Privacy policy

Last updated: 27 April 2026

At Welcome Collective, we are committed to ensuring that our practices are consistent with the demands of Quebec’s Private Sector Privacy Protection Act (law 25). In line with our commitment, this privacy policy will provide greater transparency regarding our management of all personal information collected through our website.

What Information Do We Collect and Where is it Stored?

The information we collect may be classified into two categories:

• Personal information

• Website usage data

Our website, hosted by Squarespace, collects cookies, IP addresses, and the engagement data. of those who visit it. Additionally, we also use Meta analytics to track website visits based on engagement with our advertisements. 

Personal information collected through our site depends on the type of service being requested as well as the profile of the person making the request. The majority of personal information collected by Welcome Collective comes from embedded forms hosted by Cognito Forms and designed for four user categories: prospective donors, clients, social workers referring clients,  and/or volunteers.

The following is a list of the information we may collect from you (depending on your profile): 

• Full name

• Email address

• Phone number

• Home address

• Organization you work for (social/community workers only)

• Country of origin (clients only)

• Immigration status (clients only)

• Payment information (financial donors only)
  

This personal information is predominantly stored in our Customer Relationship Management software, Streak, and is only accessible to relevant employees.

Please note that payment information for financial donors is processed securely through the Canada Helps platform.

Table I below provides the list of all third party software used by Welcome Collective, the type of server they use for data storage, and the main locations of their servers.

Table I. List of third-party software used by Welcome Collective, server type, and geographic server locations

What Do We Do With the Information We Collect?

All personal information collected through our website represents the minimum amount of information required by Welcome Collective to process service requests and/or improve our services. As such, the success of our everyday operations depends on our consensual access to the relevant personal information.

Collected information allows us to:  

• Process donation requests (scheduling, production of invoices and tax receipts)

• Determine client eligibility to our services (provide access to material goods and services)

• Fulfill client material goods requests (scheduling deliveries)

• Process volunteer applications

• Improve our website and communications (sending out newsletters, fundraiser information, etc.)

  
  

Note that collected information will be kept for a maximum of five years before being destroyed or de-identified and archived for the purpose of trend analysis.

Sharing Information

Personal information collected may be shared with trusted third parties in situations where a third party service is essential to the fulfillment of a request. For example, processing financial transactions using Canada Helps, using Cognito Forms to capture personal information which will then be added to our CRM, or providing limited access to a consultant where relevant provided they have signed a confidentiality agreement.

The Welcome Collective may also share privileged information if required by the law.

Data Security Practices

At Welcome Collective, we are committed to constantly improving our data management practices. As such, we prioritize a responsible approach to data processing.

This approach includes, but is not limited to:

• Being transparent with how we use personal information in our everyday operations and obtaining user consent.

• Limiting the quantity of personal information we collect to the minimum required to fulfill our processes.

• Restricting access to information to relevant parties.

• Regularly auditing our data management procedures to ensure best practices.

• Staying up to date with legislation requirements and doing regular audits of our systems

• Allowing users straightforward access to change, delete, and/or limit our use of their personal information.

User Rights: Accessing Your Data

In accordance with Quebec’s Law 25 anyone who has provided personal information to Welcome Collective whether they are a client, a donor, a newsletter subscriber, etc. may at any time exercise the following rights: 

• The right to be informed - the right to know why we are collecting certain information and what it will be used for.

• The right to access - the right to know what personal information we have, why it is being used, and with whom it is being shared (if at all).

• The right to rectification - the right to request the correction of any personal information being kept by the organization and for these changes to be made within 30 days of the initial request.

• The right to erasure - the right to request the deletion of any personal information provided that this information is inaccurate, ambiguous, incomplete, and/or has already been used to fulfill its original purpose. This does not apply if the information must be kept for legal reasons, however.

• The right to withdraw consent - users may, at any time, withdraw their consent to the collection, retention, and dissemination of their personal data.

Contact Us

Should you have any questions or, if you have already filled out one of our forms and would like to know what personal information we have about you, please feel free to contact our Privacy Officer at confidentialite@welcomecollective.org.