Bellwether Email Privacy Policy

Bellwether’s Commitment to Your Privacy

Bellwether exists to transform education to ensure that young people — especially those furthest from opportunity — achieve outcomes that lead to fulfilling lives and flourishing communities. Trust is at the center of that work, and we take the same care with your personal information that we bring to our research and our partnerships.

This Email Privacy Policy explains how Bellwether (referred to herein as “Bellwether,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) collects, uses, discloses, and secures personal information that we receive through email communications or when you provide your email address to us on our website at https://bellwether.org (the “Site”).

Information We Collect

We collect information, including personal information, in connection with providing marketing and other communications to you and for other purposes described in this Email Privacy Policy. We use the term “personal information” to refer to any information that identifies or can be used to identify you. Common examples of personal information include: name, demographic data, email address, digital identifier, such as your IP address, information about your device, and certain metadata.

We collect personal information from the following sources: directly from you or automatically when you interact with our emails. The personal information which we collect includes, but is not limited to, the following circumstances and data elements:

Generally:

When you sign up for Bellwether communications, express an interest in obtaining additional information about our services, request customer support, request more information, or use our “Get In Touch” feature, “Partner With Us” feature, or similar features on the Site, we may require that you provide to us your contact information, such as your name, email address, and other contact details;
If you report a problem or have a question about our Site, you may provide us with contact information, such as your name and email address; and
If you communicate with our team via email, we may collect information about you and other information that you provide.

Email Newsletter: When you subscribe to receive our email newsletter, we collect your name, email address, and any related details you submit through the Site. We use this information to send you email messages with marketing information, news about our campaigns and events, donation opportunities, and other updates relevant to our services.

Event Registration: When you register for one of our digital events hosted on Zoom, we may collect your name, email address, organization details, and any related details you provide. We use this information to process your registration, communicate with you regarding the event, and facilitate your participation.

Automated Data Collection: We and our partners use various technologies, including pixels, to collect and store information when you open one of our emails, and this may include using technologies to identify your browser or device, such as pixels, web beacons, and web server logs. We also use these technologies to collect and store information when you interact with services from our partners, such as advertising services.

We may use such technologies to collect personal identifiers (such as your IP address), information about your device (such as your browser characteristics, device IDs and characteristics, and operating system version), and information concerning your interactions with our emails. We use this information to determine how many users have opened our emails, clicked on particular links to webpages in our emails, and we may also use such information for other purposes described in this Email Privacy Policy. This helps us establish, maintain, and manage our relationship with you, and also helps us to improve our marketing activities.

How We Use Your Information

We use your email address and related personal information in ways that are compatible with the purposes for which it was collected or authorized by you, including for the following purposes:

Send our newsletter, research releases, and updates on Bellwether’s work
Share invitations to webinars, briefings, and events
Improve our communications based on what resonates with our readers;
Inform you about the services available from Bellwether;
Respond to your questions, comments, and requests and to provide support to you;
Follow up with you;
Comply with all applicable legal requirements; and
Investigate possible fraud or other violations of this Email Privacy Policy and/or attempts to harm you.

Our Disclosures of Your Information

We may disclose your email address and any personal information listed above for our operations and services as described below.

Service Providers and Vendors. We may disclose personal information, including email addresses, to trusted vendors and other service providers who perform services for us in connection with our operations, including but not limited to, conducting email marketing campaigns, hosting or promoting our virtual events, or carrying out similar activities on our behalf. These vendors are contractually required to protect your data and use it only to help us reach you — not for their own purposes.

Legal and Similar Purposes. We may disclose your personal information for legal reasons. Specifically, we will share personal information with companies, organizations, or individuals outside of Bellwether if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request;
detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues; or
protect against harm to the rights, property, or safety of Bellwether, you, or the public as required or permitted by law.

We will attempt to notify you about legal demands for your personal information when appropriate in our judgment, unless prohibited by law or court order or when the request is an emergency. We may dispute such demands when we believe, in our discretion, that the requests are overbroad, vague or lack proper authority, but we do not promise to challenge every demand.

Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. We may disclose your personal information in the event of a business transfer. If we establish a new related entity, are acquired by or merged with another organization, or if substantially all of our assets are transferred to another organization, personal information about our users is often a transferred business asset. In the event that Bellwether itself or substantially all of our assets are acquired, personal information about our users may be one of the transferred assets.

Your Choices

By providing an email address on the Site, you agree that we may contact you in the event of a change in this Email Privacy Policy, to provide you with any service-related notices, or to provide you with marketing information about our services.

We currently provide the following opt-out opportunities in relation to marketing emails:

At any time, you can follow a link provided in marketing email messages (i.e., messages that are not service notices or other informational emails) received from us to unsubscribe.
You may also contact us via email at contactus@bellwether.org to unsubscribe.

Notwithstanding anything else in this Email Privacy Policy, please note that we always reserve the right to contact you in the event of a change in this Email Privacy Policy, or to email you any service-related notices.

How Long We Keep Your Information

We determine the appropriate retention period for personal information on the basis of the amount, nature and sensitivity of your personal information processed, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information and whether we can achieve the purposes of the processing through other means, as well as on the basis of applicable legal requirements (such as applicable statutes of limitation).

We keep your information as long as you’re subscribed to our communications, as needed to respond to a business development conversation, or otherwise until expiry of the applicable retention period. If you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your data, we’ll remove it from our active systems, except where we need to retain limited records for legal or accounting purposes. If there is any data that we are unable, for technical reasons, to delete entirely from our systems, we will put in place appropriate measures to prevent any further use of such data.

Third-Party Links

Our emails may contain links to webpages operated by parties other than Bellwether. We do not control such websites and are not responsible for their contents or the privacy policies or other practices of such websites. Our inclusion of links to such websites does not imply any endorsement of the material on such websites or any association with their operators. This Email Privacy Policy only applies to our email communications.

Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the information you share with us against accidental, unlawful, or unauthorized destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure, or use. Information you send by email is not secure, so please avoid including personal information in any email you send us. No online system is completely risk-free, but we work to keep your data secure and limit access to those who need it to do their jobs. However, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.

Changes to This Email Privacy Policy

We may update this Email Privacy Policy from time to time as our practices or legal requirements change. We will post the current version here, with the date it was last updated, and if the changes are material, we will provide a more prominent notice for a reasonable time period (including, for certain services, email notification of Email Privacy Policy changes). We encourage you to review this Email Privacy Policy periodically.

Questions?

Reach out to us at contactus@bellwether.org. We are happy to talk through anything in this policy.

Last updated October 13, 2026.