Privacy Policy

Effective Date: July 31, 2026  |  Last Updated: July 31, 2026

1. Who We Are and What This Covers

Veteran Memorial Project (“VMP,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, based in Severance, Colorado. We operate veteranmemorialproject.org and all related pages, subdomains, forms, and applications we control (the “Site”).

Our mission is to honor, record, and preserve the memory and service of American veterans. Much of what we publish exists precisely because families and communities want it seen. This Policy explains the difference between the information we publish on purpose and the information we protect.

This Privacy Policy applies to:Page_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_DownPage_Down

• Visitors who browse the Site
• People who submit memorial records, photographs, remembrances, or corrections
• Donors and supporters
• Volunteers, researchers, and account holders
• Anyone who contacts us by email, mail, phone, or through the Site

It applies to information collected online and offline, and to information we receive from third parties. It does not apply to websites we do not control, even where we link to them.

By using the Site or providing information to us, you accept the practices described in this Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Site.

All privacy questions, requests, appeals, and complaints go to: info@veteranmp.org

2. The Two Kinds of Information on This Site

This distinction runs through everything below, so we state it first.

Memorial Content is meant to be public. When you submit a veteran’s name, service dates, branch, unit, conflict, awards, photographs, obituary information, or a written remembrance, you are asking us to publish it. We will. It will be visible to anyone, indexable by search engines, and may be reproduced in our displays, publications, ceremonies, and outreach materials. Do not submit anything you are not prepared to see published.

Contributor and Supporter Information is not public. Your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, payment details, and account credentials are handled as private information under the terms below. We display an attribution line — “Submitted by [first name, last initial]” — only where you have chosen that option.

3. Categories of Information We Collect

3.1 Information You Give Us Directly

• Contact information. Name, mailing address, email address, telephone number, and your stated preferences for how we contact you.
• Relationship information. Your relationship to the veteran being memorialized — next of kin, descendant, fellow service member, researcher, community member. We collect this because it determines what we can accept, publish, and later remove at your request.
• Memorial submissions. Everything described in Section 2 as Memorial Content, including information about a deceased veteran and any material you upload.
• Donation and payment information. If you donate, we collect the information needed to process and receipt the gift. Payments are processed by Stripe and PayPal, our third-party payment processors. Your full payment card number and financial account credentials are transmitted directly to those processors and are never stored on VMP systems. We retain only the transaction record, the last four digits of the card, and the information needed to issue your receipt and meet our tax and audit obligations. Stripe’s and PayPal’s handling of your payment information is governed by their own privacy policies, available at stripe.com/privacy and paypal.com/privacy.
• Volunteer and researcher information. If you volunteer or request a contributor account, we may collect background, experience, availability, geographic area, and — where the role warrants it — the results of a background check.
• Event and program information. Registration details for ceremonies, dedications, and other events.
• Communications. The contents of emails, letters, contact forms, and correction requests you send us.
• Mobile phone number. If you choose to receive text messages from us. See Section 7.1.

3.2 Information Collected Automatically

When you visit the Site, we and our service providers may automatically collect:

• IP address, from which approximate location may be derived
• Browser type and version, operating system, device type, screen resolution, language
• Pages viewed, time on page, navigation paths, referring URL
• Date and time of access, and server log data
• Information collected through cookies and similar technologies (see Section 8)

3.3 Information from Other Sources

We may receive information about veterans from public records, including military service records, National Archives holdings, VA gravesite locator data, published obituaries, cemetery records, newspaper archives, and genealogical databases. We may receive contributor or donor information from event partners, fundraising platforms, and address-verification services.

3.4 Information About Children

The Site is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent.

Students frequently participate in memorial and remembrance projects. Where a school, scout troop, or youth organization submits work on behalf of participants under 18, we require the submitting adult to confirm they have parental or guardian consent. If we learn we have collected information from a child under 13 without consent, we will delete it promptly. Contact info@veteranmp.org.

