501 Data - Terms of Use - Privacy

Welcome to FISTdc.org

Fighting Injustice Standing Together (FIST) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

By engaging, interacting with and/or using FIST services (in-prison and out-of-prison) and/or technology (websites, applications, systems), you agree to the following limitations of liability, policies, practices, conditions and terms of using FIST services and technology.

If you have an emergency, please call 9-1-1.

Limitations of Liability

In no event shall Fighting Injustice Standing Together ("FIST", "FISTdc.org", "our organization", "our", "we" or "us") or its affiliates and their respective partners, employees, volunteers, donors, interns, board members, affiliates and agents (collectively “related persons”) be liable for any claims, liabilities, losses, costs, damages or injuries, including, but not limited to, any direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with any access, use, engagement, inability to use, or distribution of our services and/or technology, and their content, updates, suggestions, links, user engagements, or a service and/or technology linked to our technology including any damages or injury caused by any failure of service, performance, or transmission, computer/device virus, communication line failure, other computer/device malfunction, theft, destruction or unauthorized access to, alteration of or use of any asset, whether for breach of contract, tortious behavior, negligence or under any other cause of action, or any content obtained through use and/or viewing of the service and technology. This is true even if FIST or related persons have been advised of possibility of such damages or losses.

Services and technology provided by FIST and/or related persons are on an “as is” and “as available” basis. FIST makes no representation or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation of services and/or technology or the information included in our services or on our technology including any representations or warranties with respect to merchantability, certification or fitness for a particular service or purpose, title, non-infringement, availability, security, accuracy, freedom from viruses or malware, completeness, timeliness, functionality, reliability, sequencing or speed of delivery. By viewing and/or using, you expressly agree that your use of our services and/or technology is at your sole risk. Information, suggestions, links and advice provided through our services and technology is not intended and shall not constitute professional counseling,medical advise, diagnosis or treatment. In addition, nothing from our services or on our technology is intended to constitute legal advice. Services may be conducted by staff (including volunteers) who are not professionals and may not be authorized to provide services in certain states. If engaging with FIST services and/or technology is forbidden by your state and/or locality, you are responsible for not using and/or viewing our services and/or technology. FIST does not have the technology to independently verify with 100% accuracy where users, visitors or service recipients are located.

FIST is not a mandatory reporter.

Services Overview

FIST and/or related persons intends to provide services and technology to incarcerated women and returning-citizens. These services and technology may include, but are not limited to creative writing and poetry classes, drama classes, art classes, resume writing, goal-setting, interview prep, job search, transportation, check-ins, photo-shoots, care packages, a listening and support hotline, and meet-up groups. Services and technology are intended to build confidence, new skills and fill in knowledge, service and mentoring gaps for incarcerated individuals and returning-citizens in an uplifting environment.

Furthermore, the Listening and Support Hotline is intended to provide a friendly online forum for returning-citizens to chat with individuals who are supportive of them, and want an outlet. In some cases, resources and services may be provided to returning-citizens through the Listening and Support Hotline. While we may list and/or link to third-party resources, including non-profit and for-profit programs and other services, we do not endorse, support, represent or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any content, information or communications posted on ours or their platforms or endorse any opinions expressed via reviews on our technology. Information, guidance, content, links suggestions, and responses of any type shall not constitute professional counseling. FIST is not offering professionally certified counseling; our services are not a substitute for professional counseling services, medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Any information that you share during your communications with us may be viewed by the individual assisting you and/or FIST personnel and/or related persons.

FIST and/or related persons has used their experience and network to create these services, technology and the training behind them. But FIST and/or related persons are no certified, experts or licensed in any way. There is no guarantee that using or receiving our services will help you. With that said, we are working to constantly improve our position to be able to support incarcerated women and returning-citizens.

FIST is committed to supporting incarcerated individuals and returning-citizens, while protecting FIST staff. FIST personnel are approved to use first names only, different names, usernames, and personas to protect their privacy and identity. They are trained to do so responsibly and on the appropriate limits of using alternate identities. We understand this is gray area, but it is our intent to provide you with genuine, caring and personalized support.

