PRIVACY POLICY

Effective date: November 10, 2026

‍

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

‍

This policy explains how Experiment Foundation collects, uses and shares personal information in the Field Building Accelerator ("FBA" or the "Program"), including when your application is reviewed by judges and studied by an independent research team.

Experiment Foundation ("we," "us") is a Delaware nonprofit corporation and 501(c)(3) public charity based in Berkeley, California. We are responsible for the personal information described here.

This policy covers anyone who applies to, is nominated for, participates in, or is considered for the Program, including people who are not selected (together, "Applicants" or "you"). It also covers people named in an application, such as references and collaborators. If you give us information about another person, you confirm that you are permitted to share it with us for the purposes described in this policy. It supplements the general privacy policy at [link to Experiment Foundation / Experiment.com privacy policy]; where the two differ on the Program, this policy controls.

‍

2. Information we collect

‍

We collect what you give us in your application and during the Program, what judges and staff record about it, and limited technical data from our websites.

• Identity and contact: Name, email, phone, mailing address, institution, title, location. Source: you.
• Application content: Proposed field, essays, project plans, CV or résumé, publications, links, references. Source: you.
• Background (optional): Career stage, discipline, demographic information you choose to provide, such as gender, race, and ethnicity. Source: you.
• Evaluation records: Judges' scores, comments, rankings, eligibility and selection decisions. Source: judges and our staff.
• Program participation: Grant amounts, milestones, progress reports, survey responses, event attendance, communications with us. Source: you and our staff.
• Payment and tax: Bank details, tax forms (e.g., W-9), payee information — selected participants only. Source: you.
• Research-study data: Study surveys, interviews, and outcome measures collected by the research team (see Section 5). Source: you and the research team.
• Public information: Publications, citations, grants and public profiles, used to verify and track outcomes. Source: public sources.
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, pages visited, cookies. Source: our websites and service providers.

Demographic questions are always optional. Not answering will not affect how your application is judged. [Confirm: judges never see demographic answers.]

‍

3. How we use information

‍

We use your information to run the Program, to have it evaluated, and to meet our legal and funder obligations. Specifically, we use it to:

• Review eligibility and manage the application and selection process.
• Have applications evaluated by judges (Section 4).
• Make grants, pay participants, and keep tax and accounting records.
• Support participants with events, introductions and resources.
• Enable the independent research study of the Program (Section 5).
• Report to the Program's funders as described in Section 6.
• Communicate with you about the Program and related Experiment Foundation opportunities. You can opt out of non-essential messages at any time.
• Comply with law, protect our rights, and prevent fraud or misuse.

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

‍

4. Sharing with judges

‍

Your application, including your name and institution, is shared with the judges who evaluate it. Judges are scientists, field experts and other reviewers we select; they may not be Experiment Foundation employees.

• What judges see: your application content, identity and contact details, CV, and references' names. Judges do not see payment, tax or optional demographic information.
• What judges must do: every judge signs a confidentiality and conflict-of-interest agreement. They may use your materials only to evaluate applications, may access them only as needed for that review, may not share them, and must recuse themselves where they have a conflict.
• After review: judges must delete or return any copies they downloaded or made when their review ends. Their scores and comments are kept by us as evaluation records.
• Feedback to you: we may share judges' comments with you without identifying the judge.

We cannot guarantee that a judge will never misuse information despite these obligations. If you believe a judge has a conflict with you, tell us at [contact email] before the review period begins.

‍

5. Sharing with the research team studying the Program

‍

The Program is being studied by an independent team of metaresearchers, and your application and Program data will be shared with them. The study is a condition of the Program's funding and helps answer whether and how this kind of support builds new scientific fields.

Who they are. The study is reviewed by Carnegie Mellon University's Institutional Review Board (IRB), protocol STUDY2026_00000266. The research team is independent of Experiment Foundation and makes its own decisions about analysis and publication.

What we share.

• Application content and judges' scores and decisions, for all applicants, including those not selected.
• Program participation records for selected participants.
• Contact details, so the research team can invite you to surveys or interviews.
• We do not share bank details, tax IDs, or [other excluded categories].

What the research team may collect directly. Surveys, interviews, and public outcome data such as publications, grants, citations and collaborations, over a follow-up period of up to 2 years.

