A A A
Search
Close this search box.
Donate
Contact Us

Privacy Policy

EFFECTIVE September 15, 2022

This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) applies to The Cradle, a non-profit, licensed child welfare, tax-exempt organization under the IRS code 501(c)(3) agency providing adoption and related services, located at 2049 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201 (including The Cradle Society and The Cradle Foundation, collectively, “us,” “our” “we,” or “The Cradle”) and the information processed when you visit our Website, www.cradle.org, (the “Website”). The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to disclose to you what information we may collect, how we may collect it, with whom we may share it, and certain other matters related to such information, including the choices you have regarding our collection of information and our use and disclosure to other parties of information we may have collected from you.

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time without notice (for example, if we modify our practices regarding the collection or use of information). We will revise our last updated date to reflect any revisions to this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Website following the posting of any revisions shall constitute your acceptance thereof. Please note that this Privacy Policy applies only to information collected on this Website; it does not apply to any other information collected or obtained through other means or information collected by third-parties.

Other important disclosures are linked below:

Client Health and Information Privacy Protection Act (HIPAA)
To learn about the steps taken to protect the privacy of protected health information, download our HIPAA Statement.

Disclosure Policy
In order to be transparent with our clients, we agree to disclose information to adoptive parents, birth parents, and adopted adults in the course of providing services. This is reflected in our disclosure policy. Click here to read our Disclosure Policy.

Donor Privacy Policy
The privacy of our donors is very important to us. The Cradle never sells, trades or shares donors’ personal information with any other organization or charity, ever. We use your information only to communicate with you about The Cradle programs and services.

Only authorized personnel have access to our fundraising database and records. In addition, you may choose to be listed as “Anonymous” if you prefer. Should you wish to change the amount or type of mail you receive, or if you have questions about our policies, please contact cradlefoundation@cradle.org or call 847-475-5800.

When this Privacy Policy uses the term “Personally Identifiable Information,” “Personal Data,” or “Personal Information” we mean information that identifies a particular individual, such as your full name, street address or email address. When other information is associated with personal information, it also becomes personally identifiable information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.

1. What Information Is Collected

The following are the types of information we may collect:

We may collect personal information like name, telephone number, email address, home or business mailing address, and other registration information, when you access certain areas of the Website that require registration for services, or if you require more information about those services. Registration information may include user created login information such as username and password, secret answers to certain security questions, or other similar information that allows us to uniquely identify your account or authenticate you prior to giving you access to your account or certain online activities.

We may capture certain information automatically on our Website (even if you do not voluntarily provide us with Personal Information, or in addition to any Personal Information that you do provide), including your Internet protocol address, Internet service provider, browser type, and linking information. Typically, this information is shared with some of our service providers and is used by us to develop Website statistics (how many people access our Website and what pages are they interested in). At times, our systems may make this information identifiable to you, and, if so, it will be treated and protected as Personal Information.

Non-Personal Information

At other times, we may collect information that cannot be used to directly identify you, such as browser type, Dynamic Internet Protocol (IP) address, “click stream” data and similar non-personally identifiable information. For example, we may aggregate non-personal information about you and other customers who visit certain areas of our Website. Aggregated information will not contain any information that can be linked directly back to you.

While we take all reasonable steps to protect the privacy of our Website visitors, we cannot promise that the current limitations of our online applications programming will address every browser setting or honor every personal browser preference. In particular, we have not implemented the necessary program changes to honor “Do Not Track” or “DNT” browser signals. As our online applications programming is refined, we will take all reasonable steps to honor such requests in the future. Please return to this Privacy Policy for further updates on this topic.

Electronic Communications

When you open emails from us or engage in SMS or MMS communications, we may log and store such information. We may also keep records of various communications regarding the types of products and services that you indicate are of interest to you via your response to email and text messaging. You will always have the option to opt out of such communications by clicking an “unsubscribe” link or replying “STOP” to our text messages.

 

2. How Do We Collect Information

We may collect information from you in several different areas on the Website, including, without limitation, those described below:

Registration for Services

You may be asked to complete a registration form and provide personally identifiable information; you may also be asked to choose a user ID and password in order to take advantage of certain features of the Website or associated services, such as newsletters or The Cradle content. Your decision to register is voluntary and you will have the opportunity to decide whether or not to disclose information to us and what communications you would like to receive; however, please be advised that many offerings and services available on the Website require registration and if you elect not to provide such information, you will not be able to take advantage of those offerings and services.