3.5 Sensitive Information

Memorial records sometimes touch on information that privacy law treats as sensitive — a veteran’s religious affiliation as reflected on a headstone, cause of death, service-connected disability, or health circumstances described in a remembrance.

• We do not require sensitive information in order to create a memorial record.
• We do not knowingly collect sensitive personal information about living individuals without their express, opt-in consent.
• Where you voluntarily include such details about a deceased veteran in a submission, you consent to their publication and confirm you have the authority described in Section 5.
• We do not collect Social Security numbers, government identification numbers, financial account numbers, biometric identifiers, or genetic data through the Site, and we ask that you not send them to us.

Please redact Social Security numbers before submitting DD-214s or similar service documents.

4. How We Use Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Build, publish, verify, correct, and maintain memorial records
• Respond to your inquiries, submissions, and correction or removal requests
• Verify identity and relationship when someone requests a change to a memorial record
• Process, acknowledge, and receipt donations, and meet our tax and reporting obligations
• Send you communications you have asked for, including newsletters, event notices, and text messages you have opted into
• Administer volunteer programs, contributor accounts, events, and ceremonies
• Operate, secure, monitor, debug, and improve the Site
• Understand aggregate usage and the reach of our work, using de-identified and aggregated data
• Detect and prevent fraud, abuse, vandalism of records, and violations of our Terms of Service
• Comply with law and respond to lawful requests
• Anything else you expressly authorize

On fundraising: we may use your contact information to invite you to support our work. You may opt out of fundraising communications at any time, and doing so will never affect our willingness to publish, maintain, or correct a memorial record. A memorial is never contingent on a donation.

5. Submissions About Other People

This is the most important obligation we ask of you.

When you submit information, photographs, or a remembrance about a veteran or any other identifiable person, you represent and warrant that:

• You have the right to provide that information and material to us;
• You have the right to grant us the license described in our Terms of Service;
• To the best of your knowledge, the information is accurate;
• Your submission does not violate the privacy, publicity, or intellectual property rights of any person, including surviving family members; and
• If the person is living, you have their consent, or the consent of their legal representative.

We will not publish personal information about a living individual who has asked us not to.

Deceased individuals. U.S. privacy statutes generally do not grant rights to the deceased. We do not treat that as the end of the matter. We honor requests from documented next of kin regarding the record of their family member, under the process in Section 7.2.

6. When and With Whom We Share Information

6.1 We Do Not Sell Your Personal Information for Money

VMP does not sell your personal information to anyone for monetary payment. We do not sell donor data to commercial marketers, data brokers, or advertising networks.

6.2 Donor and Supporter List Exchanges — Please Read This Section

From time to time, VMP may make its donor and supporter mailing lists available for one-time use by selected nonprofit organizations, generally in exchange for access to their lists. This practice is common among veterans and memorial charities and helps us reach people likely to support our mission.

Here is exactly what that means:

What may be shared	Name and postal mailing address, and in some cases email address and general giving history
What is never shared	Payment card information, bank details, Social Security numbers, phone numbers used for SMS, and any sensitive information
Who receives it	Selected nonprofit organizations only. Not commercial marketers, not for-profit companies, not data brokers.
How it may be used	One-time mailing only. Recipients get no continuing access to your information and no right to reuse it.
Your absolute right to opt out	You may exclude yourself permanently at any time, at no cost, with no effect on your relationship with us.

Email info@veteranmp.org with the subject line “DO NOT SHARE MY INFORMATION.” We will honor it as soon as reasonably possible, and permanently.

Legal note. Under the Colorado Privacy Act, exchanging personal data for other valuable consideration — including another organization’s list — may constitute a “sale” of personal data. We therefore treat this practice as a sale for purposes of Colorado law, disclose it here, offer the opt-out above, and honor Global Privacy Control signals as an opt-out of it. See Section 7.3.

We do not share information about people who have only submitted a memorial record and never donated. Families who trusted us with a father’s photograph are not a fundraising list.