FIST and/or related persons intends to build trust with clients (incarcerated individuals and returning citizens). Doing so usually requires reasonable privacy and confidentiality. In general, FIST and/or related persons keeps a client's communication private. However, FIST and/or related persons makes no guarantees or promises, expressed or implied, of maintaining privacy and confidentiality with clients, users, spectators or visitors. For example, if someone expresses they are going to hurt themselves, or if FIST and/or related persons is uneasy about a certain topic or situation, FIST and/or related persons may disclose personal information to the appropriate authorities, people and/or organizations. We would never sell an individual's data.

Training

FIST and/or related persons is made up of non-experts who have an interest, experience and passion for supporting incarcerated individuals and returning-citizens. FIST and/or related persons are not made up of specialists and/or certified professionals in any field. We do not claim to be licensed experts. FIST services and/or technology may be provided by, but not limited to, full-time employees, part-time employees, contractors, interns, and volunteers; none of which are specialists in any way. They are individuals who have undergone minimum training to be able to reasonably support incarcerated individuals and returning-citizens.

FIST training was developed by our experiences and discussions within our network. FIST training has not been certified or reviewed by specialists in any field. No one in our network claimed to be certified or an expert in any field. Training for FIST and/or related persons generally includes a non-certified presentation with guidelines, practices, discussion prompts, exercises and resources on the following topics:

Sensitivity
Trauma
Suicide
Race & culture
De-escalation
When to report
Confidentiality and privacy
Workplace inclusion

Specific training for field support (not limited to resume writing, goal-setting, interview prep, job search, transportation, check-ins, photo-shoots, care packages, and meet-up groups), in-prison services (not limited to poetry and creative writing, drama and art classes) and the Listening and Support Hotline may also be provided depending on the particular role of FIST personnel and/or related persons supporting FIST services.

Privacy, Technology & Services

This section is intended to describe how FIST collects, uses and discloses information gathered on/by FIST technology (websites, information technology, applications or systems).

Your privacy and security are very important to us. This section will help you understand what information we collect via our technology, and how we use and disclose that information once we collect it. This section will tell you if we disclose that information to anyone, and what choices you have regarding how we use that information. Please note that this section applies only to the FIST technology, and services and not to the technology and/or of any other organizations to which we may link or that may link to us.

1. Information You Provide to Us

"Personally Identifiable Information" (PII) is information that could reasonably be used to identify you, such as your name or address.

General: In general, visitors may browse FISTdc.org without providing any PII. However, there are certain pages on FISTdc.org, such as, but not limited to, the donation pages, where we may request Personally Identifiable Information about you, including your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, or credit card number, etc. FIST may seek such information in order to register you as a supporter of FIST, to collect your rating of a third-party service, to enable your making of a donation or purchasing merchandise, to provide services, and/or to use certain parts of the FISTdc.org and our other technology. We may use your e-mail address to send you updates or newsletters apprising you of recent events and developments relating to FIST and its mission, or receipts for your charitable donations. Other than as set forth in this section and in law, FIST will not sell, trade or share a donor's PII with anyone else, nor will we send donor mailings on behalf of another organization, unless you have given us explicit permission to do so; this section applies to all donations made by mail, via our technology, via employee withholding, or any other means.

In order to use some of FIST's features and services, such as resume writing, you may be asked to register with FIST or to send us your name, email, phone number or address. A staff member on the Listening & Support Hotline may ask for your name so they can track reoccurring visitors and provide better services to you. No one is ever required or mandated to provide any information they do not feel comfortable providing unless mandated by law. The information you submit as part of these processes is used to, but not limited to, update and maintain our files, and/or send products, such as a draft or finished resume back to you. We maintain this information and products in our files to make it easier for us to provide continual services to you. We collect and save such information so that you are not required to submit it every time you use a feature or request a service. When you register with us, you may be asked to provide your e-mail address and select a password. You may also be asked to provide certain other PII so that we may readily identify you.

Furthermore, in order to determine usage levels and average session length, and for other record keeping purposes, an entry may be made in our database containing the start and stop time of each session.

