Privacy Policy

Sip & Scale is a nonprofit global community for founders, builders, students, investors, and operators. Sip & Scale operates sipnscale.com and is the controller or personal information controller for personal information processed through this website.

This policy covers this website and messages submitted through it. It does not govern a third-party registration, ticketing, social-media, venue, sponsor, partner, or independently operated local chapter service. Those parties may provide their own privacy notices and act as separate controllers.

We collect only the information reasonably needed to operate the website, respond to inquiries, and understand site performance.

• Inquiry and application data: inquiry type, name, email address, answers about your interests, experience, organization, city, or proposed collaboration, plus any message you choose to send.
• Optional professional data: LinkedIn profile URL, website URL, and other professional details you voluntarily provide.
• Communications data: the content and history of correspondence with us and any follow-up needed to handle your request.
• Technical data: IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring page, approximate region derived from IP, timestamps, requested pages, and security or diagnostic logs.
• Usage data: page views, interaction events, click and heatmap signals, masked session replays, referral information, and error or performance events, collected automatically through our privacy-configured analytics tool.

We obtain personal information from the following sources:

• Directly from you when you complete a form, email us, or otherwise communicate with us.
• Automatically from your browser, device, and interactions with the website.
• From service providers and event or community partners when needed to deliver a request, investigate a technical issue, or coordinate an opportunity you asked about.

Where a law requires a legal basis, we rely on the basis that best fits the activity:

• Your request or steps toward an agreement: to answer inquiries, review applications, coordinate partnerships, sponsorships, speakers, volunteers, or chapter opportunities, and administer a resulting relationship.
• Legitimate interests: to run privacy-configured PostHog analytics, including masked session recording, automatic interaction capture, heatmaps, and error or performance monitoring, to understand and improve site usage without creating persistent person profiles.
• Legitimate interests: to secure, troubleshoot, maintain, and improve the website; prevent misuse; and manage community operations, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights.
• Legal obligations: to comply with applicable law, respond to lawful requests, preserve evidence, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.
• Vital or public interests where recognized by law: to protect a person's safety or respond to an emergency.

We use PostHog for product analytics, enabled automatically when you visit outside our local development environment. Our configuration includes masked session recording, automatic element capture, click heatmaps, dead-click detection, and error or performance monitoring. It does not create persistent person profiles or use analytics for advertising or cross-site profiling.

PostHog uses browser storage to maintain a pseudonymous analytics identifier. You can limit or block this at any time by clearing site data in your browser or using a browser privacy control or extension.

• Analytics may include page views, clicks and other interaction events, masked session replays, browser and device characteristics, referrer, approximate region, and application errors.
• Session recordings mask displayed text and form input values. We do not intentionally send the text you type into the inquiry form, your name, email address, LinkedIn URL, or website URL to PostHog.
• Visits on localhost are opted out of capture. Third-party sites reached through links control their own storage and tracking.

We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We disclose information only as reasonably necessary to the following categories of recipients:

Third-party sites reached through event, social, partner, venue, or ticketing links receive information directly from you under their own notices and terms.

• Infrastructure and hosting providers that deliver and secure the website.
• Resend, which delivers inquiry emails, and PostHog, which processes site analytics.
• Authorized Sip & Scale team members, relevant local chapter leads, event collaborators, or partners when needed to evaluate or fulfill the specific request you made.
• Professional advisers, law-enforcement bodies, regulators, courts, or a successor organization when disclosure is required by law, necessary to protect rights or safety, or part of a legitimate reorganization.

Sip & Scale is a global community, and our team and service providers may process information in countries other than the country where you live, including the United States and locations where relevant community teams operate.

Where applicable law requires safeguards for an international transfer, we use measures intended to provide an appropriate level of protection, such as an adequacy decision, contractual protections, or another lawful transfer mechanism. You may contact us for more information about applicable safeguards.

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the stated purpose, then delete or de-identify it unless law requires or permits longer retention. Our usual criteria are:

• Inquiry and application records are generally kept for up to 24 months after the last meaningful interaction. If a relationship is established, relevant records may be kept for that relationship and an appropriate legal, accounting, or dispute period afterward.
• Analytics and technical records are kept according to limited account or security-log retention settings and are periodically reviewed. Aggregated or de-identified information may be retained longer when it no longer identifies an individual.
• PostHog's pseudonymous analytics identifier remains in browser storage until it expires or you clear site data.

Depending on where you live and subject to legal exceptions, you may have the following rights:

Submit a request by emailing partnerships@sipnscale.com. We will respond within the period required by applicable law and explain any lawful reason we cannot fully complete a request. Authorized agents may submit requests where permitted, and you may appeal a refusal where applicable.

• Know whether and how we process your personal information and obtain a copy.
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Delete personal information or restrict how it is processed.
• Object to certain processing, including processing based on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent without affecting processing that was lawful before withdrawal and receive certain information in a portable format where required.
• Receive equal service and not be discriminated against for exercising a privacy right, and complain to an applicable data-protection authority.

For residents of the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, Philippines, Singapore, and other places with data-protection laws, the sections above provide the controller, purposes, legal bases, categories, recipients, transfers, retention criteria, and rights relevant to this website. You may also complain to your local data-protection authority.

For California residents, the categories collected during the preceding 12 months are identifiers, internet or network activity, professional information you provide, approximate geolocation, and correspondence or inferences contained in your inquiry. We collect and disclose those categories for the purposes and to the recipients described above. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by California privacy law, and we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for restricted purposes.

California's Shine the Light law permits certain requests about personal information disclosed for another party's direct-marketing purposes. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing.

We do not use personal information to make solely automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

The Website is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information online from children under 13. A person under the age of majority should use the Website and register for an event only with permission from a parent or legal guardian when required.

If you believe a child provided personal information contrary to this section, contact us so we can investigate and delete it where required.

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information, including access limits, encrypted transmission, input validation, and established service providers. No online system is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We may update this policy as our services or legal obligations change. We will post the revised version here and update the effective date.

Questions about this policy can be sent to partnerships@sipnscale.com.