Privacy Policy

ChurchLend, a DBA of Hightower Corp Inc. ("ChurchLend," "we," "us," or "our"), operates the website churchlend.com (the "Site"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our Site or use our services, including the Church Loan Readiness Assessment, calculators, newsletter, and contact forms.

By using our Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this policy, please do not access the Site.

Information you provide to us

We collect information that you voluntarily provide when using our services, including:

• Church profile information: church name, address, denomination, years established, congregation size, and pastor tenure
• Contact information: name, title, email address, and phone number
• Financial information: annual giving, operating expenses, property values, loan balances, cash reserves, and debt obligations
• Assessment results: readiness scores, factor breakdowns, and coaching recommendations
• Financial documents you upload: financial statements you send us to review and, if you go on to a full Loan Application, the documents that application asks for
• Form submissions: contact messages, partnership inquiries, interest forms, and newsletter sign-ups

Information collected automatically

When you visit our Site, we may automatically collect certain information, including:

• Device and browser information: IP address, browser type, operating system, and device type
• Usage data: pages visited, time spent on pages, referring URLs, and click patterns
• Analytics data: we use Google Analytics, and may use the Microsoft (Bing) UET tag, to understand how visitors interact with our Site

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain our services, including generating your readiness assessment
• Communicate with you about your assessment results and lending options
• Connect you with lending partners when you request a lender match
• Send notification emails and, if you opt in, our newsletter
• Improve our Site, services, and user experience
• Monitor and analyze usage trends and preferences
• Prevent fraudulent activity and ensure the security of our Site

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information only in the following circumstances:

• With your consent: when you explicitly request to be matched with a lending partner, we share relevant assessment data with that partner to facilitate the lending process. We never share financial documents you upload with a lender without your permission (see Uploaded Financial Documents below)
• Service providers: we use third-party services including Supabase (database), HubSpot (customer relationship management), Resend (email delivery), Cloudflare (hosting, security, and document storage, encrypted at rest), Google Analytics, and Microsoft Advertising (Bing analytics)
• Legal requirements: we may disclose information if required to do so by law or in response to valid legal process
• Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction

We implement appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect your information, including encryption of data in transit (HTTPS/TLS), encrypted storage of sensitive credentials, row-level security on our database, and input sanitization on all form submissions.

However, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you choose to, you can upload your church's financial documents to ChurchLend through our Site. This starts on our "Submit your financials" page, where you first sign a mutual confidentiality agreement with us and then upload eight financial statements for our team to review. If you go on to a full Loan Application, it also includes the documents that application asks for.

How we protect them

• A one-time code: to open the upload page, you enter a one-time code that we email to your church. This helps keep anyone else out.
• Encryption: your files are encrypted while they travel to us (in transit) and while they are stored (at rest).
• Limited access: only ChurchLend's team can see your files. We use them to review your church's finances and to help you with financing.

Kept confidential

We keep your documents confidential, and we do not sell them. We never share your financial documents with a lender without your permission.

You and ChurchLend sign a mutual confidentiality agreement (sometimes called an NDA) before you upload any financial statements. You sign it once, at the start, and it covers the documents you share with us from then on, including any you add in a full Loan Application. It is in place before anything could be shared with a lender.

We keep your information only as long as we need it, and for any longer time the law requires.

• Assessment answers and contact information: we keep these while they help us serve your church (for example, so you can come back to your results and we can follow up about financing), and until you ask us to delete them.
• Uploaded financial documents: we keep these only as long as we need them to help your church with financing, and for at least as long as the law requires us to keep records of a transaction. For example, California requires real estate brokers to keep transaction records for three years. After that, we delete them.

You can ask us to delete your information at any time using our deletion request form, or by emailing riley@churchlend.com. An advisor will call to confirm before anything is removed. We will delete your information except for records the law requires us to keep, and we delete those once the required time has passed.

We use analytics cookies (Google Analytics, and potentially the Microsoft/Bing UET tag) to collect anonymized usage data about how visitors interact with our Site. These tools use cookies to distinguish unique users and measure engagement. We do not use cookies for advertising or retargeting purposes.

You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, and you can control cookies through your browser settings. See our Cookies page for more detail.

When you give us your email address or phone number, we may send you transactional messages (such as your assessment results, magic-link sign-in, and replies to your inquiries) and, if you opt in, our newsletter.

Your consent in the assessment

Before you see your readiness score, the assessment asks you to check a box. By checking it, you agree that ChurchLend may contact you about your results and financing by email, and by phone at the number you gave us. Consent is not a condition of any purchase, and you can opt out at any time.

Email

The emails we send are:

• Your assessment results
• If your score is below 65, a short check-in email about once a month (no more than six, unless you ask us to keep sending them)
• Our monthly newsletter, if you subscribe
• Transactional messages, such as sign-in links and replies to your questions

Every marketing email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can opt out at any time. You may still receive essential transactional messages tied to a request you made.

Phone calls

A ChurchLend advisor may call the number you gave us to talk about your results and financing. If you do not want calls, tell the advisor on the call, email us at riley@churchlend.com, or call us at (888) 670-7594 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Pacific), and we will stop.

Text messages

ChurchLend does not currently send text messages. If that ever changes, we will ask for your separate consent before we send you any.

Global Privacy Control

We honor opt-out preference signals sent by your browser or a browser extension, including the Global Privacy Control (GPC), where required by law. See our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page for more.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate information
• Request deletion of your information
• Object to or restrict certain processing of your information
• Request portability of your information

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at riley@churchlend.com.

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), provides you with additional rights regarding your personal information. We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. See our California Privacy Rights page for the full detail on those rights and how to exercise them.

Our Site is not intended for individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can take appropriate action.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date. Your continued use of the Site after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at: