Privacy Policy

Effective July 9, 2026

Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind (CLB) is a nonprofit organization serving people who are blind or have low vision across the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. We respect your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through our website at www.clb.org, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices and rights you have.

If you have questions about this policy or how we handle your information, you can reach us at info@clb.org or 202-454-6400.

Information We Collect

We collect only the information we need to serve you, respond to you, and operate our programs. Depending on how you use the site, this may include:

  • Contact, volunteer, and event form details. When you fill out a form, we collect the information you provide, such as your name, email address, phone number, and the content of your message.
  • Donation information. When you give online, your payment is processed by Stripe. CLB does not store your full card number. We keep a record of the donation itself for our financial and tax records.
  • Accessibility scanner information. When you use our accessibility scanner tool, we collect the email address you enter and the web address (URL) you choose to scan so we can run the check and share the results with you.
  • Accessibility widget preferences. If you adjust display settings using our accessibility widget, those preferences are saved locally in your own browser using localStorage (for example, keys that begin with clb-pref-). They stay on your device and are not sent to us as personal data.
  • Analytics and advertising identifiers. With your consent, we use cookies and similar technologies that collect identifiers and usage information. See Cookies and Tracking Technologies below.
  • SMS consent. If you choose to opt in to text messages, we collect your phone number for that purpose. You are never required to opt in.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

  • Respond to your questions, requests, and applications.
  • Provide our services, programs, and events, and follow up with you about them.
  • Process and acknowledge donations, and keep required financial and tax records.
  • Run the accessibility scanner and return your results.
  • Send appointment reminders and follow-up messages by text, if you have opted in.
  • Understand how visitors use our site so we can improve it, when you have allowed analytics.
  • Measure the results of our outreach and advertising, when you have allowed marketing cookies.
  • Maintain the security of our site and protect against misuse.
  • Meet our legal, accounting, and reporting obligations.

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Cookies are small files that a website stores in your browser. We use a cookie consent banner to give you control over the non-essential cookies on our site. Our banner groups cookies into three categories:

  • Necessary. These are always on because the site needs them to work. They include session cookies, security cookies, and the cookie that remembers your consent choice.
  • Analytics. These help us understand how visitors use the site. They are off until you allow them.
  • Marketing. These support advertising and measuring the results of our campaigns. They are off until you allow them.

We use Google Consent Mode v2. This means analytics and marketing cookies default to denied until you consent. Nothing in the Analytics or Marketing categories runs until you choose to allow it. You can change your choice at any time using the Cookie settings link in the footer of our site, which reopens the banner. For a full list of the specific cookies we use, please see our Cookie Policy.

Analytics and Advertising

When you allow the matching cookie categories, we use the following tools:

  • Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Helps us see how many people visit the site, which pages they view, and how they move through it, so we can improve the experience. This runs only when you allow Analytics cookies.
  • LinkedIn Insight Tag. Helps us measure the results of our advertising and understand which visits followed our campaigns. This runs only when you allow Marketing cookies.

You are in control of both. If you do not consent, or if you later withdraw consent using the Cookie settings link, these tools do not run.

Third Parties and Service Providers

We work with a small number of trusted service providers that process information on our behalf so we can operate the site and our programs. Each provides a specific function:

  • Google (Google Analytics 4). Website analytics.
  • LinkedIn (Insight Tag). Advertising and conversion measurement.
  • Stripe. Secure payment processing for donations.
  • Supabase. Database that stores form submissions, scanner records, and related records.
  • Vercel. Hosting for the accessibility scanner backend.
  • WP Engine. Website hosting.
  • Cloudflare. Content delivery and site security.

These providers are permitted to use your information only to perform their services for us and are expected to keep it confidential.

How We Share Information

We do not sell, trade, or transfer your personal information to outside parties for their own use, and we do not share it for third-party marketing. We do not sell or share your personal data for money.

We share information only with the trusted service providers listed above, who work on our behalf under confidentiality obligations, and only as needed to run our site and programs. We may also disclose information when required by law, to comply with a legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of CLB, our clients, or others.

Data Retention

We keep information only as long as we need it:

  • Accessibility scanner records are kept for about 30 days and then removed.
  • Contact and lead records are kept as long as needed to respond to you and maintain our relationship, and are removed on request.
  • Analytics data is kept according to the retention period configured in Google Analytics.
  • Donation records are kept as long as required for financial and tax recordkeeping.

Your Privacy Rights

For people in the EU, UK, and EEA

If you are located in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or the European Economic Area, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), subject to certain conditions:

  • The right to access the personal data we hold about you.
  • The right to rectification, meaning correction of inaccurate data.
  • The right to erasure of your data.
  • The right to restrict how we process your data.
  • The right to data portability.
  • The right to object to certain processing.
  • The right to withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

For US state residents

If you are a resident of California or another US state with similar privacy laws, you may have the right to:

  • Know what personal information we collect about you and how we use it.
  • Request deletion of your personal information.
  • Request correction of inaccurate personal information.
  • Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information.

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), you also have the right not to be treated differently for exercising these rights. Please note that CLB does not sell or share your personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of in that respect.

How to exercise your rights

To make any of these requests, email us at info@clb.org or call 202-454-6400. We may need to verify your identity before we can act on your request.

Legal Bases for Processing (GDPR)

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on the following legal bases:

  • Consent for analytics and marketing cookies, and for SMS messages. You can withdraw consent at any time.
  • Legitimate interest or performance of a service for responding to your inquiries, providing our programs, and processing your donations.
  • Legal obligation for keeping financial and tax records.

SMS Communications

If you opt in to text messages, the following terms apply. Phone numbers collected through SMS consent are never shared with third parties for marketing. You can opt in verbally or through an online form. To opt out at any time, reply STOP. You may receive up to about 10 messages per month, such as appointment reminders and follow-ups. Standard message and data rates may apply.

Data Security

Our website uses SSL encryption to help protect information sent between your browser and our site. While we take reasonable steps to safeguard your information, no method of transmission or storage on the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Children’s Privacy

Our site is intended for adults. CLB does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

International Users

CLB is based in the United States, and the information we collect may be processed and stored in the United States. If you access our site from outside the United States, you understand that your information may be transferred to and processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your location.

Third-Party Links and Leaving the Website

Our site may contain links to websites operated by other organizations. When you follow a link and leave www.clb.org, you are no longer on our site, and this Privacy Policy no longer applies. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any site you visit.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top of the page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us:

  • Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind
  • Email: info@clb.org
  • Phone: 202-454-6400
  • Website: www.clb.org