Privacy Policy
Last updated: 21 July 2026
Welcome to www.us4bg.org
Thank you for visiting our website. We, the America for Bulgaria Foundation (“the Foundation”, ”ABF”, “we”, “our” or “us”), are committed to protecting your privacy and personal data. We continue and strengthen our commitment to provide adequate protection of any personal information you give us. The present updated version of our Privacy Policy is intended to comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), effective from 25.05.2018, and the Personal Data Protection Act of the Republic of Bulgaria.
The Website uses cookies as indicated below and described in detail in our Cookies Policy.
Who are we?
The America for Bulgaria Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in the United States of America, Delaware State, under number 7755058. It carries out its activity on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria through its branch with UIC: 175562698, with address: Sofia 1000, 6 Malyovitsa Str. Our contact details for the purposes of this Policy are as follows: [email protected].
Why do we need you to read our Privacy Policy?
Please, take time to read the following Privacy Policy carefully. It highlights a number of questions, including what personal information we collect about you and the purposes for which we process it.
By using www.us4bg.org or our landing pages (the "Website"), irrespective of whether you are just visiting it to make yourself familiar with us and our activity, use it to apply for funding, submit application/ project proposal for participation in ABF’s announced requests for proposals for funding of projects, apply for participation in ABF’s fellowship programs, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, or send us a message by completing the contact form, you share information which may contain personal data.
In the course of performing some of the above actions, you may be required to provide certain personal information, such as name, address, mobile number, e-mail, etc. You are entitled to choose whether or not to provide us with your personal data. In the event you decide not to share them with us, we will not be able to process your application, contact you and/or assist you with information.
We reserve the right to amend and update this Policy from time to time. In such cases, the current version will always be available on our Website and, when necessary, you will be notified about this in due form (e.g. by email). The date of the last update will be indicated at the top of the Privacy Policy.
Please note that the practices described in this Privacy Policy apply only to information you provide us when using our Website. These terms do not apply to information you have provided on pages maintained by other organizations.
What information do we collect about you?
| Purposes of the processing of personal data | Category of personal data | Legal basis for the processing |
|---|---|---|
| Information That You Provide To Us
(as a data subject or as an organization* providing personal data of its representatives, employees, and contact persons) |
||
| Reviewing and processing your inquiries and messages submitted through our contact form, by email, or as a comment (where applicable), and sending a personalized response and documents if necessary. | Contact details (name, email, address, phone number) | Legitimate interest – the necessity to conduct communication activities in order to maintain and develop the activities of the Foundation. |
| Communication and administration of projects funded by us (e.g. grants and/or microgrants), evaluation of their results and accountability regarding their implementation. |
|
|
| Review of applications and documents for a competition or scholarship program; contacting you using the provided contact details and responding to your questions related to the competition or program; inviting you to an individual meeting or interview as part of the evaluation and selection process for projects approved for participation. |
|
Taking steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract. |
| Evaluation of applications and allocation of funds; conducting and administering the competition, project, or program |
|
|
| Sending our electronic newsletter | Consent (until withdrawn) | |
| Conducting surveys, questionnaires, discussion panels, interview for an article, and analyzing their results |
|
Legitimate interest – promoting the activities of the Foundation and maintaining transparency, accountability, and reputation as a funding organization. |
| Conducting and administering our programs, projects, activities, initiatives and/or events and ensuring your participation in them; verifying the information you provide in order to confirm your identity and prevent or investigate misuse and violations related to these events, activities and/or programs. |
|
|
| Communication regarding events, webinars, programs and projects for which you have expressed interest in participating, as well as the administration of these initiatives. | Contact information |
|
| Informing you about current activities and programs of the Foundation through letters, invitations to events, online meetings, webinars, surveys and studies, closed groups in social networks, for the purpose of improving, optimizing and developing our activities or developing new programs in which you may participate; sharing your contact details with partners and informing you about changes in our organization and activities. |
|
