Monthly Archives: May 2023

As a donation platform,Silent Donoris uniquely plugging into the growing socio-cultural movement that is seeing more and more people take measures that ensure their privacy, especially online. Courts and lawmakers around the world have also been issuing rulings in favor of, or creating laws to protect, privacy – true for donors and consumers more generally. We wanted to write this article to communicate how this privacy movement continues to develop, and also to showcase its vast, international scope. It’s also important to note that we’re still in the beginning phases of this movement, with most large-scale privacy protection laws and landmark cases happening within the past 5-10 years.

From our point of view, many people are using Silent Donor for the same reasons we will outline below, and the growing popularity of Silent Donor is a sign of the growing importance of online privacy. Namely, more and more donors want to control who has access to their personal information. Many donors are turned off by the unwanted solicitations and mail/outreach attempts that routinely follow a donation, which includes the buying and selling of donor contact information (an unfortunate but albeit commonplace activity in the nonprofit world). Many people still want to give back and have an impact, but would just like to do so in a private manner.

Quick TL;DR Summary: The huge quantity of laws and court rulings around the world (most adopted within the last decade) reveal that the overwhelming sentiment among lawmakers and governments is to protect the privacy of consumers and donors, and does not reveal a tendency to further intrude on or unnecessarily demand the disclosure of people’s personal information. The growing awareness of the importance of data privacy and protection is driving this trend, with individuals and organizations recognizing the value of safeguarding personal information in much the same way as they would protect their physical assets. The international landscape is so clearly one that values personal privacy that the adoption of privacy tools and services (including Silent Donor) is quickly growing worldwide. We are happy and excited to continue growing and helping donors give within the level of privacy they are most comfortable.

If you run a charity or NGO, allowing your donors the chance to donate to your organization anonymously through Silent Donor will increase your reach among this fast-growing, privacy-minded international demographic of individuals, as their predilection towards increased privacy also manifests itself in the way they give back to charity – anonymously!

Privacy in the United States:

For historical context, the privacy of donors has been a topic long debated. In the 1950s, the NAACP famously fought against attempts by the state of Alabama to force the organization to disclose its membership lists, arguing that such a requirement would violate the privacy rights of its donors. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the NAACP, finding that the state’s demands for disclosure were an unconstitutional burden on the organization’s right to freedom of association. Since then, the issue of donor privacy has remained a hot topic in the US. In recent years, several high-profile cases have brought the issue back into the spotlight. For example, in 2013, the IRS was accused of targeting conservative groups and demanding excessive information about their donors. This led to concerns about government overreach and privacy violations, and sparked a public debate about the rights of donors to keep their information private.

Then, there was a 2021 USSupreme Court Casethat challenged a California law that required charities to disclose the names and addresses of their major donors to the state attorney general’s office. In this case, the Supreme Court ended up striking down the California law that required charitable organizations to disclose their major donors to the state attorney general’s office. The Court ruled that the disclosure requirement violated the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of association because it would subject their donors to harassment and retaliation, and could also chill donors’ willingness to contribute to charitable organizations – especially true for charities that fundraise for more “controversial” causes. More reasons why donors turn to Silent Donor.

Overall, the US Supreme Court’s most recent decision in this case affirmed the importance of protecting donors’ privacy and freedom of association, even in the context of regulating charitable organizations – a fantastic win for the privacy of donors (please note that we are referring only to private donations made to charities/nonprofits – not political donations of any kind).

Here are some additional examples of US privacy laws for the purpose of showing the wider ecosystem of privacy protections being readily adopted:

• Data breach notification laws: All 50 US states have enacted data breach notification laws that require businesses to notify individuals if their personal information is compromised in a data breach.
• Biometric data privacy laws: Several states have passed laws regulating the collection, use, and disclosure of biometric data, such as fingerprints, facial recognition data, and iris scans.
• Internet privacy laws: Some states have passed laws regulating the collection and use of personal information online. For example, The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was the first comprehensive consumer privacy law in the United States, and it took effect in January 2020. Virginia passed the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) in March 2021, and Colorado passed the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) in July 2021. Both the VCDPA and the CPA are set to take effect in 2023.

Other US States that have passed or proposed additional privacy laws, further showing how this is a national movement:

• New York Privacy Act (NYPA) – This proposed law would create a comprehensive privacy framework for the collection and use of personal data by businesses operating in New York.
• Maine Internet Privacy Law – This law requires internet service providers to obtain express consent from customers before using, disclosing, or selling their personal information.
• Nevada Internet Privacy Law – This law requires website operators to provide consumers with the option to opt-out of the sale of their personal information.
• Oregon Consumer Information Protection Act – This law requires businesses to implement reasonable data security practices and notify consumers of data breaches in a timely manner.
• Vermont Data Broker Regulation – This law requires data brokers to register with the state and disclose their data collection and sales practices to consumers.

The Toughest Privacy Standard Yet: GDPR

The international scene is also one actively engaged in adopting protections of privacy. Most famous is the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is a comprehensive privacy law that sets a high standard for the protection of personal data and came into effect in 2018. GDPR also specifically protects donors, stating that they have the right to access their personal information and can withdraw their consent for its use at any time. Some highlights that show the tremendous breadth and extend of GDPR:

• Displaying an almost shocking level of commitment to protecting privacy – in terms of enforcement, GDPR gives national data protection authorities the power to investigate and sanction organizations that violate its provisions. These sanctions can include fines of up to 4% of a company’s global annual revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher!
• GDPR grants individuals a number of rights with respect to their personal data, including the right to access, correct, and delete their data, the right to restrict or object to its processing, and the right to data portability. GDPR also requires organizations to obtain individuals’ consent for the processing of their data in most cases, and to provide clear and transparent information about how their data will be used (which is why a ton of international websites now ask you for permission to use cookies).

