The Refuge Community
How we handle your information, respect your choices, and protect the trust of the individuals and families we serve.
Effective date: October 11, 2026.
www.therefuge.help
Privacy contact: contact@therefuge.help
The Refuge Community is a Christian ministry and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We value the trust of the individuals and families we serve.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and share personal information through our website, ministry communications, and related programs and activities.
Our ministry currently focuses on serving individuals and families in the United States.
We collect information you provide when you contact us, submit a prayer or assistance request, express interest in our church community, register for a retreat or homeschool program, apply to volunteer, subscribe to updates, donate, or otherwise participate in our ministry.
Depending on your interaction with us, this information may include the categories below. We also process technical information associated with website operation, security, and third-party services, as explained in Section 8.
Please provide only information relevant to your request or participation. Avoid including unnecessary sensitive information about yourself or another person.
We use personal information to respond to requests, provide prayer and support, coordinate programs and participation, communicate with families, manage volunteer involvement, acknowledge donations, and maintain ministry records.
We also use information to send updates you have chosen to receive, manage communication preferences, protect our website against spam and misuse, address safety concerns, respond to privacy requests, and meet applicable legal and recordkeeping obligations.
Website submissions are processed and stored through Lovable Cloud. Our ministry email service is used for ministry correspondence and, when enabled, form notifications.
We use Kit to organize email contacts and send ministry communications.
Our website’s Kit integration sends your email address, your first name when provided, and labels identifying the form or ministry interest associated with your submission. A first name may be taken from the full name entered on a form.
These labels may identify retreat participation, homeschool interest, church-launch involvement, or the category of a connect request, such as prayer, assistance, partnership, sponsorship, or community.
Our website integration does not send Kit your phone number, written prayer request, personal message, children’s details, allergy or medication information, church affiliation, payment-card information, or donation transaction records.
A request-category label may still indicate the type of support or ministry connection you requested, even though the contents of your request are not shared with Kit.
Submitting a ministry form may create or update a form-related contact in Kit. That is separate from subscribing to general ministry updates.
Our forms include an optional choice to receive general updates. Selecting that option adds the general ministry-updates preference to your contact record. Submitting the homepage updates signup also subscribes you to those updates.
Leaving the optional updates checkbox unchecked does not create or reactivate a general newsletter subscription. It does not, by itself, cancel an existing subscription.
We may still respond to your request, acknowledge a donation, or send communications needed to coordinate a program in which you have registered to participate.
You may unsubscribe from general ministry updates through the unsubscribe option in those emails or by contacting contact@therefuge.help.
Emails sent through Kit may contain tracking pixels and tracked links that record activity such as email opens and link clicks. Kit makes engagement information available through its reporting tools.
Prayer requests are reviewed by our pastor and may be shared with designated prayer-team members when appropriate for prayer and support. Authorized ministry administrators may also access submissions while managing our website and email systems.
Submitted prayer requests are not intended for public distribution. We do not publish them or share them with the wider community without permission, except where disclosure is necessary under the legal or safety circumstances described in this policy.
Please consider the details you include, especially when requesting prayer for another person. A request can identify someone through its circumstances even when their name is omitted.
The written contents of prayer requests are not sent to Kit through our website integration. A general prayer-request label may be associated with your Kit contact, as described in Section 4.
Contact contact@therefuge.help with questions or concerns about how a request is handled.
Our website forms are intended to be completed by adults. Information about a child should be submitted by a parent or legal guardian rather than independently by the child.
We use parent-provided information to coordinate participation, communicate with families, understand relevant care needs, and manage permission choices.
Children’s names, ages, grades, and care information are not sent to Kit through our website integration.
A parent or legal guardian may contact us to request access to, correction of, or deletion of information about their child. We may need to verify the requester’s identity and authority before responding.
Please contact us if you believe a child has independently submitted personal information through our website so that we can review and address the submission.
Online donations are processed through Stripe, including supported card and digital-wallet options.
Payment details are entered directly through the payment provider. The Refuge does not collect or store complete payment-card numbers through its own ministry forms or email.
We receive donor and transaction information needed to acknowledge gifts, administer donations, and maintain records. Our website integration does not send payment-card information or donation transaction records to Kit.
