Last Updated: 4/30/2020

Privacy Policy

Steel Valley Church, Incorporated ("us", "we", or "our") operates www.youngstownmetro.com (the “Website”). We understand that you care how information about you is used and shared. We do too! The following Privacy Policy is intended to help you understand how we collect, use, and protect the information you provide to us through our Website, Facebook, and Church Connect Cards. 

Section 1 - Why does Steel valley gather personal information?

Personal information is any information that identifies you as an individual. Steel Valley collects personal information for a variety of purposes, such as:   

  • Church Membership registration and listings;   

  • Church Directories   

  • Volunteer and leadership development;   

  • Program and service registration, administration, and delivery;   

  • Counseling and prayer support; and   

  • Church administration (tithing, offerings, payments owing, etc.)

Section 2 - What we collect and how we use it 

2.1 - Information You Provide

When you use certain functions on our Website, we may request specific personal information from you, such as your name, email address, and an account password. We do not sell, rent, or otherwise disclose your personally identifiable information with any outside organizations without your express consent. We may combine the information you submit under your account, with information from other Steel Valley Church, Incorporated services or third parties to provide particular services, offer you a better experience, and to improve the quality of our services. Examples of the above include, but are not limited to, providing online giving services, presenting you with spiritual development opportunities, adding new features, and analyzing our Website’s performance. For certain services, we may allow you to opt out of combining such information. Within the Website, you have the ability to give to Steel Valley Church, Incorporated. Because we use third party services to process credit cards, we do not store full credit card numbers or verification numbers on our servers at any time. 

2.2 - Tithing and Offering Information

Access to information regarding your tithes and offerings to Steel Valley is restricted to:

  • The church volunteers who collect and count the offerings;   

  • The church treasurer;   

  • The Clover Give administrator (who administers the online giving account); 

  • An outside accountant who reviews the church’s financial records. 

You have the right to request access to information about your tithes and offerings. However, you do not have the right to access tithing/offering information to other identifiable Steel Valley members without their written consent. You may access aggregate tithing/offering information not linked to an identifiable member. All requests for access must be submitted to the Church office and we will endeavor to respond to your access request as soon as possible.   

2.3 - Prayer Requests   

We encourage our members to share their prayer requests so that we as a church may pray together. We recognize some of the requests are sensitive and very personal. We will ensure that the personal information contained in our prayer request list be limited only to the amount necessary.   

2.4 - Steel Valley Church Online   

Steel Valley maintains its own website at www.youngstownmetro.com. Additionally, Steel Valley maintains various social media pages and groups.  We will carefully review the purpose and need before posting personal information on any of these locations. If personal information is posted, we will limit the amount of personal information to that which is necessary. Examples of where personal information might be displayed is in listing leadership of small groups, which require a leader’s name and information to contact that person. Pictures of church people, activities, and events may also be displayed from time to time online. Identifying information (e.g. your name or names of your family members) will not be included without your permission.  Additionally, we will also seek your permission before utilizing any close‐up pictures of you or your family. 

2.5 - Steel Valley Church Directory 

Steel Valley may from time to time print a Church Directory.  This directory may include you or your family’s picture, as well as some contact information.  The distribution of this directory would be limited to those attending or connected to the church.  We will inform the church body before publishing a church directory for general use so that you may be given an opportunity to request not being in such a publication.

2.6 - IP Address, Location Data, and Device Identifiers

When you access the Website, we may collect your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, location data, and/or device identifier. We use this information to provide a tailored experience for you, such as, but not limited to, helping you find and connect with nearby Steel Valley Church, Incorporated locations. We also collect this information to determine the aggregate number of unique devices using our service or parts of our service, to track total usage, analyze data, and communicate with you more effectively. This information can include: the device operating system, hardware version, device settings, file and software names and types, battery and signal strength, and device identifiers, name of your mobile operator or internet service provider, browser type, language and time zone, mobile phone number and Internet Protocol (IP) address. We may combine this information with information from third parties to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our service. We do not sell, rent, or share any personally identifiable information with third parties without your express permission. 

2.7 - Website Cookies

When you use the Website we may send one or more cookies to your computer, so that we may uniquely identify your browser. (A cookie is simply a tiny text file containing a string of characters.) Accepting our cookies allows you to keep your user preferences from session to session. Although most browsers accept cookies by default, you can set your browser to refuse all cookies, or to tell you when you are being sent a cookie. Some of the Website features and services may not function properly if you have cookies disabled. 

2.8 - Log Information

When you use the Website, our servers automatically record information sent by your browser. These server logs may include information such as your web browser type, the API request, your IP address, browser type, application version, browser or device language, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies or identifiers that may uniquely identify your browser or device. 

2.9 - User Communication

Personal information or requests that you submit through the Website will be sent to the group administrator. The group administrator or one of their members will have access to this information. When you send email or other communication to us, we may retain those communications to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services. 

2.10 - Third Party Sites

This Privacy Policy applies only to the Website operated by us. We cannot regulate other sites linked from within our various services. These other sites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data, or solicit personal information from you. You should familiarize yourself with their unique Privacy Policies, should you choose to visit their sites. 

Section 3 - How do we use your information? 

When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. We collect your information to support your participation, deliver requested content, to note your preferences, and to keep you informed about events, related resources, and spiritual development opportunities. You may opt out of electronically-delivered communication at any time by using the unsubscribe feature for that service. You may decline to submit personal information to any of our services, in which case we may not be able to provide those services to you. As a visitor to our Website, you can engage in many activities without providing any personal information. 

Section 4 - How do we protect your information? 

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with other individuals or organizations without your express permission. We may share your personal information only if we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to: (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request; (b) enforce applicable Terms Of Use, including investigation of potential violations thereof; (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; or (d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of Steel Valley Church, Incorporated, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law. We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data including internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data. Unless express consent is obtained from you, we restrict access to personal information to our employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information to operate, develop, or improve our services. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations. 

Section 5 - Data Integrity

We review our data collection, storage, and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store, and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but we depend on our users to update or correct their personal information whenever necessary. 

Section 6 - Accessing and Updating Personal Information

When you use any of our services, we make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate service purposes. We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected, or removed before processing such requests, and we may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical, or for which access is not otherwise required. In any case, where we provide information access and correction, we perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would result in undue burden or require a disproportionate effort. The procedure to correct or remove your data will vary depending on the requested change. 

Section 7 - Enforcement

We periodically review our compliance with this Privacy Policy. When we receive formal written complaints regarding privacy issues, it is our policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between us and an individual. 

Section 8 - Questions

Any questions about the privacy policy can be directed to: admin@youngstownmetro.com