Read it. Hold us to it.

Solel International is a Texas 501(c)(3) cultural and educational nonprofit based in Houston, Texas. This policy explains what personal information the Solel Numa website collects, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. It is written to be read, not skimmed past.

The short version

• Open door, locked vault. Anyone can walk in and see the public work of the Corps. What you tell us privately stays private, and the parts of your information that are public are only the parts listed below.
• We do not sell your personal information. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not ever.
• Your information stays in-house. Solel does not share your name or personal details with anyone. Program funders receive totals and program IDs, never names; stories and photos are shared only with the signed consent form. The only companies that handle it work for us, and they are named below. We use your information for a campaign or a newsletter only with your permission, and we tell you what we will use it for before we use it.
• Your card number never reaches our servers. Payments run through Stripe.
• You can see, update and correct your information, or withdraw your consent, at any time. Contact details are at the end of this policy.

Who this covers

This policy covers visitors, members (Numanites), donors, people who give or receive Numanite hearts, and people who submit stories, portfolio pieces, shows or survey answers on the site. Our Code of Conduct requires Solel employees to protect confidential information learned through their work, including personnel matters, financial records, donor information, participant information and case records, and to share it only with authorized persons who need to know it or when disclosure is legally required. Members, volunteers and trustees also agree to the Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality agreement and the Community Code of Conduct when they join.

What we collect, and why

When you join

At Join we ask for your full name, preferred name (optional), email, phone, city, state and country. We also ask, some of them optional, for pronouns, neighborhood, your birthday (month and day, optional), the year you were born (required), your primary and secondary path, skills, experience level, website or Instagram handle, how much time you can give and when, and a few personal questions such as your heritage, cultural or sacred affiliations, and what brought you to Solel. You also tick the Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality agreement, the Community Code of Conduct and the Volunteer Commitment, and trace your name as a signature; we keep the signature image with your record.

We use this to create your account, run the Corps, and match you with buddies, missions and programs. Your email is used for account and event coordination, not marketing. Your phone is used for event-day coordination.

We ask for the year you were born so we can tell whether a parent or legal guardian needs to say yes before your account goes live (see "Young people"). Your birth year is private: it is never shown on your profile, on the Member Wall or to other members. If you are under 18, we also ask for a parent or guardian's name, email and whether they are your parent or legal guardian. (Draft — counsel review.)

What other people can see

• The public can see a Member Wall card and public profile: your preferred name (never your legal name), profile photo, rank, path, city and neighborhood, and a count of your published work. The Member Wall never shows your email, phone, birthday, legal name, payment details, wallet, join answers or availability.
• Signed-in members can see a "birthdays this week" list showing a member's name, birthday (month and day) and star sign. Members can also see who is online, subject to that member's own privacy setting (see "Online presence").
• Trustees and staff can see the information they need to run the Corps, for example your join answers and your interest in leadership roles. They are bound by the confidentiality rules described above.

Payments, Numanite hearts and donations

Card and bank payments are handled by Stripe, our payment processor. When you add funds to your wallet, give a heart as a guest, or donate through a Stripe payment page, you enter your card details on Stripe's page. Your full card number never touches our servers. We receive confirmation of the payment, the amount, and the name and email you gave.

• A Numanite heart is worth 10 cents. When a heart goes to a creator, 70% goes to the creator and 30% stays with Solel.
• To receive payouts, a member sets up a Stripe Connect account. Stripe collects the identity and bank details it needs directly from you. We store your Stripe account reference and status, and a record that you confirmed you are 18 or older.
• Guests who give a heart give us an email address and, optionally, a display name.
• We keep a record of hearts given and received, wallet balances and payouts, because we have to account for money and for tax and audit purposes.

Messages

Direct messages are private between the two members in the conversation. You can block any member; a block works both ways, so neither of you can message the other and you will not receive notifications from someone you have blocked. Messages are stored on our servers and are not end-to-end encrypted. If you are offline, we may email you a single summary notice of unread messages (at most one every 30 minutes), and you can control notifications in your settings. We do not read your messages in the ordinary course. Access to stored data is limited to authorized people, and could be needed to keep the community safe, respond to a report of harm, or meet a legal obligation.

Online presence

The green "online" dot shows other members that you are on the site. You decide who sees it: everyone, members only (the default), or only your buddies, and you can turn "Show me as online" off completely. Signed-out visitors never see anyone's status. We store only whether you were recently active, not where you are.

