Privacy

The Invest Hamilton County Childcare ROI Calculator is built on a simple posture: we do not track people. No cookies for advertising, no third-party analytics that build profiles, no data sold or shared.

What we collect

  • Your email — required to open the dashboard. Stored in an append-only file (data/subscribers.jsonl) on our server, alongside your consent date and a randomly-generated subscriber ID. Used only to send a once-monthly Hamilton County childcare update.
  • Optional: your name, employer, and role — if you share them at signup. Used only to personalize the monthly update and any PDF you generate.
  • One session cookie (ihc_sub) — lets you stay signed in for up to 365 days on this device. Marked HttpOnly and Secure; SameSite=None so the dashboard can be embedded in investhamiltoncounty.com via an iframe without dropping your session. Never readable by JavaScript or third parties.
  • Calculator saved-state (server-side session field, calc_last_inputs) — your last workforce inputs (employee count, average salary, turnover rate, tier, small-business flag) are remembered so you don't re-key them on a return visit. Strategy toggles and counts are not saved. Cleared when your session cookie expires or you clear cookies.
  • Aggregate usage via Plausible Analytics — page views and event counts only. Plausible is cookieless, EU-hosted, and GDPR-compliant. It cannot identify individual visitors. We track named events on key actions — calculator submitted, PDF downloaded, playbook template downloaded, command-palette opened — to measure which tools the community actually uses. Event payloads never include your inputs.

What we don't collect

  • No Google Analytics, no Facebook Pixel, no ad-network trackers.
  • No cross-site tracking or fingerprinting.
  • We never store the numbers you type into the calculator on our server (other than the five-field workforce profile noted above for saved-state). Every run happens in your browser's request; results live only in your browser session until you close the tab or copy a shareable link.
  • Shareable links encode your inputs directly in the URL — they never hit our database. Share them at your discretion.
  • We do not retain CCDF income, household-size, DCFSA election, or any other family-side calculator inputs. Those are processed in-memory and discarded.

The monthly email

Once per month, we send one update on Hamilton County childcare — supply, policy, employer activity, and new Alex tools. Unsubscribe in one click from any email; the link is in every message and the underlying database is append-only with an unsubscribe flag (your row is preserved so we don't accidentally re-add you later).

Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or share subscriber data. Invest Hamilton County is the sole custodian. We disclose only if legally compelled (e.g., a valid subpoena).

Retention

Subscriber records are retained while the list is active. On unsubscribe, your record is flagged unsubscribed but preserved to prevent duplicate subscription. You can request full deletion by emailing hello@investhamiltoncounty.com.

This tool is an estimate, not advice

The ROI engine uses published federal rates (Section 45F, DCFSA limit), public retention research (BCG, Moms First, Bright Horizons), and Hamilton County ACS defaults. It is an estimate. It is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Consult qualified counsel before committing to a benefit structure.

Methodology is open-source and auditable at github.com/investhamiltoncounty/alex-core. Last updated May 2026.