A Very International Movement:

• Netherlands – Falls under the EU’s GDPR, and also does not require the disclosure of the names or personal information of individual donors for charities, to respect the privacy of donors. Instead, charitable reports may simply include aggregate data on the number of donors and the total amount of donations received, which we believe still holds charities accountable as instruments of public benefit, without unnecessarily infringing on the privacy of individual donors. It is also the country home to our international charitable foundation,Silent Donor International.
• Canada – Digital Charter Implementation Act of 2022 will implement the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) to replace the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which has regulated the collection, use and disclosure of personal information in the course of commercial activity. Under PIPEDA, donors have the right to access their personal information and can withdraw consent for its use at any time.
• Japan – Japan has the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), which regulates the handling of personal information by both the public and private sector and provides donors with the right to access and correct their personal data (enacted in 2003 and was amended in 2015 to strengthen privacy protections).
• Brazil – Brazil has the General Data Protection Law (LGPD), which was loosely modeled off of GDPR and establishes rules for the collection, use, and processing of personal data by companies and government agencies, and specifically provides protections for the privacy rights of donors. (enacted in 2018 and took effect in 2020, with enforcement beginning in August 2021).
• South Korea – South Korea has the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which regulates the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information by businesses and government agencies. (enacted in 2011 and was amended in 2020 to strengthen privacy protections).
• Australia – Australia has the Privacy Act, which regulates the handling of personal information by the public and private sectors. (enacted in 1988 and has been amended several times since then, with the most recent amendments taking effect in 2014).
• India – introduced the Personal Data Protection Bill in 2019, which shares some similarities with the GDPR in terms of granting data subjects certain rights and requiring organizations to implement appropriate security measures. It has not yet passed the Indian Parliament.

We are proud to offer all international donors the option to send a fully anonymous donation through our Silent Donor International fund, which can befound here.  

As concerns about privacy and security continue to grow, more and more people are looking for ways to increase their privacy as they donate and interact online. Some are turning to privacy-focused tools and technologies, such as VPNs (virtual private networks), to protect their online activity. For example, the number of US households using VPNs had increased by 165% since 2016, and a 2020 report from Atlas VPN found that the use of VPNs had increased by 124% in the US and 160% globally since the start of the pandemic. A record number of over 750 million (Statistics and Facts about Ad blocking | Statista) users have installed ad-block software or plugins, with 73 million internet users adopting them in 2020 alone. Others are supporting organizations that prioritize privacy and data security in their operations (services like Silent Donor! and search engines such asDuckDuckGo)and are advocating for stronger privacy protections and regulations. 

Overall, it’s clear that the issue of donor and personal privacy is one that will continue to be debated and discussed. As more and more donations are made online, Silent Donor will continue to look to play an important role as individuals, organizations, and governments work together to ensure that the privacy rights of all donors are respected and protected.

We are proud to announce the official public launch ofSilent Donor International,our charitable fund based in Europe that will enable donors from all around the world to send fully anonymous international donations to the NGOs, charities, and nonprofit organizations they’re passionate about supporting. This fund is proudly located in the international city of peace and justice, The Hague.

Our goal with this fund is to help make the world a smaller place for anonymous donors. We wanted to build a global arm of our company that helps simplify private, global philanthropy for all donors. This fund represented our first institutional step outside of the US to serve global donors of all countries, as we believe that sending safe, private donations is a human right that all donors should enjoy. This privacy can also help protect many donors who live in areas of the world experiencing political/economic unrest or strife as they donate to causes or NGOs that might cause them to be unfairly targeted by those in positions of power, as we have unfortunately seen happen many times in the past.

Through Silent Donor International, donors can easily send anonymous donations to NGOs and charitable causes around the world (with a focus on organizations outside of the US). We also hope to appeal to more donors in Europe, many of whom we know hold privacy as a strong value, with access to our service as well.

The donation process is going to follow the same proven model that we have built in the US, only instead of using the AnonDo Fund for facilitating these donations (as we do for all US-based donations), we will use the Silent Donor International fund for all donations going to help charitable causes or institutions that are based outside of the US.

A breakdown of the process: all the donations submitted throughthis donation pagewill first go to Silent Donor International (officially registered as “Stichting SD International” in the Netherlands – CCI Number 88337391). Then, our fund will send your donation to the organization that you choose without including ANY of your personal information. The donation will appear to come directly from our fund. We remain firmly committed to protecting the privacy of all donors. We also, however, remain committed to conducting strict diligence for each organization that a donor chooses, and will follow all AML best practices and guidelines as they exist in European law (also monitoring FATF recommendations and OFAC/Interpol lists and guidelines).

We chose to establish this foundation in the Netherlands for a few important reasons. They have a strong history of philanthropy, the speed and ease of doing business in the Netherlands is outstanding, Dutch public benefit organizations are allowed to send grants to NGOs/charitable causes outside of the country without it affecting their status as a charitable foundation, and, most importantly, they have inculcated a strong culture of privacy for donors giving to charity. Their governing authorities do not require the disclosure of the names or personal information of individual donors to charities, for example. Instead, charitable reports may include aggregate data on the number of donors and the total amount of donations received. In our view, this still holds charities accountable as an instrument of public benefit, without unnecessarily infringing on the privacy of their individual donors.

We are also proud to have our European headquarters within theHumanity Hubcommunity and space in The Hague, which operates an international community of charities, NGOs, and other organizations aimed at spreading peace and justice across the world.

If you would like to send an anonymous donation in support of an international charity or nonprofit organization, click the donate button below!