Privacy policy

Draft for review by the Foundation's counsel (updated 17 October 2026 for blocking, mentoring, peer circles, events and credit pools, and again for check-ins, resource suggestions, the funder and company portals, and inactive balances; 18 October 2026 for teams, notifications, the newsletter, file attachments and passkeys; and 19 October 2026 for Cloudflare Web Analytics, the anonymous request count and Google Analytics, and again for server-side conversion events, Web Vitals and error reports).

This policy explains what information Golden Hint collects, why, and what you can do about it. The short version: we collect very little, we use it only to run Golden Hint and reply to you, and we never sell your data.

Who we are

Golden Hint is an initiative of the Rouben Malian Memorial Foundation Inc (the "Foundation"), a New York nonprofit corporation recognized as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3). The Foundation is responsible for your information on Golden Hint.

Address: 1 Rockefeller Plaza, Level 15, New York, NY 10020
Email for privacy questions: hello@goldenhint.org

What this policy covers

Golden Hint has public pages, a few forms, and membership: accounts, organization profiles, the Exchange, private messages about exchanges, credits and the forum. It also has an iPhone app and lets members connect assistants (such as an AI assistant) to their account with an access token. This policy covers all of them. Our data promise sets out how we treat member data.

What we collect and why

When you just read the site

You do not need to give us anything to read our guides or use the Start a Charity tools.

We count page views and form submissions so we know what is useful. Most of this counting uses no cookies:

Most counting happens on our own servers. Pages also load Cloudflare Web Analytics, a small script from Cloudflare that counts page views and how fast pages load. It uses no cookies, stores nothing in your browser and does not follow you to other sites.
To tell visits apart, we make a visitor ID from a salted hash. A hash turns information into a scrambled code that cannot be turned back. "Salted" means we mix in a secret value first, and we change that secret every day.
Because the code changes every day, it cannot identify you and cannot link your visits from one day to the next.
Our servers also keep an anonymous count of every request: the page, the site that linked to it, your country, the kind of device and any campaign tags in the link. It holds no IP address, visitor ID or anything else that identifies you.
If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control (opens another site) signal, we make no visitor ID, record no page views or events and load no Google or analytics script, and our server sends Google nothing. The anonymous request count still includes the visit, with nothing that identifies you. The error reports below still run, because they carry nothing that identifies you.

Google Analytics. Our pages also load Google Analytics, from Google, to help us understand how Golden Hint is used. It sets cookies in your browser to measure visits, the pages you view, the buttons you click, how far you scroll, downloads and form sends, and the kind of device and rough location you visit from. We are careful about what it gets:

We send page addresses without the part after "?" and with anything that looks like an ID, a code or an email address taken out.
We never send your name, your email, your organization or anything you type into a form or a search box. When you send a form or click a button, Google gets only a fixed label we wrote, such as "waitlist" or "search".
If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, a small banner asks first. Google Analytics stores nothing in your browser until you choose "Accept"; "Reject" keeps it off. Your choice is remembered in your browser (as ga-consent) so we don't ask again.
We also measure how fast pages load and respond (Core Web Vitals) and send that to Google Analytics with the kind of page.
When you send a form and we accept it (joining the waitlist, asking a question, the newsletter, a partner or press enquiry, or adding your organization), our server tells Google Analytics so: the form's name only, linked to the same Google Analytics cookie. It does this only if you've chosen "Accept" or live where no banner is needed; a small cookie, ga_consent, tells our server that.
If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, we don't load any Google script and our server sends Google nothing.
Google keeps this data for 14 months. Google explains how it uses it in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services (opens another site).

Errors. If a page breaks in your browser, it tells our server what broke: the error message with numbers, links and email addresses removed, the script and line, the page address without IDs, and your browser's name. No cookies or identifiers are involved, so this runs for every visitor. If your browser blocks something our security policy doesn't allow, it may report that to us too (only the kind of rule and the blocked site's name).

When you fill in a form

We have three forms. Each one asks only for what we need.

Form	What we ask for	Why
Early-access waitlist	Your name, email, which kind of visitor you are, and optionally your organization's name and a note	To invite you when membership opens and to understand who Golden Hint should serve first
Ask a person	Your name, email and your question	To answer your question
Partner contact	What you choose to tell us	To reply to you about working together

We use this information only to do what the form says. We do not add you to a newsletter or fundraising list because you filled in a form. The one exception is the newsletter sign-up in the site's footer, which is exactly that: you get the monthly newsletter, and every issue has a one-click unsubscribe link.

