Privacy Policy

Follow My Mission (followmymission.com) is an independent journal product for missionaries and the people who love them. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by any church. This policy describes what we collect, why, and who can see it. It is written to match how the product actually works.

Who this covers

This policy applies to missionaries (account owners), delegated admins they invite, viewers who request access to a journal, people who pay to unlock a journal, and visitors to the public marketing site. Mission Research is available only to signed-in accounts.

What we collect

• Account data. Name, email, password hash (we do not store your raw password), optional Google sign-in identifier, and role (missionary or viewer).
• Mission profile. Title (Elder or Sister), mission name, missionary training center, country, city, region, service dates, mission president, languages, and profile or cover photos you upload.
• Journal letters. Emails sent to your unique inbound address (for example on journal.followmymission.com) are stored verbatim as journal entries: subject, body, date, and any attached photos or videos. You may also add entries by hand, including a visibility setting of Private or Share.
• Photos and videos. Files from inbound email, manual upload, or a Google Photos album you share with anyone who has the link. We may read location and capture time from EXIF or from the letter text to place photos on a map.
• Social graph inside a journal. Companions, likes, and comments on entries you can see.
• Access records. Viewer access requests, approvals, and delegated admin invitations.
• Surveys. Post-mission survey answers. You can mark individual answers private so they do not enter Mission Research.
• Payments and print orders. Stripe processes journal unlocks (currently $49 USD unless shown otherwise at checkout) and photo-book checkout. We store payment status and order metadata, not full card numbers. Print fulfillment uses Prodigi and the shipping address you provide.
• Technical data. Server logs needed to run and secure the service. If Microsoft Clarity or Google Analytics is enabled, we also collect usage analytics as described in the Cookie Policy. Microsoft Clarity loads only on the public marketing pages: home, pricing, partners, the mission call page, and the sample journal.

How journals stay private

A personal journal is not a public blog. By default, an entry is visible only to people the missionary (or a delegated admin) has allowed:

• The missionary who owns the journal.
• Delegated admins who accepted an invite.
• Viewers with approved access, and only for entries marked Share. Entries marked Private are hidden from viewers, from public demo access, from Mission Research, and from direct media URLs.

The public demo journal is an exception used to show the product. Mission Research is separate from a personal journal feed and is limited to signed-in accounts. You choose what, if anything, is contributed there through survey answers you did not mark private. Gallery photos already shared to research stay included.

How we use data

• Operate your journal, gallery, map, and companions list.
• Receive weekly letters, attach photos, and keep chronological order.
• Send transactional email (invites, access decisions, password reset, new-entry notices). We do not email viewers about Private entries.
• Process payments and print a photo book if you order one.
• Build Mission Research only from content you opted to share.
• Keep the service secure and diagnose failures.

We do not sell journal letters, photos, or viewer lists.

Processors we use to run the product

We use vendors only to provide the service you signed up for. Typical processors include Vercel (hosting), a hosted database, Resend (inbound and outbound email), Stripe (payments), Google (optional sign-in, Photos, and Drive), Prodigi (print and ship photo books), and Microsoft Clarity (session replay and usage analytics on the public marketing pages), and Google Analytics if that measurement ID is configured. Those vendors process data under their own terms.

Photos, books, and third parties

Full-resolution originals are stored so a printed book can be produced. If you order a photo book, layout pages and shipping details are sent to the printer. Private entries are included in a book only if a missionary or admin opts in when creating that volume.

Cookies

We use an essential login cookie to keep you signed in, short-lived cookies for Google sign-in, and optional analytics cookies. Details are in the Cookie Policy.

Your choices

• Missionaries and admins approve or deny viewers and can mark entries Private or Share.
• You can remove a shared Google Photos album URL from Edit profile.
• You can choose not to share survey fields to Mission Research.
• You may ask us to access, correct, or delete account data. Deleting a missionary account removes the journal and associated media we store for that journal, except data we must keep for legal, security, or completed print-order records.

Children

The product is built for missionaries and their families, not for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Retention and security

We keep journal content while the account is active so the record of the mission remains available to the people you approved. We use access checks, signed media URLs, and row-level policies as defense in depth. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure.

Changes

We may update this policy as the product changes. The “Last updated” date at the top will change when we do. Continued use after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Contact

Privacy questions: use Follow My Mission at followmymission.com or write from the email address on your account. See also the Terms of Service.

Also see Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, and Cookie Policy.