Privacy Policy

Effective Date: August 27, 2026 | Last Updated: August 27, 2026

American Public Leadership Foundation, Inc. ("APLF," "we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy of the individuals who use our website, civic engagement platform, assessments, surveys, and related services.

APLF is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening civic engagement, improving government accountability, understanding citizen priorities, and helping the public evaluate leadership and public policy.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, when it may be shared, and the choices available to you.

1. Our Privacy Principles

APLF's mission depends upon public trust. Our approach to personal information is therefore guided by the following principles:

• We collect information for legitimate organizational, civic engagement, research, security, and operational purposes.
• We do not sell your personal information.
• We do not sell individual poll responses, opinions, or civic engagement activity.
• We do not provide personally identifiable civic or political preference information to candidates, political campaigns, political parties, or political action committees for voter targeting.
• Public reports and research are intended to use aggregated, anonymized, or de-identified information whenever practical.
• Individual member responses are not publicly associated with a member's identity unless the member specifically chooses to make information public through a feature that clearly identifies it as public.
• We seek to collect only information reasonably necessary to operate and improve our services and advance our nonprofit mission.

2. Information We Collect

Depending on how you interact with APLF, we may collect the following categories of information.

Account and Contact Information

When you create an account, contact us, register for an event, subscribe to communications, or otherwise interact with APLF, we may collect information such as:

• Name
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Mailing address
• City, state, ZIP code, or geographic region
• Username or account identifier
• Account preferences

Demographic Information

You may voluntarily provide demographic information that helps us understand whether our participants represent a broad cross-section of the public. This may include information such as:

• Age or age range
• Gender
• Geographic area
• Education level
• Employment or occupational category
• Other demographic characteristics

Unless specifically indicated otherwise, providing optional demographic information is voluntary.

Civic Engagement and Opinion Data

APLF may collect information you provide when participating in:

• Polls
• Surveys
• Questions of the day
• Public policy questionnaires
• Citizen priority surveys
• Issue-ranking activities
• Community discussions
• Idea submissions
• Government or elected-official evaluations
• Civic engagement activities
• Other feedback mechanisms

This information may reveal your opinions concerning public policy, government, elected officials, candidates, civic issues, or other matters of public concern. We recognize that this information can be particularly sensitive and handle it accordingly.

Leadership and Candidate Assessment Information

APLF may operate leadership assessments for candidates, elected officials, public leaders, or other participants. Assessment information may include:

• Assessment responses
• Scenario responses
• Leadership competency scores
• Behavioral responses
• Calculated scores and indices
• Written responses
• Assessment completion information
• Reports generated from assessment results

Where an assessment is specifically intended to generate a public candidate or leadership profile, participants will be informed that designated results may be published. APLF does not intend to publicly disclose raw assessment responses unless the participant has been clearly informed of such disclosure.

Engagement and Gamification Information

If you participate in APLF engagement programs, we may collect information concerning:

• Poll participation
• Survey participation
• Engagement points
• Achievement badges
• Participation streaks
• Referral activity
• Civic engagement levels
• Platform milestones
• Other participation metrics

Donation and Payment Information

If you make a donation, purchase a service, or pay a membership or subscription fee, payment processing may be handled by a third-party payment processor. APLF may receive transaction-related information such as your name, email address, billing information, transaction amount, transaction date, and payment status. We generally do not store complete payment-card numbers when payments are processed through third-party payment processors.

Information Collected Automatically

When you use our website or platform, certain technical information may be collected automatically, including:

• Internet Protocol (IP) address
• Browser type
• Device type
• Operating system
• Pages visited
• Date and time of access
• Referring website
• Session information
• Approximate geographic location derived from IP address
• Website interactions
• Error and diagnostic information

We may use cookies, local storage, analytics technologies, and similar tools to operate, secure, understand, and improve our services.

3. How We Use Information

We may use information we collect to:

• Create and maintain user accounts
• Authenticate users and protect accounts
• Operate APLF's civic engagement platform
• Conduct polls, surveys, and research
• Identify citizen priorities and public sentiment
• Produce aggregated statistics and reports
• Compare public priorities with government actions and public policy
• Evaluate civic participation and engagement
• Administer leadership and candidate assessments
• Generate leadership assessment reports
• Provide services to participating governmental or civic organizations
• Improve our website, platform, assessments, and research methodologies
• Communicate with users
• Provide requested information
• Send organizational updates and civic engagement opportunities
• Process donations and payments
• Detect fraud, misuse, unauthorized access, or security threats
• Maintain the integrity of polls and surveys
• Conduct research consistent with APLF's mission
• Comply with legal obligations
• Protect APLF, our users, and the public

4. How Civic Opinion Data Is Used

A central purpose of APLF is to better understand what citizens believe government should prioritize.

Poll, survey, and civic engagement responses may therefore be analyzed by characteristics such as:

• State
• Congressional district or other geographic area
• Age group
• Demographic category
• Issue category
• Participation group
• Other aggregated characteristics

For example, APLF may report that a percentage of participants in a particular state consider healthcare, government accountability, or the economy a high priority.

Our goal is to report patterns and public sentiment, not expose the identity of individual participants.

Where practical, public-facing research and reports will use aggregated, anonymized, or de-identified information.

5. Government and Institutional Services

APLF may provide aggregated research, dashboards, reports, analytical tools, or civic engagement services to governmental entities, educational institutions, researchers, nonprofit organizations, media organizations, and other institutions.

These services may include information concerning public priorities, constituent sentiment, civic engagement, or policy alignment.