6.3 All Other Sharing

• Publicly, by design. Memorial Content, as described in Section 2.
• Service providers. Vendors performing functions on our behalf — website hosting, email delivery, payment processing (Stripe, PayPal), analytics, image storage, database administration, mailing services, and SMS delivery. They receive only what they need, are bound by contract to protect it, and may not use it for their own purposes.
• Partner organizations, with your consent. For example, if you ask us to forward a submission to a cemetery, museum, historical society, or another memorial project.
• Volunteers. Limited contact information shared with volunteers who need it to research or verify a record, subject to confidentiality obligations.
• Legal and protective disclosures. Where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with law, respond to lawful requests from public authorities, enforce our Terms of Service, investigate fraud or security incidents, or protect the rights, property, or safety of VMP, our users, or the public.
• Organizational transfers. In connection with a merger with, or transfer of our program assets to, another nonprofit organization, subject to this Policy’s protections.
• De-identified and aggregate information. We may create and use information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you, without restriction.

7. Your Choices and Rights

7.1 Everyone

Email preferences. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. You may also email info@veteranmp.org. Transactional messages — donation receipts, responses to your requests, notices about a record you submitted — will continue.

Postal mail. Email info@veteranmp.org to be removed from our mailing list. Mail already in production may take up to 60 days to stop.

Text messages (SMS). If you provide your mobile number and consent, VMP may send you text messages about memorial dedications, ceremonies, events, and ways to support our work. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

• Reply STOP to any message to opt out at any time.
• Reply HELP for assistance, or email info@veteranmp.org.

Consent to receive text messages is not a condition of donating, of receiving any service from VMP, or of having a memorial record published.

We do not sell, share, or disclose your SMS opt-in information or mobile number to any third party for their marketing purposes.

Access, correction, and deletion. You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email info@veteranmp.org. We will verify your identity before acting, and we will respond within 45 days.

7.2 Memorial Record Requests — Corrections and Removals

Corrections. Anyone may submit a correction to a memorial record. We ask for a source. We review, and we correct the record where the evidence supports it. Accuracy matters more to us than authorship.

Removal. We will remove or restrict a memorial record on request from:

• The veteran themself, if living;
• Documented next of kin of a deceased veteran — spouse, adult child, parent, or sibling; other relatives considered case by case;
• A person whose own personal information appears in a remembrance;
• The copyright owner of a submitted photograph or text.

Send removal requests to info@veteranmp.org with the veteran’s name, the URL of the record, your relationship, and a way to reach you. We may ask for documentation of relationship. We aim to acknowledge within 5 business days and to resolve within 30 days.

Where family members disagree among themselves, we will generally restrict public access to the disputed portion of the record while we work with those involved.

We reserve the right to retain a minimal internal record of the removal request itself, and to retain publicly documented facts of military service that remain available from government sources.

7.3 Colorado Residents

The Colorado Privacy Act applies to nonprofit organizations, which distinguishes it from most other state privacy laws. Where it applies to us, Colorado residents have the right to:

• Access their personal data and obtain a portable copy
• Correct inaccuracies
• Delete personal data
• Opt out of the sale of personal data, targeted advertising, and certain profiling
• Consent first — we obtain opt-in consent before processing sensitive data

How to exercise these rights: email info@veteranmp.org. We will verify your identity and respond within 45 days, with one 45-day extension where reasonably necessary, and we will tell you if we need it.

Universal opt-out mechanisms. We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals sent by your browser. We treat a GPC signal as an opt-out of the donor list sharing described in Section 6.2.

Appeals. If we decline your request, you may appeal by emailing info@veteranmp.org with “PRIVACY APPEAL” in the subject line. We will respond in writing within 45 days with our decision and the reasoning behind it. If we deny your appeal, you may contact the Colorado Attorney General at coag.gov/file-complaint.

