Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 9, 2026
1. Introduction
Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia ("MCTGA," "we," "our," or "us") operates the website mctga.org. We are a Georgia-based nonprofit organization committed to land conservation. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect from visitors to mctga.org, how we use it, who we share it with, and what rights you have regarding your information. By visiting our site, you agree to the practices described here.
This site is hosted on Squarespace, a third-party platform. Squarespace, not MCTGA, operates the physical and cloud infrastructure that runs this website. As a result, some data processing described in this policy is carried out by Squarespace on our behalf.
2. Information We Collect
Information You Provide Directly
When you submit a contact or inquiry form on our site, we collect the information you type into those fields, which typically includes your name, email address, and the content of your message. We use this information solely to respond to your inquiry and carry on our conservation mission.
Embedded Donation Form
Our site contains an embedded donation form provided by Little Green Light, a third-party donor management service. When you donate through that form, your payment and personal information is collected and processed directly by Little Green Light and its payment subprocessors. We do not collect, store, or process that donation data on our own servers or through Squarespace. Little Green Light's own privacy policy governs how your information is handled during and after a donation transaction. We encourage you to review it at their website before donating.
Information Collected Automatically
When you visit mctga.org, Squarespace and its analytics tools automatically collect certain technical and usage information. Based on standard Squarespace platform behavior, this typically includes: your Internet Protocol (IP) address; browser type and version; device type and operating system; pages visited, time spent on pages, and links clicked; referring URLs (how you arrived at our site); and approximate geographic location derived from your IP address. This information is aggregated and used to understand how visitors use our site so we can improve it.
Note: We have not conducted a live technical cookie audit. The cookie and data descriptions in this policy are based on Squarespace's published documentation and standard platform behavior. The actual cookies and data points collected on your visit may vary depending on which Squarespace features are active at any given time.
3. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
Our site uses cookies, which are small text files placed on your browser or device when you visit a website. Based on Squarespace's published documentation, the cookies on our site fall into two main categories:
Necessary / functional cookies: These are required for the website to operate correctly. They enable features like secure form submissions and session management. These cookies do not track you for marketing purposes and cannot be disabled without affecting site functionality.
Analytics and performance cookies: Squarespace places these cookies to collect data about how visitors interact with the site, such as which pages are viewed and how long visitors stay. This data is used to generate aggregate traffic reports in Squarespace Analytics. These are non-essential cookies.
Most web browsers allow you to control or delete cookies through your browser settings. You can also check our site for a cookie banner or consent tool if one has been enabled. Disabling analytics cookies may cause some site analytics data to be incomplete.
4. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
To respond to contact form submissions and inquiries you send us.
To understand how visitors use our site and improve its content and performance.
To maintain the security and proper operation of the website.
To fulfill our nonprofit mission of land conservation and to communicate with supporters who contact us.
We do not use your personal information for targeted advertising, and we do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for their own marketing purposes.
5. How We Share Your Information
We do not sell your personal data. We may share your information only in the following limited circumstances:
Service providers: We work with Squarespace as our website hosting platform. Squarespace processes certain visitor data on our behalf as described above. We also use Little Green Light for donor management, though as noted, that data is collected by Little Green Light directly.
Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required to do so by law, court order, or lawful government request, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of MCTGA, our users, or the public.
Nonprofit operations: We do not share contact form submissions or personal information with partner organizations or third parties without your consent unless required by law.
6. Data Retention
We retain contact form submissions and the personal information contained in them for as long as necessary to respond to your inquiry and for a reasonable period thereafter for record-keeping purposes consistent with our nonprofit operations. Squarespace may retain server logs and analytics data for periods governed by its own retention policies. You may request deletion of your information by contacting us as described below.
7. Data Security
We rely on Squarespace's technical and organizational security measures to protect data processed through our website. While Squarespace employs industry-standard safeguards, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of information transmitted to or stored on this site. If you believe your information has been compromised, please contact us immediately.
8. Georgia Data Breach Notification
Georgia law (O.C.G.A. Section 10-1-912) requires organizations to notify affected individuals in the event of a breach of security involving their personal information. If we discover a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by Georgia law.
9. Federal Laws That May Apply
Because we are a nonprofit, certain federal laws govern how we handle information in specific contexts. Although we do not knowingly collect health, financial, or children's data through this website, federal sectoral laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) may apply to specific programs or activities we conduct outside this website. This site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
10. A Note on State Privacy Laws
As of the date of this policy, Georgia has not enacted a comprehensive consumer privacy statute comparable to laws in other states. Legislation was introduced in the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 General Assembly sessions but did not pass into law. Accordingly, no Georgia comprehensive privacy law currently requires us to offer specific consumer data rights such as access, deletion, or opt-out of sale. We are nonetheless committed to transparency and will honor reasonable requests to access or delete information you have directly provided to us. Contact us at info@mctga.org with any such request.
If you are a resident of a state that does have a comprehensive privacy law (such as California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, or others), and that law's applicability thresholds cover a nonprofit of our size and type, you may have additional rights under that state's law. As a small nonprofit, we likely fall below the applicability thresholds of most state consumer privacy laws, which typically require processing data of 100,000 or more consumers per year (or 25,000 to 35,000 under some states' lower thresholds). However, we recommend contacting us directly if you have a specific request and we will do our best to accommodate it.
11. Third-Party Links
Our website may contain links to external websites operated by third parties, including conservation partners and government agencies. This Privacy Policy does not apply to those external sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites you visit.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Continued use of our site after a policy update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.
13. Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, or if you would like to request access to or deletion of your personal information, please contact us at: Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia, info@mctga.org, mctga.org.