APLF does not intend to provide these organizations with personally identifiable individual poll responses or civic opinions except:

• With the individual's consent;
• When necessary to provide a service specifically requested by the individual;
• When required by law; or
• Under another circumstance clearly disclosed to the individual before the information is collected or shared.

6. Candidates, Campaigns, and Political Organizations

APLF is a nonpartisan organization.

APLF does not sell or provide personally identifiable information revealing an individual's civic or political preferences to political candidates, campaigns, political parties, political action committees, or similar organizations for political advertising, campaign targeting, voter profiling, or fundraising.

APLF may publish aggregated public-opinion information that is available equally to the public or provide nonpartisan research and educational information consistent with its mission and applicable law.

7. When We May Share Information

We may share information with trusted service providers that assist us with functions such as:

• Website hosting
• Cloud infrastructure
• Database management
• Email delivery
• Analytics
• Cybersecurity
• Payment processing
• Customer support
• Communications
• Software development
• Data processing

Service providers are permitted to receive information only as reasonably necessary to perform services for APLF and are expected to protect the information they process.

We may also disclose information when we reasonably believe disclosure is necessary to comply with law, regulation, subpoena, court order, legal process, or a valid governmental request; investigate fraud or security incidents; enforce our agreements; or protect the rights, safety, or property of APLF, our users, or others.

8. We Do Not Sell Personal Information

APLF does not sell personal information for monetary consideration.

APLF also does not sell individual poll responses, survey responses, issue priorities, or other identifiable civic opinion data.

Aggregated or de-identified statistics that cannot reasonably be associated with an identifiable individual may be used, published, licensed, or incorporated into research, reports, dashboards, or services consistent with APLF's mission.

9. Cookies and Analytics

APLF may use cookies and similar technologies to:

• Keep users signed in
• Remember preferences
• Maintain website functionality
• Protect accounts
• Prevent duplicate or fraudulent poll participation
• Understand website usage
• Measure engagement
• Diagnose technical problems
• Improve the user experience

Some cookies may be necessary for the operation and security of the website. Where required by applicable law, users will be provided appropriate choices concerning nonessential cookies or tracking technologies.

10. Data Security

APLF uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, destruction, or misuse.

These safeguards may include access controls, authentication systems, encryption, monitoring, secure cloud infrastructure, logging, backups, and other security measures appropriate to the nature of the information being processed.

However, no Internet transmission, computer system, or electronic storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. APLF therefore cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to:

• Provide our services
• Maintain user accounts
• Conduct legitimate research
• Preserve historical civic engagement data
• Meet legal, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements
• Prevent fraud or abuse
• Resolve disputes
• Enforce agreements

When personally identifiable information is no longer reasonably necessary, we may delete it or convert it into aggregated or de-identified information.

De-identified or aggregated research information may be retained for historical, statistical, educational, or research purposes.

12. Your Privacy Choices

Depending upon applicable law and the nature of your relationship with APLF, you may request to:

• Access personal information associated with your account
• Correct inaccurate information
• Update account information
• Delete your account
• Request deletion of certain personal information
• Opt out of nonessential communications
• Obtain information about how your personal information is used
• Withdraw consent where processing is based upon consent

Certain information may need to be retained for legal, security, fraud-prevention, research-integrity, or recordkeeping purposes.

Where deletion of historical poll or research information would compromise completed aggregated research, APLF may instead permanently de-identify the information so that it is no longer reasonably associated with you.

13. Email Communications

Users may receive administrative communications necessary to operate their accounts.

If you subscribe to newsletters, announcements, civic engagement opportunities, or other optional communications, you may unsubscribe using the link provided in those communications or by contacting us.

Certain transactional, security, account, or legal communications cannot be opted out of while maintaining an active account.

14. Children's Privacy

APLF's general website and civic engagement platform are not intended for children under 13.

We do not knowingly collect personal information online from children under 13 without appropriate parental or legal authorization.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 in circumstances where such collection is not legally permitted, we will take reasonable steps to delete the information.

APLF may establish separate educational or youth civic engagement programs in the future. Any such program may be subject to additional privacy notices, consent procedures, and safeguards.

15. Public Content

Certain APLF features may allow users to intentionally submit information for public display, such as ideas, comments, proposals, or community discussions.

When submitting information through a feature identified as public, users should understand that the information may be visible to others.

APLF will clearly distinguish, where reasonably practicable, between private poll or survey responses and information intended for public posting.

16. Third-Party Websites and Services

Our website may contain links to websites or services operated by third parties.

APLF is not responsible for the privacy practices, security, content, or policies of third-party websites or services. Users should review the privacy policies of those organizations before providing personal information.

17. Research and De-Identified Data

APLF may create aggregated, statistical, or de-identified datasets from information collected through the platform. These datasets may be used for:

• Civic research
• Public education
• Academic research
• Public policy analysis
• Government accountability analysis
• Trend analysis
• Publications
• Reports
• Data visualization
• Government and institutional services

APLF will take reasonable measures designed to prevent de-identified information from being used to identify individual participants.

18. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our services, technology, legal requirements, or privacy practices.

When changes are made, the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy will be revised.

If we make material changes affecting how personal information is used, we may provide additional notice through the website, platform, email, or another appropriate method.

19. Contact Us

Questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or APLF's privacy practices may be directed to:

American Public Leadership Foundation, Inc.
Maryland, United States
Website: AmericanPublicLeadership.org
Email: admin@americanpls.org

For privacy-related requests, please include sufficient information for us to identify your account and understand your request. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests.

American Public Leadership Foundation, Inc.
Strengthening the connection between citizens, leadership, and government.