Ministry Builders (Meeks Applied, Inc. Brand) Privacy Policy
Ministry Builders ("Ministry Builders, a Meeks Applied, inc. Brand" "we," "us") provides a software platform and applications for churches and religious organizations, including our portal and services such as Storehouse (accounting and bookkeeping), FinStatements (financial statement presentation), SowBudget (budget requests and monitoring), and related applications (together, the "Services"). This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have.
This policy covers ministry.builders and all Services we operate under it. By using the Services, you agree to this policy.
- o the data belongs to
Our customers are organizations — churches and ministries (each an "Organization"). The Organization owns its data. Content an Organization or its authorized users put into the Services — financial records, budgets, donor and contribution records, documents, and reports ("Organization Content") — belongs to the Organization. We process Organization Content only to provide the Services to that Organization, under its direction. We do not sell Organization Content, use it for advertising, or share it with third parties except as described in Section 6.
2. Information we collect
Account information. Name, email address, role, and login credentials for each user an Organization authorizes, and organization details (name, address, subscription tier, billing contact).
Organization Content. The records your Organization creates in the Services, which may include accounting transactions, fund and budget records, vendor records, uploaded documents (such as receipts and statements), and donor and contribution records that the Organization maintains for its own purposes (such as issuing annual giving statements).
Financial account data (bank feeds). If your Organization chooses to connect its bank or card accounts, we receive financial account data through Stripe Financial Connections as described in Section 4.
Billing information. Subscription payments are processed by our payment processor. We do not store full payment card numbers on our systems.
Technical and usage data. Log data, device and browser information, IP address, and product usage events (such as feature usage and error reports) used to operate, secure, and improve the Services. We use only the cookies and similar technologies needed to sign you in, keep your session secure, and remember your settings.
3. How we use information
We use information to: provide, maintain, and improve the Services; authenticate users and enforce role-based access controls; process subscriptions and billing; provide customer support; monitor performance, prevent fraud and abuse, and secure the Services; communicate service notices; and comply with legal obligations. We do not use Organization Content to train artificial-intelligence models, and we do not serve third-party advertising.
4. Financial account data (Stripe Financial Connections)
Organizations may connect their own business bank and credit card accounts to the Services to import transactions for bookkeeping and reconciliation.
- How connection works. Account linking is performed through Stripe Financial Connections. Your banking credentials are entered directly with Stripe and/or your financial institution — we never see, receive, transmit, or store your online banking username or password.
- What we receive. With the Organization's authorization, we receive account information such as institution and account name, account type, posted transactions (date, amount, and description), and account balances.
- How we use it. Read-only, for bookkeeping: imported transactions are presented to the Organization's authorized users for matching and reconciliation against the Organization's accounting records. We do not use financial account data to move money, underwrite credit, or build profiles, and we do not sell it or share it with third parties.
- Where it is stored. Financial account data is stored only in the United States.
- Disconnecting. An Organization's administrators may disconnect a linked account at any time in the Services, which stops further retrieval. Data already imported into the Organization's books remains part of its accounting records under the Organization's control. You can also manage connections through your institution or Stripe. Stripe's handling of data is described in Stripe's own privacy policy at https://stripe.com/privacy.
5. Donor and contribution data
Some Services allow an Organization to maintain donor records and contribution histories so it can carry out its own responsibilities, such as recording gifts and issuing annual giving statements. This data is Organization Content: the Organization is responsible for it, controls it, and determines who may see it. Within the Services, access to donor-identified giving data is restricted by role, and it is excluded from the data feeds our applications exchange, except that an individual may view their own giving history where the Organization enables that feature. If you are a donor or member with questions about information a church holds about you, please contact that church directly; we act on the Organization's instructions.
6. When we share information
We share information only with:
- Service providers that help us operate the platform — including cloud infrastructure hosting (currently DigitalOcean, in United States regions), payment and financial-data services (Stripe), and email delivery — each bound to use the data only to provide services to us.
- The Organization. Data belonging to an Organization is visible to that Organization's authorized users according to the roles it assigns.
- Legal requirements. We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of Ministry Builders, our customers, or others.
- Business transfers. If Ministry Builders is involved in a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, information may transfer as part of that transaction, subject to this policy's protections.
7. Storage and security
The Services are hosted in United States data centers, and Organization Content — including financial account data and backups — is stored in the United States. Each Organization's accounting data is maintained in isolated, organization-specific storage. Data is encrypted in transit, and sensitive credentials are encrypted at rest. Access to production systems is restricted, internal service-to-service communication occurs over a private network, and financial actions within the Services are attributed to individual authenticated users and recorded in audit history. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your information with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards appropriate to its sensitivity.
8. Retention and deletion
We retain Organization Content for as long as the Organization maintains its subscription and as needed to provide the Services. Accounting records are, by design, durable: the Services preserve audit history rather than silently deleting financial records. When an Organization ends its subscription, it may export its data; after a wind-down period we delete or de-identify Organization Content from production systems, and residual copies age out of backups on our backup rotation schedule. We may retain limited information as required for legal, tax, and security purposes.
9. Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights regarding your personal information, such as access, correction, and deletion. Platform account holders can review and update account information in the Services. Requests concerning data held within an Organization's records (for example, donor information) should be directed to that Organization, which controls its content; we will assist Organizations in fulfilling such requests. For requests about information Ministry Builders controls, contact us using Section 12, and we will respond as required by applicable law. We do not discriminate against anyone for exercising privacy rights.
10. Children
The Services are business tools intended for use by adults authorized by an Organization. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. Organizations are responsible for the content of their own records.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify Organizations through the Services or by email before the changes take effect. The "Last updated" date above reflects the current version.
12. Contact us
Ministry Builders (Meeks Applied, Inc. Brand)
2123 Oxford Street
Sacramento, CA 95815
CONTACT EMAIL — privacy@ministry.builders