Terms of Use

1. Agreement to these Terms

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) form an agreement between you and NeedsAHand.com (“NeedsAHand,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). They govern your access to and use of the NeedsAHand website, accounts, campaign pages, donation tools, team features, message boards, payout tools, and related services (collectively, the “Service”). By accessing or using the Service, creating an account, creating or administering a campaign, or making a donation, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy, Refund Policy, and Community Guidelines.

If you do not agree, do not use the Service. If you use the Service for an organization or another person, you represent that you are authorized to accept these Terms on their behalf.

2. Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into a contract to own a campaign, receive payouts, or administer a payout account. A verified adult must own and supervise campaigns involving a school, youth team, or minor. You must provide accurate information, verify your email address, keep your credentials secure, and promptly update information that changes. You are responsible for activity performed through your account and must notify us promptly if you suspect unauthorized access.

We may require identity, beneficiary, banking, tax, sanctions, fraud-prevention, or other verification before allowing campaigns, donations, transfers, or payouts. Creating an account does not guarantee access to every feature.

3. NeedsAHand’s role

NeedsAHand provides technology that allows organizers to publish campaigns and donors to support them. Unless a campaign expressly states otherwise, NeedsAHand is not the campaign organizer, beneficiary, charity, financial adviser, broker, bank, escrow agent, or guarantor. We do not guarantee that a campaign will reach its goal, that an organizer will use funds as described, that campaign statements are complete or accurate, or that any particular outcome will occur.

Verified email, identity, nonprofit, or payout status means only that the applicable check was completed at the time shown. It is not an endorsement of a campaign, organizer, beneficiary, team member, or nonprofit.

4. Campaign organizer responsibilities

An organizer must:

• provide truthful, current, and complete campaign information;
• have authority to raise money for the stated beneficiary and obtain any consent required to identify or tell the story of another person;
• use campaign proceeds only for the purpose described on the campaign page, subject to reasonable changes that are clearly disclosed to donors;
• keep donors informed about material changes, delays, goal changes, or inability to carry out the stated purpose;
• comply with all applicable laws, tax requirements, charitable-solicitation rules, sanctions, permits, and reporting obligations;
• complete payment-provider onboarding and provide accurate payout information; and
• cooperate with verification, safety reviews, refunds, disputes, investigations, and requests for supporting documentation.

If you create a campaign for another person, you remain responsible for administration of the campaign and delivery of proceeds to or for that beneficiary. Campaign goals may be changed, but the current goal and recorded history must remain truthful. Goal changes do not change how completed donations are allocated.

5. Campaign publication and review

Eligible organizers may be able to publish campaigns immediately after completing required account steps. Immediate publication is not approval or endorsement. We may review any campaign before or after publication; request changes or documents; limit discovery or donations; place a payout hold; or pause, reject, remove, complete, or archive a campaign when we reasonably believe action is needed to enforce these Terms, protect users, satisfy a provider request, or comply with law.

Organizers may use automated writing assistance, but they remain fully responsible for reviewing the result and ensuring that every statement is accurate, lawful, and appropriate. Organizers must not present generated text or images as authentic evidence when they are not.

6. Team and school campaigns

Campaign owners may invite team members and trusted collaborators. The owner remains responsible for the campaign, permissions granted to collaborators, campaign content, payout settings, and use of proceeds. Managers and editors may act within the permissions assigned to them, and their actions may bind the campaign owner.

Adults administering youth or school campaigns must obtain any required school, organization, parent, or guardian permission and minimize information about minors. Public leaderboards and personal campaign links must not expose a minor’s private contact, location, financial, health, or education information. NeedsAHand may hide or remove information to protect a minor.

7. Donations

A donation is a voluntary payment to support the campaign described at checkout. It is not a purchase, deposit, investment, loan, ownership interest, or promise of goods or services. Campaign goals are targets only. Unless required by law or approved under our Refund Policy, donations are generally final after processing.

Donors are responsible for reviewing the campaign, organizer, beneficiary, selected nonprofit, payment terms, and final total before confirming payment. You must use a payment method you are authorized to use and must not make a donation for an unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, or abusive purpose.