When you become a member

What	What we keep	Why
Your account	Your email address, the name you give, your notification choices, and when you joined and last signed in	To sign you in and show your name to the organizations you work with
Signing in	A record of each sign-in request (the link and 6-digit code are stored only in scrambled form) and each signed-in device or browser, with a label such as "Golden Hint app (ios)"	To keep your account safe; you can see and end every session on your account page
Access tokens	The name you give a token, its permission (read, or read and write), and when it was last used. The token itself is stored only in scrambled form	So assistants you connect can act for you, and so you can revoke them
The iPhone app	A push notification address for your phone, if you allow notifications	To tell you about new messages and exchange updates. Notifications never include message text or names
Your organization's profile	Name, EIN, mission, city and state, website, size, what it's good at and what it needs	So staff can verify it (they check the EIN against the IRS's public Tax Exempt Organization Search) and other members can find you. The EIN is never shown publicly
The Exchange and the forum	Listings, proposals, agreements, reviews, forum questions and answers, and reports you make	To run the Exchange and the forum. Listings, profiles of verified organizations and forum posts are public
Messages	Private messages about an exchange	Only members of the two organizations in the exchange (and staff, if there is a dispute or a report) can read them
Mentoring, circles and events	Mentoring plans, session dates, hours and notes, messages between the two organizations; circles you join and posts in them; events you host or sign up for, and which organizations attended	To run them. Mentoring and its messages are seen only by the two organizations; circle posts and meeting links only by the circle's members; event joining links only by the host and people who signed up. Event pages and the list of circles are public
Credit pools	Claims your organization makes on a pool, with the reason you give	So staff can approve claims where a pool needs it, and to keep the ledger
"Did it help?" check-ins	A week after an exchange or mentoring ends, your organization's answers (helped, what it saved) and any note you add	To show, only in totals and only from five answers up, whether Golden Hint helps. Your note is read only by our staff
Resource suggestions	Resources you suggest for the library (title, link, description)	So staff can review them; approved ones earn your organization credits
Funder and company portals	If staff link you to a funder's credit pool, that link; if your organization is a company program, the hours its people gave	So a funder can see who claimed its pool's credits and what they paid for (organizations by name, never people), and a company's admins can see hours by employee
Blocks and reports	Who you have blocked, and reports you make (each block also tells our team)	To keep you from seeing or hearing from people you have blocked, and to deal with problems. We never tell the other person who blocked or reported them
Credits	Every credit movement (grants, exchanges, gifts, adjustments) in a ledger	Credits must add up, like a bank statement. See the credit rules
Your Start a Charity checklist	Which checklist items you have ticked	So your progress follows you between the website and the app
Your organization's team	Who belongs to your organization and whether each person is an admin or a member; invitations an admin sends (the email address, the role, and when it was sent, accepted or withdrawn; the link itself is stored only in scrambled form)	So colleagues can work together under one organization. Admins see their colleagues' email addresses; other members see names only
Notifications	What happened (for example "a new message"), a link to it, when, and whether you've read it or we've emailed you about it	To show you what's new on the website and in the app, and to send the email notices you choose
Files you attach	The file, its name, type and size, who uploaded it, and the conversation it belongs to	To share it with the people in that exchange, mentorship or circle, and no one else. Files are always downloaded, never shown inside our pages, and each download link works for ten minutes
Passkeys	The public part of each passkey you add (never your fingerprint, face or device PIN, which stay on your device), its name, and when it was added and last used	To let you sign in with it
The newsletter	Your email address, whether you're subscribed, and which issues we've sent you	To send it, and to make sure we never email you after you unsubscribe

We send you email only to sign you in; about your own organization's exchanges, messages, mentoring and verification (at most one email an hour, if you leave "Email me about new messages and proposals" on); a weekly note when new mutual matches appear (if you leave "Email me a weekly summary of new matches" on); invitations a colleague sends you; and the monthly newsletter, only if you turn it on or sign up for it in the footer. All email is sent through Cloudflare's email service. We also send a check-in a week after an exchange or mentoring ends, and, if your organization has credits but nobody from it has used Golden Hint for 24 months, a notice 60 days before its credits return to the community pool.

Spam protection

Our forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a real person, not a bot, is sending them. To do this, Turnstile may look at technical signals from your browser, such as how the page was loaded. Cloudflare explains this in its Turnstile privacy addendum (opens another site).

Who helps us handle your information

We use a few companies to run Golden Hint. Apart from Google Analytics (below), none of them may use your information for its own purposes.

Cloudflare runs our servers and database, stores the files you attach, sends our email, and provides Turnstile and Web Analytics. Your form submissions and member data are stored in Golden Hint's database on Cloudflare.

Google provides Google Analytics (see "When you just read the site"). It receives how the site is used, never your form answers, your name or your email, and nothing at all if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control or if you choose "Reject" in the banner. Google may use this data as its terms allow.

Expo (a company that runs push notification delivery for apps) passes notifications to your iPhone if you use the app and allow notifications. It receives only your phone's notification address and the fixed notification text.

