Privacy Policy

Our goal at Mercy Corps is to extend trust and respect to you. We are committed to respecting the privacy rights of all donors and visitors to our website. The following information details Mercy Corps' collection, protection, and use of the data we receive from donors and visitors to this website.

Our General Policy

Mercy Corps recognizes the importance of protecting information we may collect from donors and visitors to our site. Our policy is to use the information we acquire from visitors and donors for internal purposes only, and we maintain appropriate security measures to keep this information private. Your browser, however, does automatically tell us the type of computer and operating system you are using.

Users can visit the site without revealing any information about themselves. If one chooses to give us personal information via the Internet for the purposes of correspondence, processing a donation or subscribing to our email newsletter publication, then it is our intent to let you know how we will use such information.

If users tell us that they do not wish to have this information used as a basis for further contact, we will respect those wishes. If users wish to review or correct the personal information we have collected, click here. We do keep track of the domains from which people visit us. We analyze this data for trends, insights and statistics, and then we discard it.

Email Updates

Email updates provide a worldwide perspective on the Mercy Corps mission to alleviate suffering, poverty, and oppression around the globe. In order to receive these updates you must provide Mercy Corps with your name and email address. This information will be held in complete confidence, and we will NOT sell, rent or trade this information to a third party. You will be given the option to remove your name from our email list at the bottom of each email update.

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous. If you would like more information about this practice and your choices, click here.

Online Donations

Mercy Corps takes every reasonable precaution to protect our donors' information. When donors submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline. We use high grade encryption and the https security protocol to communicate with your browser software. This method is the industry standard security protocol, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to intercept the credit card information you send to us. Companies we work with to process credit card transactions also use high grade encryption and security protocols. As necessary, changes are made to improve our systems. And, independent external and internal audits are conducted to ensure the privacy, security and appropriate processing of your information on our site. It is the policy of Mercy Corps to continually enhance our fraud protection systems and our other processes to fight identity theft.

Our goal is to forge a long-term partnership with you, and we value and appreciate the trust that accompanies your online donation. If you donate online, your information will never be sold or rented to a third party (see exception below in "Donations by Mail").

To serve you better, we may contact you in the future to inform you about Mercy Corps' response to the needs of the world's suffering people. We will offer various contact options, so you can choose how often you hear from us. Mercy Corps will remove your name from our mailing list, email list or telephone solicitation list at any time, at your request. Read more about The Mercy Corps Pledge here.

Mercy Corps uses the services of outside vendors to send our email newsletters and to complete the online donation process. These vendors adhere to Mercy Corps' commitment to privacy and security. However, if you should have a concern, please contact us directly, and we will do our utmost to correct the problem.

Donations by Mail

In order to increase our base of support and keep our costs low, Mercy Corps sometimes exchanges a segment of our mailing list with other carefully selected organizations. Donors who make their first gift to Mercy Corps in response to an appeal letter may be included on this exchange list; all other donors are automatically excluded from the exchange. All donors who made their first gift to Mercy Corps before January 31, 2004 are also excluded from the exchange. At least once a year, we will inform all donors who are eligible to be included on the exchange list, and give them an opportunity to opt out of future exchanges. Donors who wish to have their names removed from the exchange list can call 1-888-842-0842 or email donorservices@mercycorps.org.

Use of Third-Party Software and Advertising Services

Mercy Corps occasionally uses evaluative software to measure and analyze website statistics. We use this information to improve our content and structure, leading to a better user experience.

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous. If you would like more information about this practice and your choices, click here.

Contact Mercy Corps

Thank you for your interest in Mercy Corps and our privacy policy. If you would like more information about the options discussed herein or simply have questions, please feel free to contact us via email at donorservices@mercycorps.org, or speak to a Donor Services Representative at 1-888-842-0842.