Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 2025

General

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (“GMHC,” “we,” “us” or “our”) strongly believes in protecting the privacy and integrity of personally identifiable information gathered from visitors to our websites, including www.gmhc.org, www.aidswalkny.org/, and aginghiv.org/ (collectively, the “Site”).

The protection of your privacy is of the greatest importance to us. This Privacy Policy sets forth how we protect the personal information that you supply voluntarily when you use the Site and any other services we offer, and describes the choices you have concerning such information. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully.

This Privacy Policy incorporates our Terms of Use; any capitalized terms not otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy have the meanings given to them in our Terms of Use.

We may need to change this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to address new issues and reflect changes to the Site. We will post changes here so that you know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose that information to anyone. Changes and modifications to this Privacy Policy will be effective immediately upon our posting of the changes and modification on the Site, except where prohibited by law. By using our Site, you consent to the collection and use of your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

The Site is a general audience website and GMHC does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party websites, products, or services, even if they may link to our Site or if our Site links to them. We recommend that you review the privacy practices of those third parties before accessing third-party websites and sharing any personal information.

1. What Information We Collect and How We Use It

For purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to an individual, such as a name, address, phone number or email address. Personal Information does not include publicly available information; lawfully obtained, truthful information that is a matter of public concern; information that has been de-identified or aggregated; or information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, as consistent with state law. Aggregate information is information that we collect about a group or category of products, services, or users that is not personally identifiable or from which individual identities are removed.

We may collect the following personal information about you via our Site:

a. Personal Information You Provide Us.

We may ask you to provide us with certain categories of information on our Site when you contact us or otherwise interact with us on the Site, including when you donate to us. Additionally, we may receive information about you if you contact us directly, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter, or when you fill out our “Get Help” or “Contact” forms. This may include your name, physical address, billing address, email address, telephone number, credit card information (via our third party payment processor Classy) and any other Personal Information that you choose to share with us on our Site.

We will not share your opt-in to a text or SMS campaign with any third party for purposes unrelated to providing you with the services of that campaign. We may share your Personal Information, including your SMS opt-in or consent status, with third parties that help us provide our messaging services, including but not limited to platform providers, phone companies, and any other vendors who assist us in the delivery of text messages.

b. Personal Information Collected or Stored As You Access and Use Our Site.

We may also collect other types of Personal Information automatically, including your IP address, browser type, internet service provider, and operating system. We use this information to improve our products and services..

In addition to any Personal Information or other information that you choose to submit to us via the Site, we and our third-party service providers may use a variety of technologies that automatically (or passively) store or collect certain information whenever you visit or interact with our website (“Usage Information”). This Usage Information may be stored or accessed using a variety of technologies that may be downloaded to your personal computer, browser, laptop, tablet, mobile phone or other device (“Device”) whenever you visit or interact with the Site.

To the extent we associate Usage Information with your Personal Information we collect directly from you on the Site, we will treat it as Personal Information. Usage Information may include:

Your IP address, UDID, advertising identifier or other unique identifier (“Device Identifier”). A Device Identifier is a number that is automatically assigned to your device used to access the Site, and our computers identify your Device by its Device Identifier;
Your Device functionality, including browser, operating system, hardware, mobile network information;
The URL that referred you to the Site;
The areas within the Site that you visit and your activities there, including remembering you and your preferences;
Your Device location;
Your Device characteristics; and
Certain other Device data, including the time of day you access the Site and other Usage Information

c. Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies
We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on the Site. Cookies are files with a small amount of data, which may include unique identifiers, and are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. We also use other tracking technologies, such as beacons, tags and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our Site.

a. Cookies

Cookies on the Site generally fall into the following categories:

Strictly Necessary Cookies: These are required for the operation of the Site. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas. These cookies are session cookies that are erased when you close your browser.
Analytical/Performance Cookies: These allow us to recognize and count the number of users of the Site and see how such users navigate through the Site. This helps improve how the Site work, for example, by ensuring that users can find what they are looking for easily. These cookies are session cookies that are erased when you close your browser.
Functional Cookies: These improve the functional performance of the Site and make it easier for you to use. For example, cookies are used to remember that you have previously visited the Site and asked to remain logged into it. These cookies are session cookies that are erased when you close your browser.
Advertising Cookies: These record your visits to the Site, the pages you visit and the links you follow so we can recognize you and track your activity on the Site and other websites you visit. These cookies are persistent cookies because they remain on your device for us to use during your next visit to the Site. You can delete these cookies via your browser settings.

