Privacy Policy
Effective: October 26, 2026
Last Updated: October 26, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Merritt Community Capital Corporation (“Merritt,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) collects, uses, discloses, and protects information when you visit our website or interact with our services.
Changes in Our Privacy Policy:
We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes to our practices, technologies, or applicable laws. When we make material changes, we will post the updated policy on this page and revise the Effective Date above.
INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE USE IT
When you interact with our website or services, we may collect information that you voluntarily provide as well as certain information that is collected automatically:
- Personal Information You Provide: We collect personal information that you choose to provide, such as when you contact us with questions, complete a form, or subscribe to our newsletter or other digital communications. The information we collect may vary depending on how you interact with us.
- Non-Identifiable Data: When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain technical and usage information, such as your browser type, device information, IP address, and website activity. This information generally does not identify you personally on its own, but it may be combined with other information to help us improve our website, enhance user experience, and maintain site security.
Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use our website, including which pages are viewed most frequently, how visitors navigate the site, and overall website performance. This information helps us improve the user experience. Google Analytics uses cookies/beacons to help analyze how users use our site from the information generated by the cookies/beacons. Learn more about Google Analytics’ Privacy Policy.
reCAPTCHA: We use Google reCAPTCHA to protect our website from spam and automated abuse. reCAPTCHA analyzes information such as IP address, browser settings, mouse movements, and other behavioral signals to distinguish human users from automated bots. The reCAPTCHA algorithm checks for specific cookies within the user’s browsers. Personal information is used but not limited to cookies, mouse clicks, CSS information, the date, browser language, installed plugins, and JavaScript objects. Learn more about Google’s Privacy Policy.
Newsletter Opt-In Form: When you subscribe to our newsletter, we collect your email address and certain technical information, such as your IP address, through our website and email marketing platform, Constant Contact. This tool allows us to send the opted in information to our email provider easily.
Constant Contact: We use Constant Contact to manage our email communications, including newsletters, event announcements, and other marketing emails. If you subscribe to our communications, your contact information may be stored and processed through Constant Contact.
You may update your email preferences or unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “Update Subscription Preferences” or “Unsubscribe” link included at the bottom of our emails.
We also abide by the Anti-SPAM Policy (CAN-SPAM Act), and we take every effort to adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy when utilizing the Constant Contact system. Learn more about Constant Contact’s Privacy Policy.
Contact Forms: We utilize the Contact Form 7 plugin. Data collected through the forms include, but are not limited to, First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Company Name, Phone Number, Interest Topics for Reaching out, and personal messages (which may include additional personal information if the user submits).
Social Media: We utilize social media to stay up to date and post helpful information and resources. Any interactions with social media platforms are governed by their respective privacy policies, which can be found below:
Embedded content from other websites: Our website may include embedded content from third-party websites, such as videos, images, or articles. Embedded content functions as if you visited the third-party website directly. As a result, those websites may collect information about you, use cookies or other tracking technologies, and monitor your interactions with the embedded content in accordance with their own privacy policies.
Personal Information and SMS Communications
Merritt may collect personal information you voluntarily provide, including your name, email address, telephone number, company name, and the information included in your inquiries or messages. If you opt in to receive SMS messages, we also collect your mobile number and record of consent.
We use this information to respond to inquiries, communicate about our services and activities, and send SMS messages consistent with the consent you provide.
We may share personal information with service providers that support our website, email communications, and messaging services, including RingCentral, as necessary to provide those services. SMS consent is not shared with third parties or affiliates. Mobile numbers collected for SMS communications are not shared with third parties or affiliates for their marketing purposes.
You may opt out of SMS communications at any time by replying STOP.
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to help it function properly, understand how visitors use the site, improve performance, and enhance your browsing experience. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your device when you visit a website.
Depending on how you use our website, cookies may be used to remember your preferences, analyze website traffic, maintain site security, and support other website functionality.
The types of cookies we use include, but are not limited to:
- Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.
- Analytical/performance cookies/statistics. They allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and see how visitors move around our website when using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
- Targeting/advertising cookies/marketing. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited, and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
Our cookies
Cookies we use include, but are not limited to, the list below:
Necessary (6)
Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _grecaptcha | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. | Persistent | HTML Local Storage | |
| _GRECAPTCHA | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. | 179 days | HTTP Cookie | |
| CookieConsent | Cookiebot | Stores the user's cookie consent state for the current domain | 1 year | HTTP Cookie |
| rc::a | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. | Persistent | HTML Local Storage | |
| rc::b | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. | Session | HTML Local Storage | |
| rc::c | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. | Session | HTML Local Storage |
Statistics (2)
Statistic cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Tag Manager | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. | 2 years | HTTP Cookie |
| _ga_# | Google Tag Manager | Used by Google Analytics to collect data on the number of times a user has visited the website as well as dates for the first and most recent visit. | 2 years | HTTP Cookie |
Controlling your cookies: In addition, you can generally inform the web services with which our services integrate (such as social buttons, widgets, and other embedded features or content) that you do not want certain information about your webpage visits to be collected. Enabling “Do Not Track” in your web browser settings is an easy way to accomplish this. The “Do Not Track” recent versions of major browsers support browser settings.
You can also change the way your browser handles cookies. For example, already existing cookies can be deleted. You may also set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with our services, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us. However, it’s important to note that some services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.
You can also manage many company’s cookies used for online advertising via the consumer choice tools created under self-regulation programs in many countries, such as the US-based aboutads.info choices page. You can learn more about cookies at https://www.ftc.gov/policy-notices/privacy-policy/internet-cookies.
- Filling out a contact form
- Updating your preferences through Constant Contact
- Unsubscribing from our marketing emails using the “Unsubscribe” link included in each email
If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please use our contact form, send us an email at info@merrittcap.org, or call us at (510) 444-7870.