Signing in, devices and two-step sign-in

Each browser or device you sign in on gets its own session, so you can see where you are signed in and sign out any one device, every other device, or all of them. For each session we keep a short device label (for example "Chrome on iPhone"), when it was created and last used, and a one-way hash of your browser details and a daily-salted one-way hash of your network address. We do not store your IP address or your location. Sessions expire after 30 days of inactivity and renew as you use them. Your password or passphrase is stored only as a salted hash.

You can turn on two-step sign-in with an authenticator app. Its secret is stored encrypted, and backup codes are stored only as hashes. When someone signs in on a new device we email you an alert with a one-click link to sign that session out if it was not you.

Photos and uploads

When you upload a photo — a profile photo, a story cover or a portfolio image — we re-encode it as a new image, which removes hidden camera and location data (EXIF and GPS). Videos are stored as you upload them, so please check a video does not show anything you would not want to share. Please only upload photos and video of people who have agreed to it.

Stories, portfolio pieces and Solel TV

Stories, portfolio pieces and shows you submit are yours, and they become public when they are published. They may be reviewed by trustees before they go live. If you tell someone else's story or show someone's likeness, you are responsible for having their permission. Where we collect a story, image, video or personal data for a specific campaign, we ask for a Story, Image and Media Release first, which explains exactly how the material may be used and by whom.

Music you upload

Members can upload their own music to their profile.

• Only upload music you own or have the right to share. When you upload, you tick a box to say so. We keep a record of when you ticked it and which wording of the box you ticked.
• You are responsible for what you upload. If a track turns out not to be yours to share, that is your responsibility, not Solel International's.
• You can take your music down yourself, at any time. Deleting a track from your profile removes its audio file from our servers and takes it out of every playlist. Its plays stay in the totals, and we keep a short record that it existed (its title, its play total and your ownership tick) so that counts and payments that already happened still add up.
• What else we keep. The title, credit line and optional cover picture you give it. We strip hidden tags (names, comments and the like) from audio files and re-encode cover pictures, which removes camera and location data. If a track has an identifiable voice, we also keep the signed Media & Story Release (name, age, contact details, location and signature) as a private file. A trustee reviews your first track before it goes live, and published tracks appear on your public profile.
• Anyone can report a track. Members and guests can report a track, and a rights owner can send a copyright notice without an account. Our trustees review the reports, and a track can be hidden while they decide.
• Play counts are totals, and nobody is shown who listened. Artists and other members see only how many plays a track has. The trustees who check for fake plays see coded numbers, never names. If you listen without an account, your browser keeps a random device number in a cookie (up to 30 days, used only for music) so plays can be counted fairly and playlists you make stay on that device; it holds no name or email.

Surveys

Some surveys are for members and some are open to the public. Public surveys do not ask about income, salary, donation amounts, bank information or any other financial detail. Survey answers are used to understand and improve our programs and are reported in aggregate unless a survey tells you otherwise.

Activity on the site

To understand what is working, we record events such as page views, searches, shares and clicks on the site, and actions like signing in or giving a heart. When you are signed in, an event is tied to your account. Otherwise it is tied to a random visit identifier stored in your browser. Network addresses are never stored as they are: they are turned into a hash that changes every day, so we can catch abuse without keeping your IP address. We do not use advertising trackers.

Cookies and browser storage

The site does not set tracking cookies. It uses your browser's local storage to keep you signed in, remember preferences (for example your map view or TV mode), and hold the random visit identifier above. You can clear this in your browser at any time; you will be signed out.

A few features contact other services when you use them, and those services see your network address as they would on any website: web fonts from Google Fonts, map tiles from OpenStreetMap or Esri, embedded videos (YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode, and Vimeo), and Stripe on payment pages.

Email

We send transactional email: verification, sign-in and new-device alerts, account recovery, message summaries, and event and mission coordination. Your email is not sold or used for advertising.

Newsletters. The Join form has a box for the Solel newsletter. It starts unticked. We use your email address for a newsletter only if you tick it, and we keep a note of when you did. If you do not tick it, we will not send you one. We do not send a newsletter today. (Draft — counsel review.)

Young people

Anyone can ask to join, whatever their age. If you are under 18, a parent or legal guardian has to say yes before your account goes live. At Join we ask for the year you were born. If it shows you are under 18, we also ask for a parent or guardian's name, email and whether they are your parent or your legal guardian, and we email them a one-time link to review your request and say yes or no. (Draft — counsel review.)

• Until they say yes, your account is not active. You cannot sign in, and nothing about you is shown to anyone. (Draft — counsel review.)
• If they say no, or nobody answers within 14 days, we delete what you entered, including their details. (Draft — counsel review.)
• Their details are kept private. Only Solel trustees and the founder can see a parent or guardian's name and email, to deal with that request. (Draft — counsel review.)
• Payouts need 18 or older. Setting up payouts, or being monetized, requires you to be at least 18.