Your browser may give you the ability to control cookies. How you do so, however, depends on your browser and the type of cookie. Certain browsers can be set to reject all browser cookies. If you configure your computer to block all cookies, you may disrupt certain features of our Site and limit the functionality we can provide when you visit or use the Site. However, you will still have access to the Site.

b. Use of Cookies.

We advertise in a number of ways, including online through managed social media presences, and on other unaffiliated sites and mobile applications. To understand how our advertising campaigns are performing, we may collect certain information via cookies on the Site through our advertising service providers. The information we collect includes IP addresses, the number of page visits, pages viewed via the Site, search engine referrals, browsing activities over time and across other website following your visit to the Site, and responses applications where we advertise.

We also use certain information to identify new visitors to the Site, recognize returning visitors, advertise on other websites and mobile applications not affiliated with us, analyze the effectiveness of our advertisements, better understand our audience, customers, or other visitors to the Site, and determine whether you might be interested in new products or services.

c. Analytics Information

We may also provide third parties with access to your information to carry out the services that they are providing for us. For example, we may use Google Analytics or other service providers for analytics services. These analytics services may use Cookies to help us analyze how users use the Site. Information generated by these services (e.g., your IP address and other usage information) may be transmitted to and stored by Google Analytics and other service providers on servers in the U.S. (or elsewhere) and these service providers may use this information for purposes such as evaluating your use of the Site, compiling statistic reports on the Site’s activity, and providing other services relating to the Site’s activity and other Internet usage. You may exercise choices regarding the use of cookies from Google Analytics by going to https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout or downloading the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

2. How We Use Your Personal Information

We generally process and use the Personal Information we collect from you in the following ways:

Provide, operate, and maintain the Site;
Improve, personalize, and expand the Site;
Understand and analyze how you use the Site;
Develop new features and functionalities;
Communicate with you in accordance with your preferences to provide you with updates and other information relating to the Site, and for marketing and promotional purposes through email and any other channels you choose to communicate with us;
To process your information, including verifying your information is active and valid;
To contact you with regard to your use of the Site and, in our discretion, changes to the Site and/or any of the Site’s policies;
To prevent unauthorized, improper, or illegal activities on the Site;
To protect against potential fraud. We may verify with third parties the information collected in the course of processing a gift, event registration, or other donation. If you use a credit or debit card on the website, we may use card authorization and fraud screening services to verify that your card information and address matches the information that you supplied to us and that the card being used has not been reported lost or stolen.
For internal business purposes; and
For purposes disclosed at the time you provide your information or as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy or for any other legal purpose not inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.
We may also use your personal information: (1) to specifically target relevant advertisements or content to you, including making recommendations based on your activities; (2) to understand the usefulness to you of the advertisements or content that have been delivered to you; and (3) when you comment on or add content to the Site.

You will only receive email newsletters from us if you have expressly signed up for a newsletter on the Site or at a GMHC event. We will not send you mailings on behalf of other organizations.

The information we gather from subscribers to our email newsletters (including email addresses) is not shared with other organizations or parties. From time to time we may send out email on behalf of other organizations, but we do not provide them with access to any Personal Information that you have provided.

All sent email contains a link to unsubscribe or to modify your profile. You may subscribe or unsubscribe to any newsletter or other email communication from GMHC at any time.

3. Personal Information We Share with Third Parties

We may share personal information collected via the Site in the following ways.

a. Credit Card Donations

Donations you make to GMHC are processed exclusively by our third-party payment processor, Classy. Classy is committed to providing safe, secure and private online transactions. Credit card numbers are fully encrypted after a donation has been processed and are not retained in GMHC’s electronic or hard files. For further details about Classy’s privacy practices and security precautions, please consult the Classy privacy policy directly from the link on our donation page.