Caldrion LLC provides the website's technical platform and the contact-management system our team uses to read and reply to messages. That means Caldrion processes your form submissions. Caldrion acts only on the Foundation's instructions and only for this purpose. In privacy terms, Caldrion is our service provider (sometimes called a "processor"): it handles data for us, not for itself.

We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

We do not share your information with anyone else.

What we never do

We never sell your data.
We do not use advertising cookies or advertising trackers. The only analytics cookies are Google Analytics', described above.
We do not build profiles of you for advertising.
The Foundation does not use your information for fundraising appeals without your consent.

Cookies

We use only these cookies:

__Host-gh_session keeps you signed in, only after you sign in. It lasts 30 days, or until you sign out.
lang remembers your language if you pick one.
theme remembers light or dark mode if you pick one.
_ga and _ga_LB27DXZK1V are Google Analytics' cookies, which tell visits apart (up to two years). In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland they are set only after you choose "Accept".
ga_consent tells our server you've accepted Google Analytics (or live where no banner is needed), so it may report accepted forms to Google. It lasts a year and is removed if you choose "Reject".

The first three are not used for tracking. If you sign in, your browser may also keep your Start a Charity ticks on your device as before; they are copied to your account once. Our cookie policy has the details.

How long we keep information

Form submissions are deleted two years after we have handled them.
Anonymous measurement events (our page view and form counts) are deleted after 25 months. Google Analytics keeps its data for 14 months.
Sign-in requests are deleted a day after they expire (15 minutes after they are made). Sessions are deleted when they end; app sessions last 180 days from last use, website sessions 30 days.
Revoked access tokens are deleted 90 days after you revoke them. When you connect an assistant by signing in, its token waits for it for at most five minutes; one it never collects is revoked, and the hand-off record is deleted a day later.
Email waiting to be sent is deleted 30 days after it was sent.
Messages about an exchange are deleted two years after the exchange closed.
Reports are deleted two years after staff resolved them.
Mentoring messages are deleted two years after the mentorship ended. Circle posts are deleted two years after they were posted. Event sign-ups are deleted a year after the event; the list of organizations that attended stays, because it is the record of credits earned.
Match notices (which suggested matches we've emailed you about) are deleted after a year.
Check-ins nobody answered are deleted 90 days after they were sent. Notes on answered check-ins are deleted after two years, and the answers themselves after five.
Resource suggestions are deleted two years after staff decided on them.
Funder links are kept while your account exists and deleted with it. Notices about inactive balances are kept with the credit ledger.
Notifications are deleted 90 days after you read them, or a year after they were sent if you never do.
Invitations are deleted 90 days after they were accepted, withdrawn or expired (they expire after 14 days).
Files go when the message or post they're attached to is deleted (exchange and mentoring messages two years after it ended, circle posts after two years). A file uploaded but never attached is deleted after a day. You, or an admin of your organization, can delete a file you uploaded at any time.
Passkeys are kept until you remove them or delete your account. The one-time challenges used when you sign in with one are deleted a day after they expire (five minutes).
The newsletter: when you unsubscribe, we keep your address on a do-not-send list for two years so a footer sign-up can't add you back by mistake, then delete it. Records of which issues we sent you are deleted a year after each issue.
Blocks are kept while your account exists, so they keep working; they are deleted with your account, and you can undo them at any time.
The credit ledger is kept as a financial-style record, for at least seven years. If you delete your account, ledger entries stay with your name removed.
Your account: you can download everything we hold about you (Account, then "Download my data") and delete your account at any time. Deleting removes your email, name, sessions, tokens, devices, checklist ticks, blocks you made, event sign-ups, circle posts, funder links, notifications, passkeys, files you uploaded and the text of your messages straight away (your address stays only on the newsletter's do-not-send list); check-in answers and resource suggestions stay with your organization, without your name. If you were your organization's last admin, the colleague who joined first becomes its admin. Your forum posts stay so threads still make sense, shown as "Former member". If you were the last member of your organization, its open listings close; the organization's profile and ledger remain.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us to:

show you the information we hold about you
correct anything that is wrong
delete your information

Write to hello@goldenhint.org and tell us what you would like. We may need to check that the request really comes from you. We will answer within 30 days. There is no charge.

Depending on where you live, you may have other rights under local law. Ask us and we will help.

Children

Golden Hint is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you think a child has sent us information, please tell us at hello@goldenhint.org and we will delete it.

Where your information is handled

Golden Hint is run from the United States. Cloudflare runs a worldwide network, so your information may pass through or be handled in other countries on its way to us.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we will update the version date at the top. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us, we will tell you before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions or concerns about privacy? Write to hello@goldenhint.org or to Golden Hint, Rouben Malian Memorial Foundation Inc, 1 Rockefeller Plaza, Level 15, New York, NY 10020.