Donors

We will not sell, share, or trade our donors’ names or personal information with any other entity, nor send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations. This policy applies to all information received by the Hertz Foundation, both online and offline, on any platform (“platform” includes our website and mobile applications), as well as any electronic, written, or oral communications. To the extent any donations are processed through a third-party service provider, our donors’ information will only be used for purposes necessary to process the donation.

Website

We collect information about our website visitors in order to enable certain functionality and to provide a more customized experience. We will not sell, rent, or exchange this personal information with any other organization, except with vendors and other partners that help us with our activities and programs.

How We Collect Data
We never collect personal information unless you provide it to us, and we only use information you provide for its intended purpose. When you use our website to make a donation, sign up for an event, or subscribe to our email newsletter, we may ask you for your name, address, phone number, and other personal information relevant to the transaction. We will ask for basic credit card information when you make a donation.

We also automatically collect anonymous information about your visit using cookies, pixel tags, and other website customization technologies. The information we collect may include your IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to a computer on the internet), your operating system, and browser; the date and time of your visit; the pages you visited; and demographic and interest data. You may disable cookies from being used in your browser if you do not want us to collect this information.

How We Use Data
If you choose to provide us with personal information, we may use the information in the normal course of implementing programs and activities. For example, we may add your information to our database and use it to provide you with information about our programs, request donations, and enhance your online experience. We may also share your information with our approved vendors and partners that support our programs. For example, we rely on vendors to help us fulfill certain orders, manage our data, and process donations and credit card payments. We also disclose information when required by law.

We use automatically collected information to better understand how visitors use our website and to improve the online experience. For example, this information help us measure which parts of the website are the most popular and how long people are viewing a particular webpage. That enables us to organize and update our website content to best reflect the needs of our visitors.

Social Media

We use a variety of third-party social media websites to enhance our programs and activities. The use of third-party social media websites is governed by the security and privacy policy of those websites. You should review their privacy policies and ensure that you understand how your information may be used. If you have an account with a third-party website, and choose to follow, like, friend, or comment, certain personal information associated with your account may be made available to us based on that website’s privacy policy and your privacy settings.

Fellowship Application

As part of the fellowship application, the Hertz Foundation collects and processes the personal information you provide, which may include contact information, essay responses, recommendation letters, transcripts and demographic information.
 
The Hertz Foundation uses this information to evaluate your application and administer the fellowship program. The Hertz Foundation may use large language models (LLMs) to review and summarize certain application data. The LLM tools are assistive only and do not make eligibility or selection decisions without human involvement. Final application review and decision making is always performed by humans.
 
For fellows who are selected, essay responses and related application data may be shared, on a limited basis, with individual research faculty members at U.S. based educational institutions. The purpose of this sharing is to assess longitudinal career outcomes and pivot points, helping us evaluate and improve the fellowship’s long-term impact. Any data shared will be subject to agreements requiring faculty recipients to use the data only for this research purpose, not for commercial use, and with appropriate safeguards.
 
Although nonprofit organizations like the Hertz Foundation are generally exempt from most data regulations, we voluntarily honor core rights, including notice, access, deletion and opt-outs. Your data will not be sold to any third party, shared for cross-context advertising or used to make solely automated decisions about your eligibility. Where our internal tools qualify as Automated Decision-making Technology, we provide clear notice and opt-out options. Moreover, we do not use data from applicants under the age of 18 for anything other than evaluating their specific application.  
           
We apply appropriate technical and organizational measures, including but not limited to, access controls and limited retention, to protect your information against unauthorized access, misuse and disclosure. Faculty recipients of research data are required to follow similar safeguards, as required by law.
 
You may access, delete or restrict the processing of your personal data. You may also withdraw your consent at any time (allowing the Hertz Foundation a reasonable amount of time to stop processing your data and without affecting the lawfulness of processing the data prior to your consent withdrawal). If you would like to access, delete or restrict the processing of your personal data, please email your request to fellowshipinfo@hertzfoundation.org.