When you make a donation to us through the “Donate” button on our Site, Classy shares your Personal Information with GMHC so we or Classy may acknowledge receipt of your donation for tax purposes and, unless you ask us not to, include you on GMHC’s mailing list.

If you do not wish to be added to our mailing list, our online donation form has an “opt-in” mechanism that can be unchecked for those users who wish to make donations but do not want to receive any additional email correspondence from GMHC. You may also make donations anonymously by checking this preference on the donation page. Donors may request removal of personally identifiable information from our databases by contacting us at the phone number or email address listed below. To honor requests, we will need the exact information to be removed and information sufficient for us to identify the type of communication received from us.

When you send a donation in honor or in memory of someone and request that an acknowledgment be sent to another individual/family, we will use the name and address of that individual/family for acknowledgment purposes only.

b. Our Service Providers

We will share your Personal Information with Classy and our other third-party service providers, as described above; with respect to other third-parties , we will only share your identifiable Personal Information with your express permission, or if we are required by law to do so.

c. When You Request Information From or Provide Information to Third Parties

Please be aware that our site contains links to other web sites. GMHC cannot control and is not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of those websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any web pages not under a domain owned and operated by GMHC, regardless of any hyperlinks from a web page under our domains to external web pages. We advise you to check their privacy policies as well.

d. For Legal Purposes

We may also share your Personal Information with any legal and government regulatory authorities in response to their request for information or to assist in investigations. We may also disclose your Personal Information to third parties in connection with claims, disputes or litigation, or when otherwise required by law or to protect our legal rights.

e. To Protect Our Rights and The Rights Of Others

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we may also disclose your Personal Information if we believe in good faith that doing so is necessary or appropriate to: (i) protect or defend our rights, safety or property of us or third parties (including through the enforcement of this Privacy Policy and other applicable agreements and policies); or (ii) comply with legal and regulatory obligations (e.g., pursuant to law enforcement inquiries, subpoenas, or court orders). To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we have complete discretion in electing to make or not make such disclosures, and to contest or not contest requests for such disclosures, all without notice to you.

f. Affiliate and Business Transfer

We reserve the right to disclose and transfer Personal Information: (i) to a subsequent owner, co-owner or operator of the Site or applicable database; or (ii) in connection with a merger, consolidation, restructuring, the sale of substantially all of our interests and/or assets or other corporate change, including during the course of any due diligence process.

4. Exercising Choices and Preferences

You may opt-out of any emails that we send for promotional purposes, including our newsletter, by clicking the “unsubscribe” links provided at the bottom of those emails. All GMHC communications, whether via email or U.S. mail, provides information on how to unsubscribe quickly and easily. Those wishing to not receive communications from GMHC (“do not contact”) can simply notify our member services at webmaster@GMHC.org.

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 (“Shine the Light” Law) permits California residents who have supplied personal information, as defined in the statute, to us to, under certain circumstances, opt-out on a going forward basis of any such sharing or receive more information about such practices, if any. GMHC does not currently share Personal Information for these purposes. You may send any inquiries or questions regarding this policy to us using the contact information provided below.

While we do not “sell” Personal Information as defined by Nevada Law, Nevada residents nonetheless have the right to request to opt out of any future “sale” of their Personal Information under Nevada SB 220 and SB 370. If you are a Nevada resident and would like to make such a request, please see the “Contact Information” section at the end of this policy. You must include your full name, email address, and postal address in your email or mail request so that we can verify your Nevada residence and respond. In the event we sell Personal Information after the receipt of your request, we will make reasonable efforts to comply with such request.

5. International Transfers of Your Personal Information

GMHC operates only in the United States and will not transfer your Personal Information outside of the country.

6. Children’s Information

Our Site is not intended for children. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on the Site, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately, and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

7. Contact Information

For questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy the information we have collected from you online, the practices of this site or your interaction with this Site, we can be contacted via the methods listed below: