Privacy Policy

Hariom Helps Foundation is a US 501(c)(3) public charity that funds school and college fees for verified students by paying schools directly. For privacy questions, contact hello@hariomhelps.com. Postal mail: [Registered mailing address — to be added].

When you create an account you choose a persona — donor, student, teacher, school, or judge. That choice decides which dashboard you land on, which information we ask you for, and what you can see. Adding a second persona later is reviewed by a foundation administrator or an approved judge, and some personas cannot be combined (for example, a student account cannot also be a teacher or a school).

Everyone who visits. Pages requested, approximate location derived from IP address, device and browser type, and technical logs used for security and abuse prevention.

Donors. Name, email, donation amount and designation, optional message to the recipient, whether you asked to be hidden from public funder lists, receipt history, and — if you complete verification — legal name, address, a government ID image or a Stripe Identity result, and reviewer decision notes.

Students. Name, contact details, date of birth, school and enrollment details, fee amount, your written story, proof of enrollment, government ID, financial-need documentation, payout school selection, and — if you are under 18 — a signed parent or guardian consent form.

Parents and guardians. Name, relationship, contact details, and signature on consent and publicity forms.

Schools. Institution details, tax ID and tax-status documentation, banking or payout instructions, and the contact details of the person acting for the school.

Teachers. Name, school, role, contact details, verification documentation, and the nominations you submit.

Judges. Name, education details, biography, optional links, scores submitted, service hours accrued, and audit records of applicant information you view or email.

Voters. Email address, a one-way hash of your IP address, browser user-agent string, CAPTCHA result, vote receipt code, and confirmation status.

• Operating the site: accounts, dashboards, applications, and messaging.
• Verifying that students, schools, teachers, and donors are who they say they are.
• Processing donations, issuing tax receipts, and disbursing funds to schools.
• Running the scholarship challenge: judging, community voting, and fraud prevention.
• Security, abuse prevention, and rate limiting.
• Sending transactional email (receipts, confirmations, status updates) and, where you have opted in, occasional foundation updates.
• Meeting legal, tax, accounting, and nonprofit recordkeeping obligations.

• Contract: creating your account, processing your donation, and delivering receipts.
• Legitimate interests: site security, fraud and abuse prevention, and improving the service.
• Legal obligation: tax, charitable reporting, and financial recordkeeping.
• Consent: publishing a student's story or likeness, parent or guardian consent for minors, and marketing email. You may withdraw consent at any time.

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We use a small number of service providers:

• Stripe — payment processing, subscriptions, refunds, and optional identity verification. Card details go directly to Stripe; we never see or store full card numbers.
• Our hosting and database provider — application hosting, database, file storage, and authentication.
• Our email delivery provider — transactional and announcement email.
• An AI provider — powers the site chat assistant. Do not enter sensitive personal information into the chat.
• hCaptcha — bot detection on public voting.
• Professional advisers, auditors, and authorities where required by law.

Judges see applicant materials needed to score fairly, and their access to identifying details is logged. Foundation administrators can access records to run verification, disbursement, and support.

Student profiles are never public. They are visible only to signed-in, verified donors and foundation administrators, and donors see a private reference code instead of the student's name. Student names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, dates of birth, documents, and full school records are never shown to donors, and there is no way for a donor to contact a student through the site. Donor names appear on public funder lists only when you do not choose to hide them. Challenge finalists' videos, blueprints, and infographics are published during the voting and results phases with the consent the student (and, for minors, their parent or guardian) provided.

• Identity documents (donor ID, address proof, student ID) are deleted once verification is decided; only the decision, timestamp, and reviewer note are retained.
• Parent and guardian consent forms are kept while the student participates and for the period required for our records, then deleted.
• Donation, receipt, refund, and disbursement records are retained for the period required by US tax and charitable reporting rules.
• Vote records and their audit trail are kept through the challenge cycle and for a reasonable period afterwards to resolve disputes.
• Account data is kept while your account is active. Closed accounts are deleted or anonymised, except records we must retain by law.

When a foundation administrator deletes an account, we remove the login, profile, applications, uploaded documents, nominations, verification records, and role assignments. Donation, receipt, refund, and disbursement records are retained for the period US tax and charitable reporting rules require, but they are detached from the deleted person. Deletion is recorded in our administrative audit log.

Access to records is restricted by role, protected by row-level database rules, and sensitive administrative actions are written to an audit log. Documents are stored in private storage and served only through short-lived links to authorised reviewers. No system is perfectly secure; please tell us immediately at hello@hariomhelps.com if you believe an account or record has been compromised.

Students under 18 may take part only with verified parent or guardian consent. Separate detail on what we collect from minors, who can see it, and how a parent can withdraw consent is in our Minors & Student Data Policy. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13 outside of a parent-supervised application.

US state privacy rights. Depending on your state, you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, request a portable copy, and appeal a refusal. We do not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising a right.

UK, EU, and EEA rights. You may request access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and object to processing based on legitimate interests. You may also lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

To make a request, email hello@hariomhelps.com from the address on your account, or use the contact form. We may need to verify your identity before acting, and we respond within the time limits that apply to you.

You can ask us to delete your account at any time. We will delete or anonymise your personal information as described in "How long we keep it", other than records we are legally required to retain.

We are based in the United States, and our providers process data in the United States. If you use the site from outside the US, your information is transferred to and processed in the US under appropriate safeguards, including standard contractual clauses where required.

We use a small set of strictly necessary cookies and similar storage. Details are in our Cookie Notice.

We may update this policy. Material changes will be posted here with a new "last updated" date, and we will notify account holders by email where the change is significant.