We will electronically store the information you voluntarily choose to provide to us. For example, we may store your information if you choose to:

• Leave a voicemail on our call-in number
• Submit your story through our online form
• Donate through Ko-Fi, Patreon, or DonorBox
• Send us an email

Information voluntarily shared with us could include:

• Your name (real or fake)
• Your contact information (e.g. email address or phone number)
• Your contact information (e.g. email address or phone number)
• Your billing information (e.g. real name, billing address, email address)
• Stories about your experiences in the Seventh-day Adventist church or other fundamentalist denominations and religions

When sharing your story, you are under no obligation to share your real personally identifiable information with us. You can choose to use a real or fake name for yourself, use a throwaway email address, and call from a throwaway number to protect your real identity.

However, we do ask that you only submit truthful stories and

• Avoid the use of real names of other people to protect their privacy
• Do not out other people who are not ready to be outed (e.g. as ex-Adventist, atheist, etc.)

Information Submitted in Good Faith

We will treat stories and personal information information sent to us in good faith as strictly private and confidential and will only share your story if you explicitly give us permission to. When submitting a story through our online form, call-in number, or email, we ask that you specify:

• May we include your name (real or fake) and story in our podcast and social media posts?

If you share information with us in good faith, we will never publicly disclose the email address or phone number used to contact us. We will rely on your instructions in the voicemail or message to determine how we can use the information you share.

Sharing your story with us does not mean you are obligated to have it shared publicly; we will honor your choice of whether to keep it private or allow us to share it publicly. We reserve the right not to publish any information shared with us for any reason, including if we believe the content is objectionable or violates the privacy of others.

Donor Information
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We always keep private donor and billing information strictly confidential (e.g. real name, billing address, email) and it is used strictly for processing and recording donations.

You have the option to donate privately through platforms like Ko-Fi, Patreon, and DonorBox. These platforms may provide the option to publicly display your name or username next to the donation—it is always your choice whether to keep your donation and name private.

Even in the case of Haystacks & Hope crowdfunding donations via DonorBox, the recipient(s) of your donation(s) will not see your private donor or billing information. At most, they may see your name publicly displayed on the Donor Wall, but only if you manually opt-in to publicly display it.

Information Collection and Storage
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We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information except for the following trusted third party platforms, strictly for the purposes of collecting and securely storing information:

• Webflow for website hosting (Privacy Policy)
• Airtable for web forms and data storage (Privacy Policy)
• Google for email, file storage, and voicemail (Privacy Policy)
• Stripe for card and bank payment processing (Privacy Policy)
• Patreon for recurring podcast donations with perks (Privacy Policy)
• Ko-Fi for one-time and recurring podcast donations (Privacy Policy)
• DonorBox for Haystacks & Hope mutual aid donations (Privacy Policy)

Special Circumstances
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In very limited circumstances, such as legal government requests for data, we may confidentially release your information when we believe such release is necessary to comply with the law, protect property or safety, protect our rights and legal liabilities, or the rights of third parties.

Releases of information sent to us in good faith will always be handled in a confidential manner and will never be shared publicly by Haystacks & Hell. However, threatening or objectional messages that are not sent in good faith (e.g. spam, fraud, or harassment) may not be treated as private information and may be released publicly at our discretion for our safety and the safety of others.

Information shared with us privately through social media (e.g. direct messages, private story reactions, etc.) will be treated the same as described in sections 1 and 2 above.

Information shared publicly through social media (e.g. public comments, public reposts, TikTok Stitch, etc.) constitute publicly available information and may be referenced in our podcast and social media posts at our discretion, with or without prior notice.

Our third party platforms all use SSL and encrypt data. Our accounts on these platforms use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, where possible, to prevent unauthorized access. That said, no one can guarantee 100% safety and security of electronically stored data.

If you want to share your story with us but have serious concerns around your privacy and safety, consider using a fake name and throwaway email address or phone number. Our phone number does support Signal for end-to-end encryption of messages: (301) 750-8648‬

Google Analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics to analyze and report on website traffic and understand the countries, regions, and cities our visitors are in. We do not send your personally identifiable information to the Google Analytics platform, and Google Analytics does not send personally identifiable information to us.. First-party and third-party cookies may be used by Google Analytics to perform website traffic analysis and reporting. You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by using Google’s official browser add-on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Podcast Analytics

Our podcast host provides episode download and playthrough analytics from the web players embedded on this website in addition to analytics provided by third party podcast platforms (e.g. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.). Depending on the platform, analytics data may include the countries, regions, and cities where our episodes were played. We do not send your personally identifiable information to any of these platforms, and they do not provide us with your personally identifiable information.

Third-party Links

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and, when you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of those third parties.

Affiliate Links

To support Haystacks & Hell and pay for our expenses, we may participate in affiliate programs and include affiliate links on this website. These links may enable our affiliate program sponsors to identify you as a visitor that came from our website and attribute purchases you make. Where applicable, we will provide affiliate disclosures. Our participation in affiliate programs will never have any influence over editorial coverage or how we rate products.

The Haystacks & Hell website and podcast are not marketed to children or anyone under the age of majority in their respective jurisdiction (e.g. 18 in most of the United States). Where possible on third-party podcast platforms, the podcast is marked as containing explicit content due to the use of curse words and discussion of mature topics.

We do not collect information from anyone under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian and are aware that your child has provided us with personally identifiable information, please contact us and we will delete it. If we become aware that we have collected personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete it.

We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time and without notice. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page. If you have any questions about our privacy policy or practices, you may email us at haystacksnhell [at] [gmail] . [com].