Legitimate interest – the necessity to maintain active communication with our community and to promote and develop the activities and mission of the Foundation. |
| Information We Receive About You | ||
| Ensuring the proper functioning of the website; guaranteeing its security, efficiency and usefulness; obtaining aggregated statistical data regarding navigation on the website (e.g. number of visits, most visited sections of the website, etc.). |
System data**, such as:
|
|
| Facilitating access to information and communication | When you use your profile on online platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others to access the Website, we may process personal data that you have made publicly available on your profile. | Legitimate interest – facilitating access to communication and publicly available information. |
| Information We Create About You | ||
| Analysis and evaluation of the impact and results of projects, programs and/or activities of the Foundation |
|
Legitimate interest – related to our reporting obligations in accordance with internal and external audits and promoting the activities and fulfillment of the Foundation’s mission and objectives. |
| Photo and video recording of Foundation events, programs, initiatives and/or projects |
|
|
| Creation of content for our newsletter, the Foundation’s website and/or social media channels |
|
Legitimate interest – promoting the Foundation’s activities and maintaining an internal archive. |
* We rely on you to have duly notified your employees and third parties whose personal data you provide to us of the transfer of their data to the Foundation in advance and to have ensured that this transfer is carried out on a valid legal basis. However, the Foundation reserves the right, in case of doubt or routine inspection, to request evidence from you of the fulfillment of these obligations.
** For more information about the collection and use of system data and our use of cookies, please read our Cookie Policy, available on our Website.
How do we process the data?
ABF does not make automatic decision-making or profiling based on the processed data. We have taken appropriate data protection measures and have procedures and technologies in place to maintain the safety of all personal data from the point of collection to the point of erasure. Personal data is only available to ABF’s authorized employees in accordance with the “necessity to know” principle, who have committed to confidentiality.
How long do we retain your information and what are the criteria?
We store your data only for the term necessary for the specific purpose for which data are collected, for the periods prescribed by applicable laws and according to the Foundation's internal policies. For more information about the retention terms of your personal data you may contact us at any time at the above contact details.
Who do we share your personal information with?
The Foundation is committed to applying the highest standards of ethical and legal practices in all its activities, including the protection of the personal data of all users of the Website. The Foundation may share and/or transfer your data or part of it to 1) its partners in collaborative initiatives, co-organizers of events and other activities (e.g. venue owners, other foundations involved in the initiative/event, speakers, hotels etc.); 2) contractors (service providers established within and outside the EU which are committed by virtue of a contract with us to support ABF in its activities and in complying with the principles described in this Privacy Policy, incl. for improvement, optimization and security enhancement of our Website; 3) competent authorities in the cases and under the conditions set forth in the applicable laws. The personal data you provide to us through sending an inquiry for funding, application form or project proposal may be provided, if necessary, to third parties participating as independent experts and assisting the Foundation in the process of evaluation your application and/or in managing the ABF funding under a program. These data recipients are legally or contractually obliged to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information and data. They are not authorized to use, disclose or modify this information in any way except for the purposes of implementing ABF initiatives and performing the activities assigned by ABF.
We may use embedded third-party media players on the site (e.g. Spotify, YouTube, Vimeo, social networks). When activating such services, the provider may receive technical information about you (e.g. IP address, browser/device information) and set its own cookies. Where applicable, these services are activated only after the user has consented to all cookies (via the cookie banner). Details are available in our Cookie Policy.
Some recipients of your data may be located in third countries, such as the USA. The non-EU countries concerned may not provide the same level of protection of personal data as your country. In such cases, the Foundation will ensure that personal data are adequately protected by data recipients in these countries through the mechanisms for lawful data transfer to third countries under the GDPR, including but not limited to concluding standard contractual clauses with recipients, securing explicit consent from the data subject, checking the presence or absence of an adequacy decision of the European Commission, or other appropriate guarantees. For more information about the data transfers and the applied transfer mechanisms, you may contact us at any time at the above listed contact details.
What are your rights?
