World Resources Institute - Privacy Policy

We are World Resources Institute, a global research nonprofit headquartered at 10 G Street NE Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20002, USA (together with our affiliates and subsidiaries, “WRI”, “we”, “our” or “us”).

Our organization and network of affiliates spans more than 50 countries. You may interact with WRI online through various websites, applications, emails, social media pages and other online services (collectively, “Services”).

For each of these Services, this Privacy Policy tells you what to expect we'll do with your personal information when you make contact with us or use one of our services. In particular, this Privacy Policy explains how:

• we use your personal information when you visit our website, communicate with us, or provide us with your personal information in other ways; and
• we respect your personal information privacy rights.

Donor privacy: WRI and its affiliates do not sell, share, or trade donors' names or identifying personal information with other entities or send mailings on behalf of other organizations. With your permission, on occasion, we may share information with related organizations in connection with a particular project or campaign you are interested in. For example, if we are co-hosting an event with a partner organization and you sign up to attend that event, we may ask your permission to share your contact details with our partner. See our Donor Privacy Policy.

Personal Information We Collect

We collect different kinds of information from you, depending on how you interact with us.

Online collection: We collect personal information from you when you register to receive email communications, make donations, apply for jobs, send email inquiries, register for events, or participate in other parts of our Services.

Depending on the Services you interact with, the information collected may vary and may include, for example:

• Automatically collected information: We and our third-party service providers may collect information about you and/or your interaction with our Services using cookies and similar automatic data-collection technology. For example, if you browse our website, click on links, or enter search terms, we may use that information. We use this type of information and share it with service providers to improve and maintain our Services, collect aggregate site usage reports that do not identify you individually, optimize site users’ experience on the Services, and for marketing purposes. The information we collect includes:
  • Identifiers like IP address and device and browser information.
  • Website and application activity information like clicks, content and page views, search terms, internet service provider, browser version, domain type.
• Anonymous or aggregated information: We may use aggregate or deidentified data that doesn’t identify you for any lawful business purpose.
• Identifiers and contact details you choose to provide, such as your name, organization, email address, and country of residence.
• Emails, messages, posts, and other communications and information you choose to share via email or over social media;
• Payment information;
• Location information: WRI rarely collects specific location information about you. In some cases, we may ask for information about your location for limited purposes. For example, users of the TerraMatch application may enable collection of geolocation information on their mobile devices in order to map the boundaries of a proposed tree planting project. This location data collected on TerraMatch is not used for any other purpose or shared with or sold to third parties;
• Educational and employment information (such as your resume or C.V.) that you may provide if you apply for a job at WRI;

Offline collection: We also collect personal information from you when you provide us with it at conferences or similar events or otherwise interact with us offline. Such personal information will typically consist of your organizational or personal contact details, donation information, or other information you choose to give us.

Our Use of Your Information

We use the personal information we collect about you for any of the following purposes:

• providing, developing, improving and maintaining our Services;
• handling, processing, and communicating with you about donations and other ways to contribute to WRI's mission;
• registering you for a WRI Service, including on a particular WRI website;
• providing you with updates, newsletters, data, other research, and/or donation-related communications you have requested;
• responding to your inquiries and requests;
• personalizing your website experience and delivering related ads on third-party sites;
• generating anonymous reports about use of our Services and their features;
• enabling TerraMatch users to map the boundaries of a tree planting project;
• allowing you to take part in Service features, and WRI campaigns, projects, events, or surveys;
• analyzing the use of our services or technologies; and
• considering you for employment if you have provided personal information pursuant to an application for a job with WRI.

Outreach and Communications

Where you consent, we use your personal information to provide you with communications about WRI, including, but not limited to email communications or information about WRI projects around the world and ways that you can contribute to our efforts.

We send such communications by:

• email;
• phone;
• short message service (SMS);
• social media messages; and
• any other medium which becomes relevant from time to time.

You can opt-out of receiving communications from WRI at any time by writing to us at privacy@wri.org or by following the unsubscribe instructions in our communications. However, we may still need to contact you for important administrative reasons, such as in the event of a material change to our Services, related policies, or accounts you create with us.