7.4 Residents of Other States

Residents of California, Virginia, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and a growing number of other states have rights under their own state privacy laws, which generally include the right to access, correct, delete, and obtain a copy of personal data, and to opt out of its sale.

Most of those laws currently exempt nonprofit organizations, so they may not apply to VMP. We extend the same access, correction, deletion, and opt-out rights to every user regardless of where they live. Email info@veteranmp.org.

If you are a resident of a state that provides an appeal right, the appeal process in Section 7.3 is available to you as well.

8. Cookies, Analytics, and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies to keep the Site working, remember your preferences, and understand how the Site is used.

Type	Purpose	Can you refuse?
Strictly necessary	Security, session management, form submission	No — the Site will not function
Preference	Remembering display and accessibility settings	Yes
Analytics	Understanding traffic and which records are being visited	Yes
Advertising / targeting	We do not use these.	N/A

We do not engage in targeted advertising and we do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. We do not permit third-party advertising networks to collect information about you through the Site.

Analytics. We use Google Analytics to understand how the Site is used — how many people visit, which memorial records are viewed, and where traffic comes from. Google’s practices are described at policies.google.com/technologies/partners, and you may opt out of Google Analytics entirely by installing the browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Your controls. Most browsers accept cookies by default and let you refuse or delete them through browser settings. Refusing non-essential cookies will not prevent you from viewing any memorial record on this Site.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals. Browser “Do Not Track” headers have never been standardized and we do not respond to them separately — but because we do not conduct targeted advertising or cross-site tracking at all, there is nothing on this Site for a Do Not Track signal to stop.

Social media. If you interact with our pages on third-party platforms, that platform’s privacy policy governs your activity there, not ours.

9. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect information in our custody, including:

• Encryption in transit. The entire Site is served over TLS/HTTPS. Information you send through our forms is encrypted while it travels.
• Encryption at rest. Personal information in our databases and file storage is maintained in encrypted form.
• Payment isolation. Payment card data goes directly to Stripe or PayPal and is never stored on our systems.
• Access controls. Staff and volunteer access is limited to what each role actually requires.
• Vendor diligence. We contract with service providers who are obligated to protect the information we entrust to them.

No system is perfectly secure, and no method of transmission over the internet can be guaranteed. If you believe your interaction with us is no longer secure, or you become aware of a security or privacy problem, contact us immediately at info@veteranmp.org.

10. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as needed for the purposes described in this Policy, and then for as long as required by law, by our recordkeeping obligations, and for the defense of legal claims.

• Memorial Content is retained indefinitely. That is the point of a memorial.
• Contributor contact information associated with a submission is retained so we can reach you about the record — for example, to notify you of a correction request.
• Donor records are retained for a minimum of 7 years as required for tax, audit, and charitable reporting purposes.
• Analytics data is retained in accordance with our Google Analytics configuration and is de-identified or aggregated where possible.

11. Contact Us

Veteran Memorial Project
Severance, Colorado
Website: veteranmemorialproject.org
Email: info@veteranmp.org

Our mailing address and telephone number are listed on the Contact page of our website.

Use info@veteranmp.org for all of the following, and put the relevant phrase in the subject line so we route it correctly:

Purpose	Subject line
Privacy questions	PRIVACY
Access, correction, or deletion request	PRIVACY REQUEST
Appeal of a denied privacy request	PRIVACY APPEAL
Opt out of donor list sharing	DO NOT SHARE MY INFORMATION
Memorial record correction	RECORD CORRECTION
Memorial record removal	RECORD REMOVAL
Security or fraud concern	SECURITY
Copyright complaint	DMCA NOTICE
Accessibility problem	ACCESSIBILITY

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy. We will change the “Last Updated” date and post the revised version here.

For material changes affecting information already collected, we will provide notice by email to affected users or by prominent notice on the Site before the change takes effect. We will not make our practices materially less protective of previously collected information without notice.

Continued use of the Site after changes take effect means you accept them.

Veteran Memorial Project is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.