Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

The Nazareth Scholarship & Mentorship Program ("Nazareth", "we", "our") is a nonprofit initiative supporting Ethiopian students through financial scholarships and structured mentorship. This policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information when you interact with our website (nazareth.org).

2. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly when you:

• Apply for a scholarship -- name, email, date of birth, phone, city, academic background, financial information, and personal essay

• Register as a mentor -- name, email, professional title, field, bio, and availability

• Make a donation -- name, email, and payment information (processed securely by Stripe -- we do not store card numbers)

• Submit a contact form -- name, email, and message

• Subscribe to our newsletter -- email address and optional name

We do not collect sensitive ethnic, religious, or political information beyond what applicants voluntarily share in their personal essays.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information collected to:

• Process and evaluate scholarship applications

• Match scholars with appropriate mentors

• Process donations and send receipts

• Communicate with applicants, scholars, mentors, and donors about the program

• Send newsletters and program updates (only to subscribers)

• Improve our website and services

• Comply with legal obligations

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following trusted third-party services, each with their own privacy policies:

• Stripe -- payment processing for donations (stripe.com/privacy)

• Supabase -- secure database hosting for program data (supabase.com/privacy)

• Resend -- transactional email delivery (resend.com/privacy)

• Google OAuth -- optional login for scholars and mentors (policies.google.com/privacy)

These services are bound by their own privacy and security standards and are selected for their reliability and compliance.

5. Scholar Story Consent

Scholar profiles, photos, and personal stories will only be featured on our website or in communications with explicit, written consent from the individual scholar. Scholars may withdraw consent at any time by contacting us at hello@nazareth.org.

6. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy, or as required by law. Application data is retained for a minimum of 5 years for program record-keeping. Donation records are retained as required by nonprofit financial compliance standards. You may request deletion of your data at any time (see Section 8).

7. Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously. Our database is hosted on Supabase with row-level security enabled. All data in transit is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS. Access to the admin dashboard is protected by authentication and is restricted to authorized Nazareth team members only.

8. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you

• Correct inaccurate or incomplete information

• Request deletion of your data (subject to legal obligations)

• Withdraw newsletter consent at any time (unsubscribe link in every email)

• Lodge a complaint with a relevant data protection authority

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at: hello@nazareth.org

9. Cookies

Our website uses minimal functional cookies necessary for the site to operate correctly (e.g. authentication session). We do not use tracking cookies or third-party advertising cookies. If you use Google OAuth to log in, Google may set its own cookies per their privacy policy.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will reflect any changes. We encourage you to review this page periodically. Continued use of the Nazareth website after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests related to this Privacy Policy, please contact us:

Email: hello@nazareth.org

Website: nazareth.org/contact