"Democracy Engine is a bellwether for politics. The need is there, the organizations are there, the people are there. This is the kind of fundraising innovation the Left has been waiting for."

- Lara Bergthold, Chair of the Board of Directors, People For the American Way

"What I find most compelling about Democracy Engine is that my customers don’t need a merchant account. They can be up and running with little hassle in just a few hours. And, as a developer, the API is much easier to work with than traditional gateways like Authorize.net. I highly recommend Democracy Engine to all my US-based customers."

- Jim Gilliam, Founder and CEO, NationBulder.com

"What makes Democracy Engine such a powerful tool is its flexibility. Each time we came up with a new way we wanted to fundraise for our candidates, we discovered that the platform could accommodate our needs -- it really could go with us. … The power and simplicity of this platform allowed us to engage our existing members, significantly grow our list, and dramatically multiply our technology investment into serious hard dollars for our endorsed candidates."

- Ilana Goldman, President, Women’s Campaign Forum (2005-2009)

"In the 2008 cycle, HRC PAC started using Democracy Engine, and we were instantly impressed. Democracy Engine's system is incredibly easy to use, allows for instant updates and editing, and made reporting effortless. Many of our donors and bipartisan candidates have thanked HRC for having such a simple and useful system."

- Mike Mings, PAC Director, Human Rights Campaign

"Together, Jonathan, Erik and Josh make for a truly innovative team. They have worked hard to build a visionary yet practical platform, one that will be taking politics well into the 21st century."

- Jackson Dunn, National Finance Director,
Democratic National Committee (2001-2005)

“Integrating our processing system with Democracy Engine's API was a breeze and their technical support while we programmed and tested was exceptional.  In less than 48 hours we were ready to go ... taking new customers live now takes less than a day.”

- Chris Lundberg, CEO, Salsa Labs

"Perhaps most importantly, in Jonathan Zucker we never had a vendor or consultant, but rather another member of our own team, with the same goals and mission -- it made a huge difference to have a trusted professional on our side when launching a new and important initiative."

- Ilana Goldman, President, Women’s Campaign Forum (2005-2009)

"As a political consulting firm, we've set up a lot of clients to accept online contributions. We're used to the lengthy process that you go through via traditional gateways like Authorize.net, in which most of the time they're asking for information that political campaigns almost never have. Your sign-up and validation process could not have been easier: a simple process asking for information we have on hand and one day later our client was accepting online donations."

- Kevin Yee, Stearns Consulting, San Francisco

Gears

Democracy Engine Privacy Policy

Democracy Engine, LLC ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to respecting the privacy rights of persons who visit and/or make or receive contributions (“you” or “your”) using our services, web sites and/or online forms (“Services”).   If you have registered or are using such products and services as or on behalf of any entity, “you” refers to the entity.  The Services include our web sites such as http://democracyengine.com and all landing pages that we own or control.

We created this Privacy Policy to give you confidence and describe how we treat personal information as you visit and use our Services.

Collection of Personal Information

Services.   When you make a contribution using our Services, we generally are required by law to collect your name, postal address, telephone number, email address, occupation, employer, and employer's address, and to send this information along with your contribution to the recipient of the contribution.  (The specific information we collect will vary depending on the law that applies to the recipient.  For example, we are required to collect more information concerning contributions to political candidates and committees than we must with respect to non-profit organizations.)  We collect your credit/debit card information for processing your contributions.  If you are a recipient of contributions, we collect your name, address, federal tax ID number and bank account information for your receipt of contributions.  In all cases, we also may ask you for further information to manage risk and verify your identity and information, such as confirming your email address or ordering a credit report, or to comply with campaign finance disclosure laws, and may obtain information about you from third parties such as credit reporting agencies.

Web Sites.  We also collect information volunteered by visitors and contributors using our Services and recipients receiving contributions, such as by completing and submitting our online forms or emailing us. When visitors, contributors or recipients visit our web sites or online forms, our servers automatically collect certain information that their web browser sends when visiting web sites in general. This log file information may include the URLs (domain names) you visited; your Internet Protocol (IP) address; date, time, and time spent on pages visited; and information about your browser and computer.

Cookies.  From time to time, our Services may use the standard cookies feature of major browser applications which allows us to store a small piece of data on your computer about your use of our Services. Cookies help us learn which portions of our Services are useful and which need improvement, among other things. You can choose whether to accept cookies by changing the settings on your web browser. However, if you choose to disable or limit cookies, your experience with our Services may be significantly diminished and many features may not operate.