Please note, however, that some states require us by law to record and report information regarding the abuse of someone less than 18 years of age, or vulnerable or disabled adults, including persons over 60 years of age, or persons who are in danger of committing suicide. If you convey such circumstances and provide information that could lead us to identify your name and location, we may have to record such information and provide it to the appropriate authorities. FIST technology, FIST and/or related persons makes no guarantees or promises, expressed or implied, of maintaining privacy and confidentiality with clients, users, spectators or visitors. For example, if someone expresses they are going to hurt themselves, or if FIST and/or related persons is uneasy about a certain topic or situation, FIST and/or related persons may disclose personal information to the appropriate authorities, people and/or organizations.

If you provide feedback through an anonymous feedback survey following your session, that feedback may be shared with the FIST personnel and/or related persons assisting you. However, the feedback is welcomed to be anonymous.

2. Information We Collect Through Technology & Services

In addition to the above, our technology and service processes may also collect information, such as your computer's IP address, through technical means. If an IP address is associated with suspicious activities that could harm our technology, we reserve the right to block those IPs without explanation. We automatically gather, or aggregate, certain usage information, such as the number and frequency of visitors to our websites, platforms or systems, length of stay, and other anonymous data, the topics discussed and areas of importance to users. This data helps us determine usage levels on different parts of our websites, platforms or systems, and other useful statistics. We may use such information to analyze websites, platform or system usage for research, internal record keeping, security and service improvement purposes. In addition, we may aggregate such data and disclose it in a non-personally identifiable manner to donors, sponsors, supporters, and other third parties, to generate support for FIST, its mission, technology and its services, or as required by law.

Cookies and How We Use Them

In general, a "cookie" is a small piece of text data stored on a user's computer by a website, in order to give that computer a unique identity to the website while performing certain processes, such as filling an online shopping cart and checking out, or calculating the number of unique visitors at a given time. Cookies may contain PII, like email addresses, usernames, or passwords, or completely anonymous information, like a randomly generated number. They may be deleted once a user leaves our technology; or they may remain, so that our technology "remembers" the user or visitor when he or she next visits. Our technology may use cookies.

3. How We Use PII

We do not publish, sell, share, or rent information about you except as set forth in this section. We may be required to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances. Such circumstances include (and you hereby authorize us to) disclosure of any information about you that we possess to law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe is necessary or appropriate. This may be in connection with the investigation of a crime, mandatory reporting laws, fraud, intellectual property infringement, or other activity that is illegal, or may expose us, or you, to liability. Also, if we fear that you are in danger of committing suicide, hurting yourself or others, or are under 13 years old or over 60 years old, we may be required to disclose whatever information you have provided to the appropriate authorities.

FIST personnel and/or related persons are located across the United States, and may not be licensed in your state or trained in your state's law. The laws of FIST personnel and/or related persons state may apply to your communications with that personnel and/or related persons. The FIST personnel and/or related persons state laws may not protect your communications to the same degree, or in the same way, as the laws of your state. For instance, your state might recognize a privilege to communications with our technology — meaning that the state may allow you to keep such communications private — but FIST personnel or related persons state might not recognize such a privilege. It is possible that a court of law will not keep private, and may require us to disclose, information that you provide to FIST personnel, related persons or FIST technology.

Other Uses: We may use third party service providers to facilitate our services and technology, including companies and individuals who perform functions on our behalf, such as website hosting, data analysis, contacting members of Congress, and providing customer service. We may provide your PII to such parties, however they will only have access to such PII needed to perform their functions; such parties may not use it for any other purpose and are obligated to protect the confidentiality of such PII.

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google"), which uses cookies and tracking code to help analyze how visitors use our websites, platforms or systems. The information collected (not limited to what browser and operating system you are using, your IP address, the pages on our websites, platforms or systems that you visit, your number of page views, and the time you spend on our websites, platforms or systems) is transmitted to and stored by Google. Google uses this information for many purposes, not limited to evaluating visitors' use of our technology in an aggregate manner, compiling reports on technology activity for technology operators and providing other services relating to technology activity and Internet usage. Google may transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or to third parties that process information on Google's behalf. You can read Google's privacy policy at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html

4. How We Protect Your Security

FIST stores all information on third party technology. Third party technology may store your data even after we delete your data from our interface. FIST employs a variety of security measures and techniques to try to protect from unauthorized access, both online and offline. You should be aware, however, that "perfect security" does not exist anywhere. Although we believe we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that your PII or communications with our technology and services will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this section, and make no representations or warranties regarding the sufficiency of our security measures.

