Privacy Policy

Who we are

This website is operated by Fairmount steamHouse ("steamHouse," "we," "us"), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Golden, Colorado (EIN 39-2162825). It spans two sites — our main site at steamhouse.club and our Workshop at workshop.steamhouse.club. This policy covers both.

We try to collect as little as possible. This page explains what we do collect, why, and how you can control it.

What we collect, and why

Site analytics. We use a privacy-respecting, cookieless analytics tool [Plausible / Fathom — confirm] to understand which pages are visited and how people find us. It does not set tracking cookies, does not collect personally identifying information, and does not track you across other websites. Because of this, our site does not need a cookie-consent banner.

Donations. When you give through our donate page, your gift is processed by PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle. Those services handle your payment details (card or bank information) under their own privacy policies — we never see or store your card or bank numbers. We do receive the information needed to thank you and keep proper records: your name, the amount, and the contact details the processor passes to us. For gifts of $250 or more, we issue a written acknowledgment, as the IRS requires.

When you contact us. If you email us or use a contact form, we keep your message and contact details so we can reply and, if relevant, follow up.

Newsletter. If you subscribe to The Human Herald or our Chronicles writing, that subscription is managed by [Substack — review: blogs run website-first at launch; confirm the actual subscription tool before publish] under its own privacy policy. We can see subscriber lists the provider gives us; we don't sell or share them.

Workshop tools and credentialing. Some interactive tools on the Workshop (for example, marker exploration and any progress-tracking or credentialing features) save your activity locally in your own browser, on your device. That information stays on your device and is not transmitted to us unless a feature explicitly says so at the time. Clearing your browser storage removes it.

We do not knowingly collect more than the above, and we do not build advertising profiles.

Cookies and similar technologies

We do not use tracking or advertising cookies. Our analytics is cookieless. Some embedded third-party services — the PayPal/Venmo donate button, a newsletter embed, or similar — may set their own cookies when you interact with them; those are governed by the relevant provider's policy.

How we use information

To process and acknowledge donations; to respond to messages; to keep accurate nonprofit records; and to understand, in aggregate, how the site is used so we can improve it. That's the whole list.

How we share information

We do not sell or rent personal information. We share it only with: the payment processors that handle your donation; service providers that run parts of our site (such as our analytics and email/newsletter tools); and, where we are legally required to, with authorities or to comply with law. Nothing more.

Your choices

You may opt out of any newsletter at any time using the unsubscribe link. You may ask us what information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by contacting us at the address below. Because our analytics holds no personal data and Workshop tool data lives on your own device, most of what we hold is limited to donation records and any correspondence you've sent us.

Data retention

We keep donation and acknowledgment records as long as required for tax and nonprofit-accounting purposes, and correspondence only as long as it's useful for the matter it concerns. We then delete or anonymize it.

Children's privacy

steamHouse serves young people, but this website is directed to a general audience and is not designed to collect personal information from children online. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through the website. If a child enrolls in a steamHouse program, any information involved in that enrollment is collected and handled separately, through the program's own agreements and consent process with a parent or guardian — not through this website. If you believe a child has provided personal information through this site, please contact us and we will delete it.

Legal review recommended for this section — COPPA and Colorado youth-data considerations. Remove this flag on publish.

Third-party links and services

Our site links to and embeds outside services (PayPal/Venmo, our newsletter provider, and others). When you follow a link or use an embed, that provider's own privacy policy applies. We are not responsible for the practices of sites we don't operate.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site or the law changes. We'll post the new version here with a revised effective date. Material changes will be noted on the page.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or requests about your information, can be sent to [privacy contact email — e.g. hello@steamhouse.club, confirm], or by mail to Fairmount steamHouse, Golden, Colorado. You can also reach us through our Contact page.