parties is not covered by this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of any third party, including other websites, services, or applications that may be linked to or from the Services. You should review the policies of such third parties and contact them directly to respond to your questions.

 

 

(6) HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE?

 

In short: We aim to protect your personal information through a series of administrative,  technical and physical security measures.

 

We have implemented appropriate and reasonable administrative, technical and physical security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, despite our safeguards and efforts to secure your information, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access our Services within a secure environment.

 

 

(7) HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?

 

We generally keep your personal information for only as long as it is needed to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, and in accordance with our legitimate business interests and applicable law.  However, if necessary, we may retain personal information for longer periods of time, until set retention periods and deadlines expire.  For instance, where we are required to do so in accordance with legal, tax and accounting requirements set by law, regulation or government authority.

 

To determine the appropriate duration of the retention of personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of personal information and if we can attain our objectives by other means, as well as our legal, regulatory, tax, accounting and other applicable obligations.  Once retention of the personal information is no longer necessary for the purposes outlined above, we will either delete or deidentify the personal information or, if this is not possible (for example, because personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store the personal information and isolate it from further processing until deletion or deidentification is possible.

 

 

(8) DO WE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM MINORS?

 

In short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.

 

Our Services and this website are not intended for individuals under the age of 18.  We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age, nor do we knowingly sell such personal information. By using our Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent's use of our Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us.

 

 

(9) WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?

 

In short:

In accordance with applicable privacy law, and depending upon the jurisdiction in which you reside, you may have some or all of the following rights in respect of your personal information:

 

  • Right of access. You may have the right to obtain: (i) confirmation of whether, and where, we are processing your personal information; (ii) information about the categories of personal information we are processing, the purposes for which we process your personal information and information as to how we determine applicable retention periods; (iii) information about the categories of recipients with whom we may share your personal information; and (iv) a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
  • Right of portability. You may have the right, in certain circumstances, to receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format that supports re-use, or to request the transfer of your personal information to another person.
  • Right to rectification or correction. You may have the right to obtain rectification or correction of any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you.
  • Right to deletion or erasure. You may have the right, in some circumstances, to require us to delete or erase your personal information.
  • Right to restriction. You may have the right, in some circumstances, to require us to limit the purposes for which we process your personal information if the continued processing of the personal information in this way is not justified, such as where the accuracy of the personal information is contested by you.
  • Right to opt-out. You may have the right to opt-out of certain processing activities. For example, you may have the right to opt-out of the use of your personal information for targeted advertising purposes, or to “sell” or “share” your personal information with third parties in certain contexts.
  • Right to control over automated decision-making or profiling.  You may have the right to direct us not to use automated decision-making or profiling for certain purposes.
  • Right to withdraw consent.  If you have provided consent for the processing of your personal information, you may have the right to withdraw your consent.  If you withdraw your consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal information before your withdrawal.
  • Right to appeal. In the event that we decline to take action on a request exercising one of your rights set forth above, you have the right to appeal our decision.

 

You may also have the right to not receive retaliatory or discriminatory treatment in connection with a request to exercise the above rights.  To exercise any applicable rights, please refer to the “How to exercise your privacy rights” section below. 

 

User Account.  If you would at any time like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can log in to your account settings and update your user account. 

 

 

(10) CROSS-BORDER TRANSFER

 

We transfer, process, and store information about you on servers located in the United States.  Therefore, if you are located outside of the United States, your information will be transferred to, stored, or processed in the United States, whose data protection, privacy, and other laws may not provide the same level of protection as those in your country of residence.  For example, government entities in the United States and other countries may have certain rights to access your personal information.  If we transfer your information outside of your country of residence in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.  By using our site and Services, you understand and consent to the collection, storage, processing, and transfer of your information to our facilities in the United States and to those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Policy.

 

 

(11) HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

 

To exercise these rights, you can contact us by visiting www.grantsoffice.com/Contact-Us or by referring to the contact details at the bottom of this document.

 

Under certain US state data protection laws, you may be able to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. We may deny a request from an authorized agent that does not submit proof that they have been validly authorized to act on your behalf in accordance with applicable laws.

 

Request Verification

 

Upon receiving your request, we will need to verify your identity to determine you are the same person about whom we have the information in our system. We will only use the personal information provided in your request to verify your identity or authority to make the request. However, if we cannot verify your identity from the information already maintained by us, we may request that you provide additional information for the purposes of verifying your identity and for security or fraud-prevention purposes.

 

If you submit the request through an authorized agent, we may need to collect additional information to verify your identity before processing your request and the agent will need to provide written and signed permission from you to submit such a request on your behalf.

 

Appeals

 

Under certain US state data protection laws, if we decline to take action regarding your request, you may be able to appeal our decision by emailing us. We will inform you in writing of any action taken or not taken in response to the appeal, including a written explanation of the reasons for the decisions. If your appeal is denied, you may submit a complaint to your state attorney general.

 

 

(12) DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?

 

In short: Yes, we will update this policy as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.

 

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Revised" date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we may notify you either by prominently posting notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.

 

 

(13) HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS POLICY?

 

If you have questions or comments about this policy, you may contact us at:

 

Grants Office LLC

510 Clinton Square

Rochester, NY 14604

United States

(585) 473-1430

[email protected]