Oregon State University Foundation's Movement to Consent-Based Marketing
In the summer of 2023, OSUF’s charge was to get into compliance in advance of the implementation of Oregon’s SB 619. SB 619, which later became the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act, is Oregon’s answer to data privacy law and passed following a nearly unanimous vote of 23-2 in its Senate.
The team at OSUF engaged Agility Lab Consulting to support their journey to comply with legislative mandate and, more broadly, to adapt to and respect growing consumer expectations for privacy nationwide.
Responding with consistency to a broad and changing landscape.
At its time of passage, Oregon’s was one of the most aggressive data privacy laws in the U.S., including a private right of action, the requirement that all audiences opt into communications, and specific non-exemption for nonprofits.
OCPA creates these obligations for Oregon nonprofits:
- Transparency of privacy notice and disclosures for the purpose for data collection
- Minimization of data collected and stored
- Reasonable data security
- Obtaining the consumer's consent before:
- processing their personal data for “unreasonable purposes”
- processing their sensitive data; and
- usage of minor’s data.
- Providing an effective means for revoking consent that mirrors the ease of granting consent
- No discrimination (retaliation) when a consumer exercises their rights.
Agility Lab's approach
The Agility Lab approach is a four-step framework as follows, with the key goal of creating organizational buy-in on privacy to ensure its staff-wide adoption.
- Define current state and identify gaps
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Establish guiding principles and roadmap for instituting cultural change
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Solicit buy-in with senior leadership and organizational board
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Facilitate all-staff trainings and implement defined next steps
Forming OSUF’s perspective
From this framework, we worked together to create and champion OSUF’s guiding principles with respect to data privacy.
Their tenets, in their own words:
- We respect privacy legislation AND understand the impact of industry changes.
- We respect audience preferences and will provide choice.
- We’re implementing forward-thinking tech to ensure we can do both.
Respecting legislation + addressing industry changes
Given the disparate approach to state legislation, OSUF adopted a uniform approach that can apply to any state and proactively adjusts for changes from industry actors within Big Tech.
What we accomplished together:
- Privacy policy updates
- Cookie consent banner implementation
- Adoption of vendor data transfer and usage protocols
- Explicit consent form audit
- Review of third-party partner agreements and onboarding
- Documentation practices for data collection and usage by staff and partners
Respecting preferences + providing choice
OSUF determined they believe in going beyond what’s legally mandated of them and they seek to understand and address their audiences wishes.
We approached this desire through two lenses:
- Adjusting OSUF’s technical landscape so audiences are directly able to tell OSUF what they want
- Adjusting strategic communications practices to be responsive to what audiences are indirectly telling OSUF through their behaviors.
What we accomplished together:
- Auditing OSUF’s tech stack to understand how preferences were currently captured
- Recommendations for audience segmentation strategies and email deliverability best practices
- Scoring processes to ensure key audience members are aware of how they can opt down in communications instead of out
Implementing tech to empower choice and autonomy
OSUF is adopting new technology that positions them with a better sphere of control rather than being susceptible to outside decision-making.
What we accomplished together:
- Onboarding cookieless analytics tools to ensure data capture on their site is both compliant and future-proofed
- Scoping and consultation for OSUF’s Privacy and Preference Management Center, in production now
Client Testimonial
"Working with Agility Lab and Elyse Wallnutt has been a game-changer for our organization's digital privacy. Their expertise and counsel have provided us with a robust privacy framework that allowed us to proactively address the current and future challenges and opportunities created by the emerging privacy landscape. Elyse's deep knowledge approach have significantly enhanced our data protection measures, ensuring our clients' information remains secure and we honor their privacy and preferences. We highly recommend Agility Lab and Elyse for anyone seeking top-notch digital privacy services."
Mark Koenig
Chief Innovation Officer, OSUF
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