Always be careful and responsible regarding your PII. We are not responsible for, and cannot control, the use by others of any information which you provide or divulge to others, purposefully or inadvertently, including your e-mail address and password for our technology. While we may list and/or link to third-party technology, including non-profit and for-profit programs and other services, we do not endorse, support, represent or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any content or communications posted on ours or their technology or endorse any opinions expressed via reviews on our technology. Instead, any program data, video excerpts, assertions about its effectiveness, and client lists or ratings are provided for you for evaluation purposes only. You make your own decisions about the identity and suitability of others whom you contact or interact with. We do not monitor or have any control over, and make no claim or representation regarding, third-party technology. You understand that by using our technology and services, you may be exposed to content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive. You acknowledge sole responsibility for and assume all risk arising from your use of any such services and technology.

Other Information Collectors: If you disclose your information to others, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of such information. We do not control the privacy policies of others. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your PII to others.

5. How to Review, Update or Delete Your Information and Opt-Out Procedures

When you use, interact with, or engage our services or technology, we may send you e-mails or newsletters, to update you on events and developments pertinent to FIST and our charitable goals. If you do not want to receive such e-mails, please contact us or, if available, use the "unsubscribe" features. Note that donation and/or volunteer information will remain in FIST databases. Please contact us to obtain, change or update our records of your PII.

6. Our Policy Towards Children

We are concerned about the safety and privacy of children who use technology. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, we will never knowingly request PII from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with PII without verifiable parental consent, we will use our best efforts to remove such information from our files. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with PII without verifiable parental consent, he or she should contact us.

7. International Use

FIST makes no claims that materials or services on our technology are appropriate or may be downloaded for use in locations outside the United States. Access to the technology from countries or territories where such access is illegal is prohibited. If you access our technology from outside the United States, you do so at your own risk. By sending us your data, you consent to its transfer and storage. Those who access our websites, platforms or systems from outside the United States do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, rules and regulations.

Additional Disclaimers

FIST services are intended to uplift and support those who are incarcerated or returning to society. However, our services don't guarantee anything. For example, we cannot guarantee you will find a job when you submit the resumes we built with you. The services and resources we provide you may be mislabeled, no longer active, and/or provide poor services. Our technology may be inaccessible at any time.

The material on FIST technology or promotion material may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Users or visitors may be viewing beta or test versions of our technology. We may have deactivated services but not have updated this information on our technology. There may be times when we cannot deliver a technology or service, or respond to your inquiry and/or message. We may be working to remove viruses or malicious code, or are unaware of virus and malicious code. In no way is FIST liable for any damages that may result. We may shut down our technology and edit or end these terms and conditions at any time, without notifying you. In the event of such a termination, the Limitations of Liability, Disclaimer, and Governing Law sections would continue to apply.

You agree that your use of our services and technology and any disputes relating thereto shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the District of Columbia. Any dispute relating to this Agreement shall be resolved solely in the courts located in the District of Columbia. You agree to waive trial by jury in any such action.

Our organization and this technology is funded in part through government and private grants and donations. Neither private institutions, private people, or the US government nor any components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse this organization or website (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or technology provided).

FIST personnel and/or related persons reserves the right to call 911, law enforcement or other service organizations at any time based on their sole discretion, and law. In doing so, your information may be shared with 911, law enforcement or other service organizations. FIST services, personnel and/or related persons may be offline and not actively working. While we intend to respond to all inquiries (chat and email) with individualized support, there is no guarantee or warranty that all chats and visitors will receive a response. FIST is not required to respond to all chats, nor required to offer any services.

The information conveyed by you to our personnel or related persons during your support session is intended to be part of a private conversation between you and the applicable personnel or related persons. However, chat and other service-related conversations may be recorded, stored, or saved. You are never required to provide any information that you do not feel comfortable with. We may share aggregate information (e.g., patterns and trends of topics discussed) with academic researchers and the public, to help them understand the needs surrounding our organization’s purpose.

FIST does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its services, activities or operations.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact info@FISTdc.org.