Having a conversation with your counsel is always a good idea.
However, in general terms, while the CAN-SPAM Act does not exempt non-profit organizations, it applies to commercial email, which does not include most of the communications from educational institutions. In particular, fundraising is not considered a commercial message, and there are specific exceptions for email messages with “transactional or relationship content.” So, with a few exceptions like marketing of alumni travel packages or tickets for sporting events or other events, most of what we do does not fall under CAN-SPAM. CAN-SPAM also applies specifically to sending email, unlike other, more recent privacy regimes like the EU’s GDPR, which applies to data held by a data controller and not just a specific use by email.
That having been said, the requirements of CAN-SPAM are not onerous, requiring for the most part that commercial email messages include:
* a “clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation”
* an ability to opt-out electronically from future emails
* a valid postal address of the sender
* email header information identifying the sender and subject line that are not false, misleading, or deceptive
Most of those we would want to include in email anyway (though we might not otherwise think to include a postal address in an email message).
It’s also worth noting that CAN-SPAM takes an opt-out approach, rather than the opt-in approach that’s required under GDPR if an organization is relying on consent as their legal basis.
So best practice would be to build an opt-out option into your processes (and, increasingly, to make sure that you document the source of information that you record), but what CAN-SPAM specifically requires is and opt-out option in commercial email messages.
My US$0.02 worth; the usual disclaimers apply.
Good luck!
Alan
Alan S. Hejnal
Data Quality Manager
Smithsonian Institution - Office of Advancement
600 Maryland Avenue SW, Suite 600E
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 527
Washington, DC 20013-7012
•: 202-633-8754 | •:
HejnalA@si.edu<mailto:
HejnalA@si.edu>
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From: Advancement Services Discussion List <
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG> On Behalf Of Lauren Seebold
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2019 3:04 PM
To:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG
Subject: [FUNDSVCS] Capturing info for registrants of all on-campus events
Happy Friday all,
We've got an issue with rampant use of third party event registration sites for events hosted by other offices/departments. One example is summer camps we host for high school students. In my view, these are parents we want in our database as "friends" of the university. We can and should be communicating with them as such; at some point, perhaps they could be solicited as well. But to this point we've never received any of the information, or even been made aware of a lot of these events around campus.
Colleagues and I in other departments have started a discussion on how we can streamline these things and one brought up that we would have to give an option to opt in/opt out on every form in order to comply with CAN-SPAM laws.
Is that true in this case? Our advancement event registration forms through RE Online Express don't have anything like that so anyone registering for one of our events always just goes into RE as a new constituent...
Thanks in advance for any insight,
Lauren
--
Lauren Seebold
Director of Annual Giving
Lawrence Technological University
21000 W. Ten Mile Road
Southfield, MI 48075
Ph: 248.204.2309
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