Privacy Policy & Disclosures

Overview

American Freedom Honors is a program of VOIEF — Veterans of Operation Iraqi Enduring Freedom, a Texas-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization (EIN: 26-3853907). This website, located at americanfreedomhonors.com, is operated by VOIEF to promote the American Freedom Honors Awards Gala and to facilitate veteran nominations, Wall of Honor name plate orders, partnership inquiries, and general communications.

We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. We collect only what we need, use it only for the purposes described in this policy, and do not sell your personal information to anyone — ever.

Information We Collect

We collect information you voluntarily provide to us through the forms on this website. The information collected depends on which form you use.

• Hero's name, rank, branch of service, and service dates
• Award category selected
• Written description of the hero's service and qualifications
• Veteran's optional contact information (phone and email)
• Nominator's name, phone, email, and relationship to the veteran

• Hero's name, rank, branch of service, and service dates
• Submitter's name, phone, email, and mailing address

• Company name and industry
• Contact person's name, email, and phone number
• Partnership tier of interest
• Optional message or questions

• Any information you voluntarily share when contacting us directly by email or phone

When you visit our website, certain technical information is automatically collected by our hosting and security infrastructure, including your IP address, browser type, pages visited, and approximate geographic location. This information is used for security monitoring, performance optimization, and spam prevention only.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information you provide solely for the following purposes:

• To process veteran nominations — reviewing nominations and contacting nominators if additional information is required
• To fulfill Wall of Honor name plate orders — contacting you to arrange payment and coordinate engraving and delivery of your hero's name plate
• To follow up on partnership inquiries — contacting interested partners to discuss partnership details and arrange agreements
• To respond to general inquiries — answering questions submitted through contact forms or direct email
• To send confirmation emails — acknowledging receipt of form submissions
• To protect website security — using technical data to identify and prevent spam, fraud, and malicious activity
• To improve our website — using anonymized technical data to understand how visitors use our site

We do not use your information for marketing, advertising, or any purpose beyond what is described above without your explicit consent.

How We Share Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to any third party. We may share your information only in the following limited circumstances:

• Within VOIEF — Your information is shared with VOIEF staff and volunteers involved in the American Freedom Honors program on a need-to-know basis
• Service providers — We use trusted third-party services to operate this website (see Section 7). These providers process data on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes
• Legal requirements — We may disclose information if required to do so by law, court order, or government authority
• Nomination review committee — Veteran nomination information is shared with the American Freedom Honors selection committee for the purpose of reviewing and selecting honorees

Payment Processing

This website does not currently collect payment information online. Wall of Honor name plate orders and partnership agreements require a $100.00 donation and partnership fee respectively. Payment is arranged offline — directly between you and a member of our team — after your form submission is received and verified.

When an online payment system is implemented in the future, this policy will be updated to reflect how payment information is handled. We will never store credit card numbers or sensitive financial information on our servers.

VOIEF accepts checks, money orders, or other payment methods as arranged with our team. Checks may be mailed to: American Freedom Honors, 1303 W. Pipeline Rd #152, Hurst, TX 76053.

Cookies & Tracking

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to enable certain site features and improve performance. We do not use cookies for advertising or cross-site tracking.

• Essential cookies — Required for the website to function properly, including WordPress session cookies for logged-in administrators
• Performance cookies — Used by LiteSpeed Cache to improve page load times by storing cached versions of pages
• Security cookies — Used by Wordfence to identify and block malicious visitors and protect against brute force attacks
• Analytics cookies — We do not currently use third-party analytics services such as Google Analytics

You may disable cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect some functionality of the website. As this is a nonprofit informational site with no personalized content or e-commerce, disabling cookies will not significantly impact your experience as a visitor.

Third-Party Services

This website uses the following third-party services to operate. Each service has its own privacy policy governing how it handles data.

• Cloudflare — Content delivery network and security provider. Cloudflare may process your IP address and request data to deliver content and protect against threats. Cloudflare Privacy Policy
• WordPress — Our website is built on WordPress, an open-source content management platform. Automattic Privacy Policy
• Contact Form 7 — Used to power our submission forms. Form data is transmitted to our email and stored temporarily in our WordPress database. CF7 Privacy Policy
• Akismet — Used to filter spam from form submissions. Akismet may process submitted content and metadata. Akismet Privacy Policy
• Wordfence — Security plugin that logs IP addresses of visitors for threat detection purposes. Wordfence Privacy Policy
• Google Fonts — We load fonts from Google's servers. Google may collect IP address and browser data when fonts are requested. Google Privacy Policy
• LiteSpeed Cache — Caching and performance optimization plugin. Stores cached page data and may set browser cookies.
• Smush — Image optimization plugin that may communicate with WPMU Dev servers for image processing.
• Yoast SEO — Search engine optimization plugin. Does not collect visitor personal data. Yoast Privacy Policy
• GoDaddy — Our website hosting provider. GoDaddy's servers store all website data including form submissions. GoDaddy Privacy Policy

Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected, or as required by law.

• Nomination submissions — Retained for the duration of the nomination and selection process. Records of honorees may be retained indefinitely for historical purposes with appropriate care
• Wall of Honor orders — Retained until the order is fulfilled and the name plate is delivered. Mailing address information is deleted once delivery is confirmed
• Partnership inquiries — Retained for the duration of partnership discussions and for the duration of any active partnership agreement
• Email correspondence — Retained in our email systems according to standard email retention practices
• Security logs — IP address logs retained by Wordfence and Cloudflare for up to 30 days for security purposes

You may request deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting us (see Section 14). We will honor deletion requests to the extent permitted by law and operational necessity.

Data Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously and implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect it, including:

• SSL/TLS encryption on all pages of this website (HTTPS)
• Wordfence firewall and malware scanning
• Cloudflare DDoS protection and threat mitigation
• Regular website backups via UpdraftPlus
• Restricted administrative access to our WordPress dashboard
• Spam filtering via Akismet on all forms

No method of data transmission or storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.

Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right to access — You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Right to correction — You may request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete information
• Right to deletion — You may request that we delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions
• Right to withdraw consent — Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time
• Right to object — You may object to certain types of processing of your personal data

Texas Residents: Under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), Texas residents have specific rights regarding their personal data. To exercise any of these rights please contact us using the information in Section 14. We will respond to verifiable requests within a reasonable timeframe as required by applicable law.

To exercise any of your rights, contact us at kurt@americanfreedomhonors.com. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request.

Children's Privacy

This website is not directed to children under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has submitted personal information to us, please contact us immediately at kurt@americanfreedomhonors.com and we will take steps to delete that information promptly.

External Links

This website contains links to external websites including VOIEF.org, GoDaddy, and third-party donation processors. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any external site you visit through links on our website.

Our donation link directs to secure.qgiv.com, a third-party donation processing platform operated by Qgiv, Inc. Any donation information you submit on that platform is governed by Qgiv's own privacy policy, not this one.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or for other operational reasons. When we make changes we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.

We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Your continued use of this website after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. For material changes that significantly affect how we handle your personal information, we will make reasonable efforts to notify users.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, please contact us:

• Organization: VOIEF — Veterans of Operation Iraqi Enduring Freedom
• Program: American Freedom Honors
• Contact: Kurt Schwab, President
• Email: kurt@americanfreedomhonors.com
• Phone: (817) 896-0040
• Mailing Address: 1303 W. Pipeline Rd #152, Hurst, TX 76053

We take privacy concerns seriously and will respond to your inquiry as promptly as possible.