Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

The School for Field Studies ("SFS," "we," or "us") respects your privacy. This policy explains what information we collect through this website, how we use it, and the choices you have.

Information We Collect

Information you provide. When you submit an inquiry form, apply for a program or a job, make a donation or payment, or contact us, you may provide your name, email address, phone number, mailing address, academic information, or payment details.

Information collected automatically. When you visit our site, our hosting and analytics services receive standard web data: your IP address, browser type, device information, the pages you view, and the page that referred you.

Third-Party Services

Our site uses these services:

• Cloudinary, image and video hosting and delivery.
• Google Analytics, site usage analytics. See how Google uses information from sites that use its services and Google’s privacy policy.
• Google Ads, remarketing to show our ads to previous visitors and to measure how those ads perform. See Google Ads policies.
• Vimeo, embedded educational video. See Vimeo’s privacy policy.
• Salesforce, our inquiry forms and application processing.
• Brevo, the service that sends our program emails. When you ask us for information, we give Brevo your contact details so it can send them. Its emails record whether you open them and which links you select. See Brevo’s privacy policy.
• Click & Pledge, donation processing. Our Give page links to donation forms hosted by Click & Pledge and includes its quick-donation widget, which loads Stripe and PayPal to take payments and IPQualityScore to screen for fraud. The widget also loads a font from Google Fonts. See Click & Pledge’s privacy policy.
• Double the Donation, the matching-gift search on our Give page. Its search box sends what you type to Double the Donation to look up your employer’s matching-gift program. See Double the Donation’s privacy policy.
• Jotform, the program and loan payment forms linked from our Make a Payment page. See Jotform’s privacy policy.
• CATS, our job listings and job applications.
• Anthropic, the AI model behind our Ask Us Anything and Compare tools, described under AI-Powered Tools below. See Anthropic’s privacy policy.
• Cloudflare, hosting, content delivery, the serverless functions that carry questions from our AI-powered tools to Anthropic, and the country lookup that sets your starting cookie settings. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

Most of these services handle information on our behalf, and we remain responsible for it. Google, Vimeo, and the payment services on our Give page (Stripe, PayPal, and IPQualityScore) also use data under their own privacy policies. You can turn Google Analytics and Google Ads on or off at any time, as Cookies & Consent explains below.

AI-Powered Tools

Two features on this site answer questions using an AI model: Ask Us Anything and the program Compare tool. Both work the same way. When you submit a question, the tool sends it, together with published SFS reference information about our centers and programs, to Anthropic’s API, which generates the answer you see. Anthropic processes it on our behalf and does not use it to train its models.

We store the question you asked and the answer returned for 90 days, in Cloudflare Workers KV, so we can review how the tools perform and correct wrong or unhelpful answers. We do not link these records to your name, your email address, or any inquiry or application you have submitted, and we do not use them to build a profile of you.

To prevent misuse, the two tools also count how many questions come from each IP address. They delete that count automatically within about an hour and never store it with your questions.

Please do not type personal or sensitive information into either tool. Neither is a channel for applications, medical disclosures, or financial details. For anything of that kind, contact us directly using the details at the end of this policy.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Respond to inquiries and process applications
• Process donations and payments and send receipts
• Send program information you have requested
• Show our ads to previous visitors and measure how they perform, while marketing cookies are on
• Improve our website and services
• Comply with legal obligations

You can unsubscribe from our program emails at any time, using the link at the bottom of each one.

We do not sell your personal information for money.

We use targeted advertising. While marketing cookies are on, Google Ads may show you our ads on other websites and apps because you visited our site. To opt out, select Manage Cookies at the bottom of any page and turn Marketing off. To turn off personalized ads from Google altogether, use Google’s My Ad Center.

Cookies & Consent

When you first visit our site, a cookie banner appears at the bottom of your screen. It lets you turn two categories of cookies, analytics and marketing, on or off. Their starting settings depend on where you visit from:

• In the United States, both are on when you arrive, and you can turn either one off.
• Everywhere else, both stay off until you turn them on.

If you close the banner without choosing, those starting settings stay in place. We use Google Consent Mode v2 so that Google Analytics and Google Ads set no cookies while their category is off.

• Functional services (always active): Cloudinary delivers our images and video. Our web fonts (Raleway and Titillium Web) come from our own site. Vimeo delivers embedded educational video with its do-not-track setting on, and its player sets a short-lived security cookie. On our Give page, the Click & Pledge donation widget and the payment and fraud-prevention services it loads (Stripe, PayPal, and IPQualityScore) set cookies and store data in your browser so they can process donations securely. The site needs these services to work properly, so they load whatever you choose in the banner.
• Analytics (on by default in the United States; requires consent everywhere else): Google Analytics 4 records the pages you visit, how long you stay, and device information, so we can understand how visitors use our site. While it is on, it sets cookies including _ga and _ga_* and sends this data to Google.
• Marketing (on by default in the United States; requires consent everywhere else): Google Ads remarketing lets us show our ads to people who have visited our site and measure how those ads perform. While it is on, it sets the _gcl_au cookie and a matching entry in your browser’s local storage, and Google may set its own advertising cookies. While it is off, it sets no advertising cookies and does not use your visit to show you ads.

While a category is off, Google Analytics and Google Ads still receive basic signals that set and read no cookies, such as the page viewed and your consent choice. Google uses these signals to estimate site visits and ad results in aggregate.

We store your choice, or the fact that you closed the banner, only in your browser’s local storage and never send it to our servers. It expires after 12 months, and the banner then appears again. To apply the right starting settings, the page asks Cloudflare, our hosting provider, for the country your connection comes from. We do not store the answer.

To change your choices at any time, select Manage Cookies at the bottom of any page. If you turn a category off, we delete the Google cookies it set on this site. You can also control cookies through your browser settings.

Browser privacy signals. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, marketing cookies stay off unless you turn them on in the banner. Our site does not respond to the older Do Not Track signal. While marketing cookies are on, Google may collect information about your activity on our site and on other websites over time. On our Give page, the payment and fraud-prevention services named above may recognize your device across other websites that use them, to help detect fraud.

Data Retention

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the uses this policy describes, or as long as the law requires. We delete the questions and answers from our AI-powered tools after 90 days, and the per-IP question counts within about an hour. To ask us to delete your personal information, contact us.

How We Protect Your Information

Our site uses encrypted HTTPS connections throughout, and you enter card and bank details into forms run by our payment providers. No website or storage system is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee the security of information you send us.

Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal information, to object to how we use it, and to receive a copy in a portable format. Residents of the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom have these rights under the GDPR and the UK GDPR, and may complain to their local data protection authority.

Several U.S. states give their residents similar rights, along with the right to opt out of targeted advertising. We honor these requests wherever you live. To opt out of targeted advertising, select Manage Cookies at the bottom of any page and turn Marketing off. For any other request, contact us at the address below. If we cannot do what you ask, we will tell you why, and you may ask us to look at it again.

International Transfers

We are a U.S. organization, and we process the information we collect through this site in the United States, where data protection law may differ from the law where you live. Some of the services named in this policy also process information in other countries. If you enroll in a program, we may share the information needed to support you with the staff of the SFS center where you study, which may be outside your home country.

Children’s Privacy

Our programs serve college-age students. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe we have collected information from a child, please contact us so we can promptly remove it.

Changes to This Policy

When we update this policy, we post the changes on this page with a new date. If a change is significant, we will ask for your consent where the law requires it.

Contact

For questions about this policy or your personal information, contact us:

The School for Field Studies
P.O. Box 506
West Boxford, MA 01885
sfs@fieldstudies.org
(978) 741-3567