Our campaign releases also ask for the guardian's name and details when the person interviewed, photographed or filmed is under 18. If you are a parent or guardian and believe a young person's information should not be on the site, contact us and we will act on it.

Program attendance and consent records are kept for 8 years, as described in "How long we keep information".

Who we share information with

Solel keeps your information in-house and does not share your name or personal details with anyone. We do not sell it either. The only times information leaves our own systems are these:

• Companies that handle information for us. A few companies process information on our behalf so the site can run: Stripe for payments, Google for sending our email, and our hosting provider for storing the site and its data. They work for us, and they may use your information only to provide their service to us.
• AI tools, when they are switched on. A few optional tools can ask an AI service (OpenAI, Perplexity or Google) to draft or summarize text: the pitch helper, document reader and contract translator on the project intake page, the story-writing tools, cover-picture drafting, and the summary made when an internal case is filed. When one runs, the text you gave that tool (for a cover picture, the story's title and summary) goes to the AI service to get the result back, and nothing else from your account does. A tool that is not switched on works offline and sends nothing.
• Program funders and consent. Program funders receive totals and program IDs, never names; stories and photos are shared only with the signed consent form.
• When the law requires it, or to protect people from serious harm.

Campaigns and newsletters. We use your information for a specific campaign, or to send you a newsletter, only with your permission. We tell you what we will use it for before we use it.

Anything you choose to publish (a story, a portfolio piece, a show, your public profile) is public. Content that has already been published or shared outside our direct control may not be fully removable.

How long we keep information

Your data is stored securely and retained only as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described here, unless a longer period is required by law, or until you withdraw your consent. Sign-in sessions expire after 30 days of inactivity. Financial records are kept as long as accounting, tax and audit rules require. Where practical we archive rather than erase, so that a mistake can be reversed, and we delete on request as described below.

Program attendance records. When a young person takes part in a Solel program paid for by a grant, such as Play Coll3ctive, we keep their attendance records, their consent record and the signed sign-in sheets for 8 years, because the grant agreement requires it. We keep them even if the young person's guardian, or a coach, deletes their Numa account. They are kept under the young person's program ID, seen only by the Head Coach and the people who check the program's records, and never shown publicly. Reports to the program's funders use program IDs and totals, never names.

Your rights and choices

You can:

• See and update most of your information yourself in your profile, privacy and notification settings.
• Control who sees your online status, see where you are signed in, sign devices out, and turn on two-step sign-in.
• Download your information yourself: in your account's Security settings, "Download my data" gives you a copy of what we hold about you (up to three times a day).
• Delete your account yourself: "Delete my account" (confirmed with your password) removes your profile details and sign-ins and hides everything you published. Records of payments and payouts are kept with your name removed, because payout and tax records must be kept. Program attendance and consent records are also kept, under the young person's program ID, for the 8 years the program's grant requires. If you delete by mistake, contact us within 14 days and we can restore the account.
• Ask us to correct anything you can't change yourself, or for help with any of the above, at the contact below.
• Withdraw your consent at any time. Your participation is voluntary and is not tied to your right to take part in any Solel project, Numa Corps activity or community service. When you withdraw, we stop future use and remove your data, story, images or videos from the databases and channels we control. Please include your full name, and the campaign if you know it.

How we protect information

We use encrypted connections, store passwords and codes as hashes, encrypt two-step secrets, limit access to stored data to authorized people, rate-limit sign-in and messaging, and keep records of important account actions. No system is perfectly secure, so if you think your account has been misused, sign out of all devices and contact us right away. Solel and our partners follow safeguarding and ethical-communication guidelines to protect your dignity, privacy and safety. If you see misconduct or a privacy problem, tell us. Reports are handled confidentially, and you may remain anonymous.

Changes to this policy

This policy is versioned. When it changes, the earlier version stays available in the Policy Library, and you will see when it changed, why, and from what. If a change is significant, we will ask members to review it again.

Contact

Solel International, Houston, Texas. Email contact@solelint.org with any privacy question or request: seeing, correcting or deleting your information, or withdrawing your consent.

All gifts are final. Donations to Solel International, Numanite hearts and wallet top-ups are final and are not refunded.

If something went wrong

If you were charged in error on our side, or a payment was made without your permission, write to nashford@solelint.org with the date and amount. We will look into it and make it right.

Class seats

A class seat is a purchase, not a gift. If a class fills before your payment comes through, or the class is cancelled, your seat payment is refunded.