You may exercise any of the rights described below by sending a notification to us at the above-mentioned address of the Foundation's branch in Bulgaria or at the following email address: [email protected]
Right to Information
You have the right to be informed about the personal data we process about you and how we process it. We ensure this right by providing you with this Privacy Policy, the Cookie Policy, the privacy policies for individual programs, projects, activities and/or initiatives that we send to you or to which you have access on our Sites, as well as when we respond to your specific questions and/or requests when you contact us individually.
Right of access and right of rectification
You have the right to receive information about what personal data of yours are being processed by the Foundation, about the data source and the purposes of their use, about the third parties recipients or categories third parties recipients of the data, as well as other aspects of the processing of your data. You are entitled at any time to request rectification of inaccurate or incomplete data.
Please, note that your right of access to data may be restricted in whole or in part, considering your fundamental rights and legitimate interests, in the cases provided by law. The Foundation may refuse to respond to your request to exercise your rights when it is unfounded, as well as when this is necessary for reasons of important public interest or to protect the rights and freedoms of other individuals. In any case, you will be promptly and duly informed of the decision and the reasons for it regarding any request to exercise your rights.
Right of partial data erasure (right to “be forgotten”)
You are entitled to request the erasure of your personal data in specific circumstances, e.g. (i) if you think that your personal data are no longer required for the purposes for which they were collected, (ii) if you withdraw the consent on which your data processing is based and you believe that the Foundation has no legal grounds for further processing, (iii) if you consider the processing is unlawful, or (iv) the erasure of your data is required for the purposes of fulfilment of a legal obligation, applicable to the Foundation.
Please note that under certain circumstances the Foundation may not be able to erase all of your personal data, for example where: (i) it is still necessary for us to process the data for the purpose for which we collected it; (ii) the Foundation is required to retain your personal data (or part of it) for compliance with a legal obligation to which the processing is subject; (iii) the Foundation needs the data (or part of it) for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.
In any case, upon receipt of a request from you to exercise the “right to be forgotten”, the Foundation will take all reasonable care and measures to erase your personal data to the maximum extent possible and to retain only the minimum amount of it, only where necessary and lawful as described above.
Right to object
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data where the Foundation processes your personal data on the legal basis “legitimate interest”. However, even if you object to a particular processing, we may proceed with it, if is permitted or required by the applicable laws, for example, in order to be able to meet legal requirements or fulfil our contractual obligations to you.
Right to restriction of processing
You may request the processing of personal data to be restricted if (i) you believe your personal data is inaccurate in order for us to verify its accuracy; or (ii) you consider the processing to be unlawful, but you do not want the data to be erased, or (iii) you have objected to data processing for the purposes of our legitimate interests, or (iv) you consider we no longer need your personal data, but you require them to establish, exercise or protect legal claims. The Foundation will restrict the processing of your personal data without deleting it when the accuracy of your personal data is argued by you and this cannot be verified, or when the retention of your personal data is necessary for documentary purposes.
Right of consent withdrawal
If at any time you have given your consent to the processing of your personal data, you may withdraw this consent for future processing to which this consent refers.
In case you want to withdraw your consent for receiving our newsletter, please select the "unsubscribe" option in the email. Please note that the withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing of your personal data on another valid legal basis and lawfulness of the processing on the basis of the consent given before withdrawal.
Right of data portability
In certain cases, you are entitled to receive your personal data you have provided to us on the basis of a contract or with your explicit consent in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and you might request that we transmit this data directly to another data controller when technically possible.
Right to lodge a complaint to supervisory authority
If you consider that your personal data processing is in violation of the legal requirements, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority. Use the following link to find the competent authority in the EU Member State of your habitual residence, place of work or place of the alleged infringement:
https://www.edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_bg#member-it
The contact details of the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection are as follows: address: Sofia 1592, 2 Prof. Tsvetan Lazarov Blvd. or e-mail: [email protected]
It is recommended that you address your claims to the Foundation first in order to get a quicker and more effective solution to the problem.