Disclosure of Information

Personal information is disclosed to the following parties:

• to employees and independent contractors of WRI, analytic vendors, payment processing vendors, third party agents and other service providers and suppliers if the disclosure will enable that party to perform a business, professional, or technical support function for WRI or to perform a service that you have requested;
• to and between entities within the WRI group;
• where you give us permission to disclose your personal information to third parties selected by us in connection with our projects and campaigns;
• if we are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or request from a competent court, regulator or other authority;
• where we deem it necessary, in our sole discretion, to protect our legal rights or property or the legal rights or property of an individual who registers with an WRI service or technology or any third party, or to prevent personal injury; and/or
• in connection with a sale, merger, assignment, reorganization, joint venture or other transfer or disposition of a portion or all of our assets or our affiliated entities (including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

We also may disclose online information about you to third parties, including social media companies like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn (Microsoft) and X for outreach and marketing purposes.

Security and Quality

WRI takes reasonable steps to protect the personal information that you provide. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the personal information you provide on secured computer servers that are located in controlled facilities. Additionally, when we transmit sensitive personal information over the internet, we protect it through the use of appropriate technological and administrative means.

We do our best to maintain the accuracy of any personal information you supply to us. You can help WRI update and maintain the accuracy of any personal information you supply by notifying WRI of any changes to your address, title, phone number or e-mail address. In some parts of the WRI Services, you may do this online by following the instructions on membership profile pages. You may also do this by using the contact information provided below.

Transmission of information on the internet is not completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information sent on our Services. Transmission of such information is at your own risk.

Transfers

Where necessary, we may need to transfer your personal information to another country. These transfers can take place within the WRI group but also may be made to selected third parties (as explained in the ‘Disclosure of information‘ section of this Privacy Policy). Such transfers take place to enable us to provide you with our services and/or to communicate with you. Countries that we transfer your personal information to may not have the same personal information protection standards as the country you live in.

Links to External Websites

WRI's Services may contain links to other websites belonging to third parties. These websites are not covered by this Privacy Policy, and we are not responsible for the privacy practices within any other website. You should be aware of this when you leave a WRI area, including our websites, and we encourage you to read the privacy statements of other websites.

Personal information Access and Deletion

You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. You may also request that we delete the information we hold about you. Please address requests (with a return email address where possible) to:

Or by post to:

If you are resident in the European Economic Area, please also read the ‘Information for Individuals Located in the European Economic Area’ section of this Privacy Policy. You may have additional rights in relation to your personal information.

Information for individuals located in the European Economic Area

European Economic Area (“EEA”) data protection laws offer additional rights and protections for individuals located in the EEA. Further to the information set out at the ‘Personal information access and deletion’ section of this Privacy Policy, the following additional information applies to you if you are located in the EEA:

• Basis of processing: Where you make a donation to WRI and give us your personal information to receive communications related to your donation, we process your personal information based on your consent. Likewise, when we collect device location data from a TerraMatch user's device in order to map a planting project, we do so only with your consent. When you have made a past donation and have not objected to marketing communications, and we send you information about how you can continue to support WRI, we process your personal information based on legitimate interest. Where you give us your personal information for any other reason, we process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes to respond to your requests (for example, providing you with access to our websites or providing you with newsletter communications that you have requested);
• Personal information rights: In addition to your right to access personal information we hold about you (as set out at the ‘Personal information access and deletion‘ section of this Privacy Policy), you have the right to have your personal information rectified or erased, to object to its processing or to restrict access to it. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority if you are unhappy with how we process your personal information. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to receive a copy of your personal information in a machine-readable format or to have your personal information sent to another company.

Donation processing partner

WRI has partnered with a third-party service provider, iATS Payments, to process your online donations. Where you make a donation to WRI online, your personal information will be shared between WRI and iATS Payments as necessary to complete your donation, communicate with you about your donation, and as may be necessary to comply with our legal obligations. Information provided to iATS Payments is not used for any other purposes.

We encourage you to read the Deluxe Privacy Center policy for information about how they process your personal information. You will be given an opportunity to review their privacy policy before you make a WRI donation online.

WRI takes its donors’ privacy seriously. For more information, please see our Donor Privacy Policy.

Changes, Oversight and Questions

WRI welcomes comments and questions on this Privacy Policy. We are dedicated to protecting your privacy and will make every reasonable effort to keep your information secure. Due to the rapidly evolving changes on the internet, we may update this Privacy Policy. All revisions will be posted to the relevant WRI website. Regularly viewing this Privacy Policy ensures that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances we will share it with third parties. If you do not agree to the changes, please do not continue to use the particular WRI website or WRI service through which you have provided us with your personal information.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at:

Comments and questions regarding this Privacy Policy should be directed to the Legal Department