Privacy Notice

The short version

We collect only what we need to run the member portal, the Share Your Story survey, our follow-up form, and our partner form.
The survey never asks for your name or contact details. If you want us to follow up, that goes through a separate form that is never connected to your answers.
No cookies. No tracking. No analytics. We do not collect or store your IP address.
We do not sell your information or show ads.
Only the founder of Thistle & Ember can see member records and survey answers.
Your journal is encrypted. Once you set a journal phrase, no one but you can read it, including us.
You can delete your account at any time from inside the portal, and you can ask us to delete a survey response.
We keep information only as long as listed in How long we keep it, then delete it.

Who we are

The Thistle & Ember Project (“Thistle & Ember,” “we”) is a free resource portal for survivors in the Greater Kansas City metro, on both the Kansas and Missouri sides. Thistle & Ember is a small, independently run project. It is not a government agency, a law firm, a licensed counseling practice, or a crisis service.

Because we are not attorneys, licensed counselors, or a certified domestic violence program, the legal confidentiality protections that cover those services may not apply to what you share here. We explain below how we protect your information anyway.

What we collect

Member portal

A first name or nickname (no last name needed) and your email address.
A scrambled version of your PIN. We never store the PIN itself.
Your city, state, and county, and the situation you choose (for example, “I’ve left and need to stabilize”).
Optional sign-up answers, such as how you heard about us.
What you save or track: saved resources, checklist progress, goals, notes, and feedback.
Your journal, stored encrypted.
Basic activity dates, such as when you last signed in.

Share Your Story survey

Your answers. Every question after the first step is optional.
How you told us we may use your answers.
A random response code and the date and time you submitted.

The survey does not ask for your name, phone, or email. We do not store your IP address, device, browser, or location with your survey answers, and your survey is not connected to a member account. If you include identifying details in your written answers, like names or places, your response could be linked to you.

Follow-up form

If you want us to follow up about sharing your story or staying updated, you can use our separate follow-up form. It asks for a first name or alias, a phone number or email, and how and when it is safe to reach you. It is stored apart from survey answers and is never connected to them.

Partner form

The organization name, contact name, email, phone, and message you send us.

Visiting the website: no cookies, no tracking

No cookies. This site does not set cookies of any kind.
No tracking or analytics. We do not use Google Analytics, advertising pixels, session recording, or any other tracking tool.
No IP addresses collected. We do not collect, store, or log your IP address, and it is never saved with anything you submit. Like every website, our hosting provider (Netlify) technically receives your IP address in order to deliver pages to your device. All fonts and tools are served from our own site, so no other company receives it.
Small settings on your device only. Your browser keeps a few settings in its own storage so the site works the way you left it, such as your accessibility choices and whether you have already seen the welcome tour or survey invitation. These stay on your device, are never sent to us, and are cleared when you clear your browser data.

This site may still show up in your browser history. Use the Exit Now button, or press Esc twice, to leave quickly. A private or incognito window leaves less behind.

How we use it

To run your member account and save your progress.
To understand what survivors in Kansas and Missouri experience and need, and to advocate for better laws and support, using survey answers only in the ways each person chose.
To follow up with people who asked us to.
To respond to partner inquiries.
To keep the site working and secure.

When we share survey findings publicly, such as in reports or testimony to lawmakers, we share combined numbers and anonymous quotes only, and only from people who agreed. We do not report on any group so small that a person could be recognized.

Who can see it

Only the founder of Thistle & Ember can see member records, survey answers, and partner messages. We use a small number of service providers to run the site:

Airtable stores member records, survey responses, follow-up requests, and partner messages.
Netlify hosts the website.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your information. We do not share it with advertisers, data brokers, employers, landlords, or the person who harmed you.

We would only release information about you if the law requires it, such as a valid court order or subpoena. If that happens, we will release only what is legally required, push back where the law allows, and tell you when it is safe and legal to do so.

How it is protected

Everything sent between your device and our site is encrypted.
Your PIN is checked on our server, and repeated wrong guesses temporarily lock the account.
Your journal is encrypted. Once you set a journal phrase, it is locked with a key only you have.
Access to our data storage is limited to the founder and protected with two-step sign-in.
Survey answers and member accounts are stored separately.

No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects you, see Kansas and Missouri for what we will do.

How long we keep it

Information	How long we keep it
Member account, including your journal	Until you delete it. Accounts with no sign-in for 24 months are permanently deleted.
Follow-up form requests	Deleted once follow-up is finished, and no later than June 30, 2027.
Survey answers and written stories	Deleted no later than June 30, 2027, after the 2027 Kansas and Missouri legislative sessions.
Combined, anonymous survey statistics	Kept, because they cannot identify anyone.
Partner messages	Two years after our last contact.
Website hosting records	Kept by our hosting provider under its own short retention period.

When information is deleted, it is removed from our records. Our storage provider may keep backup copies for a short time before they are permanently erased.

Your choices

Delete your member account

Sign in, open My data, and choose Delete my account. This permanently deletes your account and everything in it, including your journal, right away. We cannot undo it.

Get a copy of your member data

Sign in, open My data, and choose Download my data. The file saves to your device, so only download it if no one else can see your files.

Delete a survey response

After you submit the survey, you can choose to see your response code. Email that code to us and we will delete the response within 30 days. Because the survey is anonymous, we cannot find your response without the code.

Change how your answers are used

Email us with your response code and tell us what you want changed. We will update it within 30 days.

Stop follow-up

Email us from the address you gave on the follow-up form, or tell us when we contact you, and we will delete your follow-up request.

Keeping requests safe

To protect you, we only act on member account requests made from inside the portal or from the email address on the account. We will never ask for your PIN or journal phrase.

Kansas and Missouri

Thistle & Ember serves people on both sides of the Kansas City metro. As of this notice, neither Kansas nor Missouri has a comprehensive consumer privacy law. We offer the choices above to everyone, wherever you live.

If a security breach exposes personal information, we will notify the people affected without unreasonable delay, and follow the notice requirements of the Kansas breach notification law (K.S.A. 50-7a01 et seq.) and the Missouri breach notification law (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 407.1500), including notice to state authorities when those laws require it.

Age

Thistle & Ember is for adults 18 and older. If we learn we have information from someone under 18, we delete it.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and the date below. We will not use information you already gave us in a new way without asking you first.

Contact

Questions or requests: thistleandemberproject@gmail.com. We respond within 30 days.

Thistle & Ember is not a crisis service, and no one monitors this site in real time. If you are in immediate danger and it is safe to do so, call 911. For confidential support 24/7, call or text the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.

Last updated October 2026.