8. Fees and payment-processing costs

For each donation, NeedsAHand allocates exactly 3% of the donation amount: 1.5% to the campaign’s selected nonprofit and 1.5% to NeedsAHand under the customer-facing label “Keeping the Lights On.” Subject to the payment-processing treatment described below, the remaining 97% is allocated to campaign proceeds. The checkout page displays the selected donation and final amount before payment confirmation.

Payment-processing costs charged by the payment provider are separate from the 3% allocation. For each payment method offered at checkout, the donor may choose either to add the disclosed processing amount to the total charged or to include that processing amount within the stated donation. When the donor adds processing to the total, the campaign’s 97% allocation, the nonprofit’s 1.5% allocation, and NeedsAHand’s 1.5% allocation are calculated from the stated donation amount and are not reduced by that processing cost.

When the donor chooses to include processing within the donation, the applicable processing cost is deducted from campaign proceeds. It is not deducted from the selected nonprofit allocation or the “Keeping the Lights On” allocation. The organizer authorizes this deduction and understands that the resulting campaign payout may therefore be less than 97% of the stated donation amount. If applicable law or a payment provider requires different treatment for a particular transaction, the final disclosure shown at checkout controls. NeedsAHand may voluntarily absorb all or part of a processing cost but is not required to do so.

The processing rate and amount may vary by provider, payment method, transaction, or applicable rule. These Terms describe how payment costs are treated, and the final total displayed at checkout controls for that transaction.

9. Payment providers and payment methods

Payments and payouts may be provided by third parties such as Square, Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, banks, or other processors. Available methods vary by device, location, eligibility, campaign, and provider. Your use of a third-party payment service is also governed by that provider’s terms and privacy practices. You authorize NeedsAHand and its providers to process, route, settle, refund, reverse, and reconcile transactions and to exchange information needed for those purposes. NeedsAHand does not store complete card credentials.

10. Nonprofit allocation

Each campaign selects one nonprofit for the 1.5% nonprofit allocation. The selection becomes locked after the campaign’s first successful donation. If the nonprofit later becomes ineligible, cannot receive funds, or is rejected by a provider, NeedsAHand may hold the allocation, select or request an eligible replacement for future donations, or take another action permitted by law and provider rules. Any administrator-directed replacement applies prospectively unless applicable law or the disbursement provider requires a different result.

A nonprofit’s appearance in search results does not guarantee continued eligibility or successful disbursement. Nonprofit allocations remain subject to provider verification, minimums, timing, returns, and reconciliation. We may contact the organizer or nonprofit to resolve an exception.

11. Payouts, holds, reserves, and recovery

Organizers must complete the payment provider’s identity and payout onboarding before receiving funds. Payout timing is an estimate and may depend on settlement, provider availability, verification, fraud monitoring, refunds, disputes, legal process, or other risk controls. Reaching a campaign goal is not required for payout unless the campaign page expressly says otherwise.

After the applicable hold period, a standard Square transfer to an organizer’s external bank account does not carry a separate transfer fee and does not reduce campaign proceeds. The payment-processing cost associated with the donor’s original transaction is not charged again when a standard payout is sent.

If NeedsAHand offers an optional instant or expedited transfer and the organizer chooses it, the organizer is responsible for the transfer fee disclosed at the time of that request. NeedsAHand or the provider may deduct that fee from available campaign proceeds before sending the net payout or net it from the transferred amount. Provider rates and eligibility may change, and the amount displayed before the organizer confirms the optional transfer controls. NeedsAHand’s 1.5% “Keeping the Lights On” allocation is not used to pay an organizer’s optional transfer fee.

We or our providers may delay, hold, offset, reverse, or suspend payouts when reasonably necessary to address suspected fraud, prohibited activity, inaccurate information, disputes, refunds, chargebacks, provider instructions, negative balances, legal requirements, or risk to users. If funds already paid out become subject to a refund, dispute, reversal, fee, fine, or correction, the organizer authorizes recovery from available balances or future payouts and agrees to repay any remaining negative balance.

12. Refunds, disputes, and chargebacks

Refund requests are handled under our Refund Policy and applicable law. Approval may depend on payment status, disbursement status, campaign conduct, fraud indicators, and provider rules. A refund may proportionally reverse campaign proceeds, the nonprofit allocation, and the Keeping the Lights On allocation. Processing costs may be nonrefundable when the provider does not return them.

