Privacy
The short version
- The website counts visits, without cookies or profiles. We use Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and doesn't follow you to other sites. No advertising trackers. Videos only connect to YouTube when you press play.
- We only hold what you give us: when you subscribe, register for an event, apply to speak or join a residency, or write to us.
- Some things are public on purpose. If you speak at one of our events, your name, title, talk, and recording go in our public library, because sharing the work openly is what we're for.
- We never sell your data. We share a resident's details with a sponsor only when that resident has agreed to it.
- You can see, correct, or remove what we hold about you. Write to contact@fundingthecommons.io and we'll act within 30 days.
- At our events you can opt out of being photographed or filmed. Spaces held under the Chatham House Rule are marked, and we don't publish who said what in them.
The full policy
Who we are
Funding the Commons Inc., a Delaware corporation, 2810 N Church St, PMB 44925, Wilmington, Delaware 19802-4447, United States. We are responsible for the personal information described here. For anything about your data, write to contact@fundingthecommons.io.
This policy covers our website (fundingthecommons.io), our events (conferences, residencies, hackathons, dinners, and workshops), our newsletter, and our programs.
What the website collects
Very little. The site counts page views with Vercel Web Analytics, our host's own counter. For each page view it records the page's address (including anything after a question mark in it, such as a referral code), the site you came from, your browser, operating system, and device type, and the time. It also works out roughly where you are (country, region, city) from your connection; your IP address itself is not kept with the record. No cookies, no advertising scripts, no cross-site trackers. For a day, Vercel tells one visitor from another by a hash made from the request, which it says it discards after 24 hours; nothing in the records names you. Vercel describes the records in its own words. We see them added up, as counts and breakdowns, and can look back up to a year; Vercel says it may keep them longer than that, under its own terms. If you'd rather not be counted, a content or script blocker stops the counter, and we don't try to get around it. The counter is not on pages reached through a link made for one guest, such as a dinner invitation. Our fonts and images are served from our own site.
Two things are worth knowing:
- Hosting. The site is hosted by Vercel. Like any web host, Vercel's servers briefly record technical data such as your IP address to deliver the page and protect against abuse. We don't use those records to identify or profile you.
- Videos. Our pages show a still image of each talk. Only when you press play does the page load the video from YouTube, using YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode. From that moment, Google's privacy policy applies to the video.
When you type your email into our newsletter box, the site passes it straight to Substack, which sends the newsletter; the website itself keeps no copy. When you follow a link to register, apply, or book a call, you leave our site for a service we use (listed below). That service's own privacy policy applies there too.
What we collect when you take part
| When you… | We hold | Held in |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribe to the newsletter | Your email address | Substack |
| Register for an event | What you enter on the registration page (name, email, organization, answers to our questions) | Luma |
| Apply to speak, join a residency, volunteer, or sponsor | What you enter in the application | Google Forms and Google Sheets |
| Come to one of our dinners | Your name, email, organization, title, dietary preferences, and your RSVP on the guest list | Notion |
| Speak at an event | Your name, title, organization, short bio, photo, public links, and your talk | Our website, YouTube, Notion |
| Write to us or work with us | Your messages and contact details | Email (Google Workspace), our contact database, Notion, and Slack when our team discusses the work internally |
If you sign up on the Forum partner page, the details you enter are also recorded in Attio, the contact database our team works from. The dinner RSVP form also asks about dietary preferences; we use those only for that event's catering.
We don't ask for more than we need to run the thing you signed up for.
How we use it
- To run our events and programs: registration, logistics, programming, and following up afterwards.
- To send the newsletter you asked for. Every issue has an unsubscribe link.
- To keep a record of our community and the people who have spoken, built, and taken part, so we can invite you back and connect you with others working on the same problems.
- To publish talks and speaker details in our public library, so the work reaches people who weren't in the room.
- To see which pages are read, so we know what works on the site.
Public by design
Openness is part of what we do, so some information is public on purpose:
- Speakers. Our speaker directory and event pages list speakers' names, titles, organizations, talks, and public links. Talks are recorded and published on YouTube and our website.
- Photos and films. We photograph and film our events, and use the results on our website, social channels, and reports.
If you'd like your entry corrected or removed from the directory, write to contact@fundingthecommons.io. We'll do it within 30 days. You can also ask us to take down a recording of your talk.
Photos and recording at events
- You can wear a no-photo sticker, and our photographers and filmmakers won't feature you.
- On the main stage, you can ask us to turn the cameras off for your session.
- Some spaces are held under the Chatham House Rule: our leaders' dinners, and some workshops and debates. They are marked as such. What's said there can be used, but we don't publish who said it, and we don't publish who was in the room.
Arrangements vary from event to event, with the location, the format, and our production partners. Each event page or registration page says what applies there.
Who we share it with
We never sell your data.
- Service providers that run our tools for us: Vercel (hosting), Substack (newsletter), Luma (registration), Google Workspace (email, forms, sheets), Notion (planning, speaker records, and the dinner guest list), Attio (contact database), Slack (team chat), YouTube (recordings), DocSend (partner documents). They handle your data on our behalf and under their own security and privacy terms.
- Sponsors of our residencies. Occasionally a sponsor asks to meet residents. We share a resident's details with a sponsor only if the resident agreed to it when applying, or when we ask them at the time.
- Co-organizers and production partners of a specific event, where they help run it, and only what they need for that event.
- When the law requires it.
Legal bases (for people in the EU, UK, and Switzerland)
- Consent: the newsletter, and sharing residents' details with sponsors. You can withdraw it at any time.
- To deliver what you signed up for: event registration and program participation.
- Our legitimate interests: keeping a record of our community, publishing talks and speaker details, documenting our events, and counting visits to the website. We weigh these against your privacy, and you can object at any time.
- Legal obligations: keeping records the law requires us to keep.
How long we keep it
We keep your details for as long as you're part of the Funding the Commons community, because our work depends on long relationships: people come back as speakers, residents, mentors, and partners over years. Newsletter subscriptions end when you unsubscribe. If you ask us to delete your details, we will, unless the law requires us to keep a record.
Where your data is held
Our tools are mostly run by companies based in the United States, so your data may be stored or processed there. Where the law requires it, these providers use the safeguards approved for transfers out of Europe, such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- show you what we hold about you,
- correct it,
- delete it,
- stop using it for a particular purpose, or
- send you a copy in a usable format.
Write to contact@fundingthecommons.io. We'll answer within 30 days. If you're in the EU, the UK, or Switzerland and you're not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to your local data protection authority. Californian residents have the same rights under California law, and we don't sell or share personal information for advertising.
Keeping it safe
Only our team and the service providers above can reach the data we hold, and we limit access to the people who need it for their work. No system is perfectly secure; if something goes wrong that affects your data, we'll tell you.
Children
Our website, events, and programs are for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16.
Changes
When we change this policy we'll update the date below. If a change affects how we use data you've already given us, we'll tell you before it takes effect.
Last updated: October 2026.
This policy is published under CC BY 4.0. Anyone is welcome to reuse it.