Cookies and Tracking Technology

We may use any number of tools to collect information about you, your computer access points, and the web browser that you use to connect to our Website. For example, “cookies” are tiny text files that we place on your computer’s hard drive when you visit our Website. We may use cookies to personalize your Website experience. We may use cookies or similar devices to remember or store your login information (username/email address) so we can save you the time of having to re-enter this information. Most common web browsers today allow you to modify your settings to block cookies entirely, alert you every time they are being sent, or allow their use by only those Websites you approve. We may use web beacons, which are small electronic image files that can be embedded within a web page or included in an email message, to collect: (1) certain Website usage information such as whether a visitor is a one-time or repeat visitor and which pages a visitor has viewed and for how long, and (2) email information such as the time a email was opened, if and how many times it was forwarded, and what links a recipient clicks on from within the email message. You do not have to accept our cookies and you may delete them after they have been placed on your hard drive. If you do not accept or delete our cookies, some areas of our Website that you access may take more time to work, or may not function properly. For more information about cookies, visit: http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

We may also collect additional information from your web browser each time you visit our Website. We may collect information on the pages that you visit, the promotions or offers that you click on, and other actions that you take while using our Website. This information may include your IP address, the type of browser, the time that your browser was used to access our Website and the referring Website address.

We use the services of third-party vendors and other independent companies to provide certain services to you, including, without limitation, Website hosting, credit and debit card processing, order fulfilment and processing, Internet connectivity, and other support services (“Third-Party Service Providers”).

Our Third-Party Service Providers (such as Google Analytics) may also use other standard web-based technologies to analyze your movements while accessing our Website. The technologies include analytic solutions, web “beacons,” “pixel tags” and “clear gifs.” These technologies help us ascertain the effectiveness of our offering and service campaigns and marketing programs, allow us to customize the services offered on or through our Website, and help determine the best use for Website content, and product and service offerings. Some of this information, including the IP address, may be stored on our Internet service provider’s server logs, and may be available for extended periods of time.

Transaction Information

If you conduct a financial or other transaction through the Website, our Third-Party Service Providers will ask you to complete an order form that will request certain information from you, including contact information, demographic information and/or financial information. Even though the collection form may have the look and feel of the Website, please be aware you will be giving your information directly to Third-Party Service Providers, and that in some instances such third party services provider’s privacy policy will govern the collection of your personal information. Please reference the privacy policies available from these pages for any privacy related concerns.

We and/or our service providers will use this information to complete the financial or other transaction that you have requested, i.e., to deliver the information, products or other services that you request, to invoice you, and in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy. For your protection, financial information is collected and stored through encrypted means

3. How Is your Information Used

We may use your personal information to contact you via mail, email, text message, or telephone in order to give you updates about our special events, new programs and services, or other promotions that may be of interest to you, or for our other marketing purposes. We also use return email addresses to answer the email we receive from you. We may also use your IP address to help protect us and our Third-Party Service Providers from fraud.

Additional uses of your non-personal and personal information will allow us to provide and support our offerings and services, to tailor services specific to your needs, to help organize and manage your relationship and our organization, to conduct our programs and operations, to provide you with support and other services you may request, to maintain our records, to perform other functions that are described to you at the time of collection or to which you otherwise consent, and to comply with our other contractual, legal, and regulatory obligations, including to enforce our Website’s Terms.

We may also use non-personal aggregate information to improve our Website. For example, our Third-Party Service Providers may report to us that there were a particular number of visitors to a certain area of our Website, or that a certain number of men or a certain number of women completed our registration form in particular areas of our Website. Such information may also be used to analyze the effectiveness of our business and advertising models.

4. Shared Information

We may share your personal information with our Third-Party Service Providers that help us support features on the Website and provide our offerings and services to you. We may also share personally identifiable information with outside, non-affiliated third parties that offer services that are complementary to our service lines. These Third-Party Service Providers and third parties are responsible for their own compliance with data protection laws.

We may also disclose your personal information as is necessary to: (a) comply with a subpoena or court order; (b) cooperate with law enforcement or other government agency; (c) establish or exercise our legal rights; (d) protect the property or safety of our organization and employees, contractors, vendors, and suppliers; (e) defend against legal claims; (f) help with internal and external investigations; or (g) as otherwise required by law or permitted by law.

Third-Party Ad Serving and Audience and Traffic Measurement Services: We may use a third-party network advertiser to serve the advertisements on the Website or may use a traffic measurement service to analyze the traffic on the Website. Network advertisers are third parties that display advertisements based on your visits to this Website and other Websites you have visited the Website. Third-party ad serving enables us to target advertisements to you for products or websites you might be interested in. Audience and Traffic Measurement Services allow us to collect anonymous traffic and behavior information from the Website by monitoring anonymous visitor activity. Although advertisers or other companies do not have access to the Website cookies, the Website’s advertisers, sponsors and/or traffic measurement services may themselves set and access their own cookies on your computer if you choose to have your cookies enabled in your browser. Cookies allow third-party advertisers to show you advertisements or content you might be interested in. Note that any images (or any other parts of a web page) served by third parties in association with third-party cookies may serve as web beacons, which enable third parties to carry out the previously described activities. Other companies’ uses of their cookies are subject to their own privacy policies, not this one. Please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org in order to learn more about the information collection practices and “opt-out” procedures of third-party ad servers we may use.