How they must protect it. The research team receives data under a written data-use agreement. It requires them to:

• Use the data only for the approved study and related academic research.
• Store it securely, limit access to named study personnel, and follow their IRB protocol.
• Not attempt to re-identify de-identified data.
• Publish results only in aggregate or de-identified form, so that no individual can reasonably be identified, unless you give separate written consent.
• Delete or de-identify identifiable data at the end of the study, as their protocol requires.

Your choices. Your decision about the research will not affect how your application is judged or your selection. Application and selection data are shared for all applicants as part of the Program's design; you may opt out of direct contact from the research team at any time by emailing mcollis@cmu.edu. You can withdraw from future data collection at any time, but data already analyzed or de-identified may not be removable.

For questions about the study or your rights as a research participant, contact Manuela Collis at mcollis@cmu.edu or Carnegie Mellon University IRB (irb-review@andrew.cmu.edu, +1 412-268-1901).

‍

6. Other sharing

‍

Beyond judges and researchers, we share personal information only in these limited cases:

• Service providers that host, process or support the Program on our behalf (e.g., application platform, cloud storage, email, payroll and payments, accounting, and AI-assisted tools if used), under contracts that limit their use of it to serving us.
• Program funders, in aggregate or de-identified reports. We share identifiable information with a funder only for selected participants (e.g., name, project title and grant amount), or as the funding agreement requires and with notice to you.
• Public announcements of selected participants' names, institutions, fields and project summaries. If photographs or recordings are made at Program events, we will tell you in advance, and you may ask not to be included.
• Legal and safety reasons: to comply with law, subpoena or court order, including tax reporting; to respond to government requests; to protect rights, safety or property; or to investigate fraud.
• Organizational changes, such as a merger or transfer of the Program to a successor nonprofit, subject to this policy.
• With your consent or at your direction.

‍

7. Eligibility and where we process data

‍

The Program is for US-based applicants, and we process data in the United States. If EU or UK data protection law applies to you, we rely on these legal bases:individuals who reside in the United States

• Contract / pre-contract steps: processing your application and administering a grant.
• Legitimate interests: evaluating applications with judges, running and improving the Program, and enabling the independent study of whether it works. We have balanced these interests against your rights and apply the safeguards in Sections 4 and 5.
• Scientific research: sharing with the research team, with appropriate safeguards (GDPR Article 89).
• Consent: optional demographic information and any research activities that require it. You may withdraw consent at any time.
• Legal obligation: tax, accounting and charity-law records.

If your data is transferred from the EEA or UK to the US, we use Standard Contractual Clauses or another lawful transfer mechanism.

‍

8. Retention and security

‍

We keep Program data only as long as needed for the Program, the research study and our legal obligations.

• Applications not selected: 3 years after the selection decision, or until the research study ends if later
• Participant records: [7] years after the grant closes
• Grant, payment and tax records: As required by tax and charity law, including records of grants to individuals (generally [7] years)
• Judges' downloaded copies: Judges must delete at the end of each review cycle
• Research-team data: As set by the IRB protocol and data-use agreement

We protect personal information with access controls, encryption in transit, two-factor authentication on core systems, and confidentiality agreements for judges and staff. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we will notify you as the law requires.

‍

9. Your rights and choices

‍

You can ask to access, correct or delete your information, or to stop certain uses, by emailing support@experiment.foundation. We will respond within 45 days (30 days where EU/UK law applies) and may need to verify your identity.

• Everyone: access, correct, update, or withdraw your application; opt out of non-essential emails; opt out of direct contact from the research team (see Section 5).
• California residents: as a nonprofit, we are generally not subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act, but we will honor requests to know, delete, and correct your personal information and to limit our use of sensitive personal information, as described in this policy. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in California law, and we will not discriminate against you for using your rights.
• EU/UK residents: rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, and to withdraw consent; and the right to complain to your data protection authority.

Some requests have limits. We may keep records the law requires. Data already shared with the research team in de-identified form, or already used in analysis, may not be deletable, as permitted by the research team's IRB protocol and applicable law. Access requests do not extend to the identity of individual judges or to judges' comments where sharing them would identify the judge. Deleting your data after judging has begun may mean withdrawing your application.

‍

10. Age, changes and contact

‍

Age. The Program is open only to people 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes. We will post updates here with a new effective date. If we make a material change, including to how we share your information with judges or researchers, we will notify applicants by email before it takes effect, and we will not apply a material change to information collected before the change without your consent.

Contact.

Experiment Foundation — Field Building Accelerator

Attn: Privacy

2777 9th St, #106, Berkeley, CA 94710

support@experiment.foundation