Privacy

Who we are

Upstate Venture Connect (“UVC”, “we”, “us”) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based at 690 East Main St, Little Falls, NY 13365. We connect Upstate New York founders to mentors, capital, customers, and community. Questions about anything on this page go to info@uvc.org and a person will answer them.

This policy covers uvc.org and the email we send from it.

What we collect

Browsing the site. uvc.org is a static site. We run no analytics product, no advertising pixels, and no third-party trackers, and we set no cookies on the public pages. Our web server keeps ordinary request logs (IP address, page requested, timestamp) for operational and security purposes.

Newsletter subscription. If you subscribe, we store your email address, your name if you gave one, the date you subscribed, and where the subscription came from (the footer form on this site, an event sign-up sheet, or a list you were already on). That last one matters: it is the record of how you consented, and we keep it for that reason.

Forms. If you fill in one of our forms (an application, an assessment, an event RSVP), we store what you typed and any file you attached, and we email you a confirmation.

Community records. For people active in the UVC network, we keep contact details, organisation, and notes about introductions we have made or been asked to make. These records are internal. Two slices are deliberately public because the people in them agreed to be listed: UNY50 mentor profiles and the UVC team page.

Donations. Donations are processed by Givebutter. Your card details go to them, never to us; we see the donor name, amount, and email that Givebutter passes back.

Links in our emails

This is the part people usually want spelled out, so here it is in full.

We record which links you click in our newsletters, and we tie that to your subscription. Links in a UVC email do not point straight at their destination. They point at a redirect on uvc.org that records the click and then forwards you on. What we store is: which campaign the link was in, which destination it pointed at, and which subscriber followed it.

We do not use tracking pixels and we do not measure opens. There is no invisible image in our email. We cannot tell whether you opened a message, only whether you chose to follow a link out of it.

We do this to answer one practical question: did anyone actually click through to the event RSVP? So we send fewer and better emails. We do not build advertising profiles, and we do not share click data with anyone.

Individual click records are deleted after twelve months. Only the anonymous per-link totals are kept beyond that. If you would rather not be recorded at all, the reliable answer is to unsubscribe (see below), or to copy the link's destination out of the plain-text version of the email, which lists the real URLs.

Unsubscribe links are never tracked.

Subscribing and unsubscribing

You get on the list one of three ways: you use the signup form on this site, you give us your address at an event or in conversation, or you were already on the Upstate Venture Connect mailing list before we moved it to our own system. Whichever it was is recorded on your row.

Every email we send carries a working unsubscribe link, and one that works with your mail client's own built-in unsubscribe button. One click removes you. No confirmation step, no login, no survey. You can also email info@uvc.org and ask, and a person will do it.

When you unsubscribe we keep your email address on a suppression list rather than deleting the row outright. That sounds backwards, and it is deliberate: the suppression list is how we make sure a future import of an old spreadsheet cannot quietly put you back on. If you would rather be erased entirely, say so and we will delete the record.

If a message to your address bounces repeatedly, or if you report one of our emails as spam, we add you to that same suppression list and stop sending. A spam report is permanent. We will not put you back on the list even if someone asks us to on your behalf.

How we use it, and who else sees it

We use what we collect to send the newsletter, to respond to what you sent us, to make introductions inside the community, and to run the organisation. We do not sell personal information, and we do not rent, trade, or share our mailing list.

The services that handle data on our behalf are: Amazon Web Services (hosting and email delivery), Givebutter (donations), and Luma (event registration, where an event uses it). Each sees only what its job requires.

We disclose information beyond that only where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect someone's safety.

How long we keep it

Subscription records last as long as you are subscribed, plus the suppression entry described above. Individual email click records are pruned after twelve months. Form submissions are kept for as long as the programme they relate to is running. Server logs roll over on a short cycle.

Your choices

Write to info@uvc.org and you can ask us to: tell you what we hold about you, correct it, delete it, remove you from the mailing list, or take your profile down from the public UNY50 or team pages. We will do it. We do not require a formal request, a form, or a reason.

Children

This site and our programmes are for adults working on or supporting Upstate New York companies. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your information (particularly the tracking described above), we will update this page and change the date at the top. Material changes get announced in the newsletter rather than buried here.