Donor Privacy Policy

Donor Rights

MSAA has created and follows the Fundraising Standards established by the Board of Directors. These standards include:

  • Truthfulness in communication
  • Communications and donor expectations and intent
  • Reporting to donors
  • Controls over solicitors
  • Acknowledgements of grants,donations, and gifts in-kind
  • Donor requests
  • Registration of fundraising consultants
  • Acceptance of gifts

MSAA adheres to the Donor Bill of Rights, created by the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel (AAFRC), the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The full text of the Donor Bill of Rights can be found at www.afpnet.org/Ethics/content.cfm?ItemNumber=3094&navItemNumber=537.

Donor Bill of Rights

As Published by the Association of Fundraising Professionals at www.afpnet.org:

Philanthropy is based on voluntary actions for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To ensure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the nonprofit organizations and causes they are asked to support, we declare that all donors have these rights:

  1. To be informed of the organization’s mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes .
  2. To be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization’s governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities.
  3. To have access to the organization’s most recent financial statements.
  4. To be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.
  5. To receive appropriate acknowledgement and recognition.
  6. To be assured that information about their donation is handled with respect and with confidentiality to the extent provided by law.
  7. To expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature.
  8. To be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers, employees of the organization, or hired solicitors.
  9. To have the opportunity for their names to be deleted from mailing lists that an organization may intend to share.
  10. To feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.

Joint Cost Allocations

Founded in 1970, the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America (MSAA) is dedicated to improving lives today through ongoing support and direct services to individuals with MS, their families, and their care partners. MSAA communicates with the MS community, our volunteers, donors, and prospective donors through channels including postal mail, phone, and digital platforms including email and social media to provide educational information and to request contributions to support MSAA’s free programs and services. In accordance with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) guidelines, MSAA allocates a portion of our fundraising expenses to programs and services.

Data Use

MSAA collects contact and other information from website visitors only when they have voluntarily provided these details to MSAA. While on MSAA’s website, individuals may provide their information by registering as a website user, registering for an event, completing a survey, sending an email inquiry to MSAA, making an online contribution, contributing to a participant in an event online, and through other online activities. MSAA generally responds to requests via United States Postal Service mail, email, or telephone, depending on the type of request received.

Information collected from MSAA’s website may be used to contact individuals regarding topics of importance to the MS community. For instance, people may be contacted via mail, email, or phone (as mentioned above) to be informed of breaking MS news, local and regional events, programs and services that may be of benefit, requests to share information through surveys, and to inform individuals when vital information is published. Additionally, fundraising and contribution opportunities are also communicated to enable those registered with MSAA to help support MSAA’s critical mission of Improving Lives Today.

Please note that donors may opt to have their personal information removed at any time. To do so, please email unsubscribe@mymsaa.org or mail your request to:

MSAA
Attention: Donor Relations
375 Kings Highway North, Suite B
Cherry Hill, NJ 08034

MSAA uses vendor Classy for online constituent record management and transaction data. Classy and other related services are PCI DSS compliant. Classy has implemented PCI standards regarding secure storage of data, strong access control, and other requirements. For more details, please visit https://www.classy.org/why-classy/security/.

For more information or to make adjustments to your contact information or other specifics provided to MSAA, please contact MSAA’s Donor Relations via email at donorrelations@mymsaa.org or via phone at (800) 532-7667, extension 146.

Security of Donation

If you are making a donation to MSAA online you will be directed to a secure website where you can make a donation to MSAA via credit card. MSAA will not be sharing this information you provide with any outside parties. All donations that are made online will only be handled by those who are either contracted by MSAA or are members of the internal staff. We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online.

Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personally identifiable information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this privacy notice. Inadvertent disclosures may result, for example, when third parties misrepresent their identities in asking the site for access to personally identifiable information about themselves for purpose of correcting possible factual errors in the data.