5. Links To Third-party Websites

Links of this Website may allow you to directly access websites operated by third parties, including, without limitation, our service providers (such as third-party payment processor) or marketing providers. Some of these third-party marketing channels may be “co-branded” with our logo; even so, these third-party channels are not operated, controlled or maintained by us. These channels or links are provided for your convenience only and should be used with your discretion and prudent judgment. Links from our Website to third-party websites do not constitute sponsorship, endorsement, or approval of the content, policies or practices of such third-party websites. The collection and use of your information by such co-branding third parties is the responsibility of the co-branding partner. We are not responsible for any information these websites or digital channels may obtain and we do not oversee their policies or practices. This Privacy Policy does not apply to information provided to or gathered by the third parties that operate them. The privacy policies of these third-party websites may differ from ours. These websites may ask you for Personal Information. Please review the privacy policy on third-party channels before submitting information, because we do not have control over the use of information collected on these websites.

6. Information Security

We make reasonable efforts to ensure that our Third-Party Service Providers have implemented physical, electronic, and procedural security measures to assist with safeguarding your personal information, and to help protect against unauthorized access and disclosure. Only our authorized personnel and our Third-Party Service Providers who perform legitimate business functions for us are authorized to access your personal information.

Notwithstanding our efforts, the Internet and online services have inherent security risks. We cannot promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information, personal searches, and other communications will always remain secure. You should take care with regard to how you handle and disclose your personal information or any username or password that you are required to use to access services on this Website.

7. Data Retention Periods

We will retain your information for as long as your account (if any) is active or as needed to provide you with the offerings and services you request. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you offerings or services, contact us at cradle@cradle.org. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

8. California Privacy Notice

The privacy of our website visitors is very important to us. We will never sell, trade or share your personal information with any other unaffiliated organization or business where such personal information the organization’s or business’s direct marketing purposes.

California law permits residents of California to request certain details about information we disclose to third parties for direct marketing purposes. These obligations may not apply to non-profit organizations such The Cradle. If you are a California resident and would like to request this information, please contact us at the address listed below. As a courtesy, we will do our best to comply with your request where it is operationally feasible. In your request, please attest to the fact that you are a California resident and provide a current California address for our response.

9. General Audience Website Not Directed Toward Children

This Website is a general audience Website. Our content is not directed toward minors or children who are under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If we or our Third-Party Service Providers become aware that a minor or a child under the age of 13 has provided us with personal information without the parental consent, that information will be deleted from our databases. Parents who have questions about personal information that may have been submitted by a child under the age of 13 should email us at cradle@cradle.org

By using the Website, you signify your agreement to the terms of this Privacy Policy. We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make a material change to the way in which we collect, use, and/or share your personal information, we will post a notice on the Website and/or send an email to users who have provided an email address. We will assume that you have given your permission for your information to be used under the terms of the Privacy Policy, as modified, if you do not respond to our email within thirty days or if you continue to use the Website thirty days after a notice is posted. Please note that you should always update your personal information to provide us with a current email address.

11. Access to Personal Information and Consent to Transfer

The first time that you provide us with registration information through our Website, you may be offered the opportunity to subscribe to and receive additional information about our offerings and services. After your first use, you can make changes to your personal information and your initial choices by accessing your account or by contacting us by email at cradle@cradle.org.

For those Website users located outside the United States, we advise you that your information may at times be accessible by individuals who are located worldwide including in countries that the European Commission or other geopolitical regions have not been determined to provide the same level of data protection as in your country, province, territory or geopolitical region. By providing us with your Personal Information, you are consenting to our use of it in accordance with our privacy policy, including the transfer of your information across international boundaries to jurisdictions anywhere in the world as permitted by local law.

The United States may not have data privacy laws that are deemed to afford an equal level of protection for your Personal Information as those laws legislated at the direction of the European Union or similar geopolitical, national or regional legislative bodies. However, please be assured that we will continue to adhere to the principles stated in this Privacy Policy and will make reasonable efforts to comply with applicable international, national, regional, territorial, and provincial laws in connection with any information collected through the Website. We will endeavor to preserve the integrity, confidentiality, and security of personal information and afford such personal information reasonable level of protection.

12. Questions About This Privacy Policy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the privacy practices of this Website, please contact us by email at cradle@cradle.org.

Unplanned Pregnancy?

Call our 24-hour toll-free number to speak to a Cradle counselor

800-CRADLE4 (800-272-3534)

Text CRADLE to 66746

Email Us | Chat Us

Adoptive Families & General Inquiries

Have a General Inquiry?

Call 847-475-5800

 

Looking to adopt?

Schedule a Call with Cradle Staff

 

Need Post Adoption Support?

Schedule a Call

Join Our List

Want to stay connected with The Cradle? Enter your email address to receive updates.

Subscribe Now
Youtube Facebook Linkedin Instagram Pinterest

The Cradle

I’m Pregnant

Adoption Services

Counseling & Education

Current Clients
A A A
Contact Us
Donate

The Cradle. All Rights Reserved © 2022 Illinois License #005064 | Indiana License #53866 Privacy Policy Terms of Use Sitemap