Children.  Contributors using our Services and recipients receiving contributions must be of legal age to form a contract.  Thus, we do not knowingly solicit or collect personally identifying information from children under the age of 13.

Information Uses
We use the personally identifiable information and aggregate information we collect to market and provide the Services to you, including processing your contributions, sending notices about your contributions, and processing contribution payments to recipients, to collect fees and resolve disputes and the like, to manage risk and verify your identity and information with third parties such as credit reporting agencies, to improve our offerings and to create new offerings.  We may use your phone number or email address to reach you should further verification of your identity or credit/debit card or bank account information be required.

We do not use your personally identifiable information to send commercial or marketing messages to you (such as offers regarding Services or potential contribution opportunities) without your consent or opt-in. We may send you certain service and administrative notices, which are not subject to opt-out.

We use cookies and log file information to administer and monitor usage of our Services.

Information Sharing

We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information with any third parties except in the following limited circumstances.

We share contributors’ information with recipients as required by law.  For contributions to political candidates, the information we share includes name, postal address, telephone number, email address, occupation, employer, and employer's address.  (The specific information we share will vary depending on the law that applies to the recipient.  For example, we are required to share more information concerning contributions to political candidates and committees than we must with respect to non-profit organizations.)  Recipients may also be required to include this information in their public reports. In particular, most political candidates and committees must include this information in their public campaign finance reports.

By agreement with us, many third-party providers and sites link to or display our web pages and/or online forms from their or their customers’ or members’ online properties(“Sponsors”).  We also provide reports to these Sponsors, which include most or all of the information described above.  Each Sponsor’s use of this information is governed by its own privacy policy.

We securely and confidentially transmit contributors’ credit/debit card payment information to our payment processor(s), and do not store this information unless you as a contributor have specifically requested a recurring contribution.  We securely and confidentially store and use recipients’ bank account information for contribution payments to recipients.  We may share your information with third parties such as credit reporting agencies and financial institutions to manage risk and verify your identity and information.

We also may share such information if we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to: (a) comply with any law, regulation or order, such as campaign finance or public disclosure law, subpoena, court order or search warrant; (b) provide the Services using our affiliates or subcontractors; (c) protect and defend our rights or property, including investigations and defense of third-party claims; (d) otherwise ensure compliance with our contributor and/or recipient terms and conditions, rules and policies; and/or (e) prevent physical harm or financial loss and report suspected illegal activity.  Aggregate information, such as log file information, may be shared with others only on an anonymous aggregate basis.  In the event all or any relevant portion of our stock, business or assets is transferred to, acquired by or merged with any third party, we reserve the right to transfer or assign as part of such transaction any or all of the information we have collected.

Corrections
If you need to correct your information with us, please see http://democracyengine.com/contact.html for our contact information.

Links
The Services and content on them may contain links to other sites and resources controlled by third parties. We are not responsible for privacy practices or content of these other sites or resources, and you should consult the privacy statements of such other sites and resources. We reserve the right to engage third party ad server companies whose policies may govern access to any ads or links made available to you.

Data Security
Our Services include security measures (including PCI compliance for credit/debit card payments) intended to prevent the loss, misuse, and alteration of your information, but we make no warranty about our ability to prevent any such loss, misuse or alteration.

Changes
We may amend this Privacy Policy, including the use of your information for new, unanticipated purposes, at any time by posting a revised version available via the Services, and/or by sending information regarding the amendment to your e-mail address in our records. You are responsible for regularly reviewing the Services to obtain timely notice of such amendments. You shall be deemed to have accepted such amendments by continuing to use the Services as a contributor and/or receiving contributions as a recipient after such amendments have been posted or information regarding such amendments has been sent to you. If you do not agree to any of such changes, you may immediately cease all access and use of the Services or receipt of contributions. You agree that such termination will be your exclusive remedy in such event.

International Users
The Services are provided, contribution payments are made to recipients, and our web sites and online forms are hosted, in the United States of America and are intended for and directed to users in the United States. If you are attempting to visit or access the Services from the European Union, Asia, or any other jurisdiction with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure, which differ from United States laws, please be advised that through your use of the Services, you are transferring your personal information to the United States of America and you consent to that transfer.

Effective Date of this version: September 9, 2010