Donors retain any nonwaivable rights provided by their payment provider or applicable law. Before filing a chargeback, donors should contact NeedsAHand so we can investigate. Filing a knowingly false or abusive dispute is prohibited.

13. User content, photos, comments, and messages

You retain ownership of content you submit. You grant NeedsAHand a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, format, display, distribute, and use that content as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, promote, and improve the Service and the campaign. This license ends when the content is deleted, except for copies reasonably retained for legal, security, backup, audit, or transaction-record purposes.

You represent that you own your content or have permission to use it and that it does not violate privacy, publicity, copyright, trademark, confidentiality, or other rights. Comments and replies must comply with our Community Guidelines. We may moderate, hide, or remove content and preserve it when needed for safety, disputes, or legal obligations.

14. Prohibited conduct

You may not use the Service to:

• commit or facilitate fraud, deception, money laundering, sanctions evasion, unlawful financial activity, or misuse of payment systems;
• raise money for illegal goods, unlawful conduct, hate, threats, exploitation, harassment, violence, or content prohibited by our providers;
• impersonate another person, misrepresent a beneficiary, falsify evidence, manipulate donation totals, or conceal material facts;
• sell investments, ownership interests, regulated financial products, or goods or services through a donation campaign;
• collect or expose sensitive information about another person without lawful authority;
• upload malware, scrape the Service, bypass access controls, probe security, automate abusive traffic, or interfere with operation of the Service; or
• infringe intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, or other rights.

15. Intellectual property

The Service, excluding user content, is owned by NeedsAHand or its licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, nontransferable right to use the Service for its intended purpose. No other rights are granted. If you believe content infringes your rights, contact us with the page URL, a description of the protected work, your contact information, and a statement explaining your claim.

16. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may restrict, suspend, or terminate access; remove content; or close an account when we reasonably believe you violated these Terms, created risk or legal exposure, failed verification, engaged in harmful conduct, or when a provider or government authority requires action. Where practical and lawful, we will provide notice and an opportunity to respond.

Termination does not eliminate obligations concerning completed transactions, payouts, refunds, disputes, negative balances, records, investigations, licenses needed to maintain transaction records, or provisions that by their nature should survive.

17. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available.” NeedsAHand disclaims implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and noninfringement. We do not warrant uninterrupted or error-free operation, campaign accuracy, successful payments or payouts, any amount raised, organizer conduct, nonprofit performance, or a particular tax result. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain disclaimers, so portions of this section may not apply to you.

18. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, NeedsAHand and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, affiliates, and agents will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, lost profits, lost data, loss of goodwill, or losses arising from organizer or donor conduct, campaign content, a beneficiary’s use of funds, or third-party services. NeedsAHand’s aggregate liability arising from the Service will not exceed the greater of $100 or the amount of Keeping the Lights On fees paid in connection with your use of the Service during the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These limits do not apply where prohibited by law or to liability that cannot legally be limited.

19. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless NeedsAHand and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, affiliates, and agents from claims, losses, liabilities, damages, judgments, penalties, costs, and reasonable legal fees arising from your campaign, content, misuse of the Service, violation of these Terms, violation of law, infringement of another person’s rights, or dispute with another user. This obligation does not apply to the extent a claim results from NeedsAHand’s own unlawful conduct.

20. Changes to the Service or Terms

We may change the Service and these Terms. If a change materially affects your rights, we will provide reasonable notice through the Service, by email, or by updating the date above. Changes apply prospectively unless law requires otherwise. Continued use after the effective date of revised Terms constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Service.

21. General terms

These Terms and the policies incorporated into them are the entire agreement concerning the Service. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will continue. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign them in connection with a reorganization, merger, acquisition, financing, or transfer of the Service. Electronic records and communications satisfy written-notice requirements where permitted by law.

Governing-law, venue, and any arbitration terms must be completed based on the legal entity that operates NeedsAHand and its state of organization before live payment processing begins. Nothing in these Terms limits nonwaivable consumer rights.

22. Contact us

Questions about these Terms may be submitted through our contact page or by email at hello@needsahand.com.

Pre-launch legal review: These Terms are tailored to the current NeedsAHand product design but must be reviewed by qualified counsel before live payments are enabled. Counsel should add the operator’s full legal name, physical notice address, state-specific governing law and venue, charitable-solicitation disclosures, and any required dispute-resolution terms.