Stripe and the selected payment services process payment and related technical information under their own privacy policies. These services may also process information for security, fraud prevention, and other purposes described in those policies.
Please do not send complete payment-card numbers or bank-account credentials to our ministry email address.
Our website processes technical information needed to receive submissions, operate its features, and protect against misuse.
For submission-abuse prevention, our systems use an IP address and limited submitted contact information to generate a hashed identifier, a coded value used to recognize and limit repeated submissions. These security identifiers are used for abuse prevention rather than advertising.
Our hosting provider may also process operational, diagnostic, and website-usage information as part of its hosting and platform services.
We have not installed Google Analytics, Meta/Facebook Pixel, TikTok Pixel, or similar advertising-tracking scripts in our website’s application.
Our website connects with outside services to provide certain features:
Google Fonts: Our website loads fonts from Google’s servers. Loading an external resource requires your browser to connect with that provider, which can involve technical information such as your IP address and browser information. Google describes technical data processing in its privacy policy and states that its Fonts API is not used to create end-user profiles or for advertising.
Stripe: Payment software loads on our Giving page to support donations. Stripe may process device and interaction information and use cookies or similar technologies for payment functionality, security, fraud prevention, and other purposes described in its policies.
Spotify for Creators/Anchor: Podcast audio is delivered from Spotify/Anchor’s hosting infrastructure when an episode is played. The provider may receive technical information associated with that connection, such as an IP address and device or browser information, under its applicable privacy practices.
Our website links to outside platforms. When you follow those links or interact with their services, their privacy practices apply to information they collect.
Although our ministry currently serves a U.S. audience, some service providers operate internationally and may process information outside the United States.
We do not sell or rent our ministry contact lists or provide them to other organizations for their independent marketing.
Information may be accessed by authorized ministry leadership and shared with designated prayer-team members as described in this policy.
We also use service providers to perform necessary functions, including Lovable and Lovable Cloud for website operation and storage, our email providers for correspondence and notifications, Kit for email-contact management and communications, Stripe for payments, Google Fonts for font delivery, and Spotify for podcast hosting.
We may disclose information when required by law or legal process, or when reasonably necessary to address a serious safety concern, protect someone’s rights or safety, or respond to fraud or a security incident.
Some providers independently process information under their own privacy policies. This policy describes The Refuge’s practices and does not replace those providers’ policies.
We collect photographs, videos, testimonials, and related permission information in connection with ministry activities.
This Privacy Policy is not a photo, video, audio, or testimonial release. Newsletter signup, program registration, and event attendance do not by themselves provide blanket permission for every promotional use of someone’s image, voice, or story.
Any media permission you provide is separate from your general communication preferences. Permission concerning a child must come from a parent or legal guardian.
Contact contact@therefuge.help with questions about photography or recording, to communicate permission preferences, or to request review of a particular use of your or your child’s image. We will review requests in light of the relevant permission, circumstances, and materials involved.
Our website does not offer visitor accounts. Administrative access is restricted to authorized ministry leadership.
We use database-access restrictions, server-side form processing, submission validation, and spam-prevention measures to help protect information. Stored form submissions are not made available for public browsing.
These safeguards do not guarantee complete security. No method of internet transmission or electronic storage is entirely risk-free.
We do not currently use a fixed automatic deletion schedule. Records remain in our systems until reviewed and deleted, subject to applicable retention needs and privacy requests.
Retention decisions consider the purpose of the information, continuing ministry needs, and applicable legal, accounting, safety, or consent-documentation requirements. Different categories of records may require different retention periods.
You may contact contact@therefuge.help to ask about personal information we hold about you, request access or a correction, request deletion, update communication preferences, or raise a privacy concern.
Requests are handled by The Refuge Community’s leadership. We may need to verify your identity or your authority to act for a child or another person.
We may need to retain certain information for legal, accounting, safety, consent-documentation, or other legitimate recordkeeping purposes. When we cannot fully fulfill a request, we will explain the reason as appropriate.
Requests concerning information independently controlled by a third-party provider may also need to be directed to that provider. Any additional rights available under applicable law remain available.
We may update this policy as our ministry activities, services, and information practices change. The effective date above identifies the current version.
For privacy questions or requests, contact The Refuge Community at contact@therefuge.help.