1. Agreement and scope
These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern access to and use of Kind Cause, including cause discovery, cause submissions, donations, verification, community features, support, account tools, and related services that link to these Terms. Kind Cause is a service of Kind Tech LLC (“Kind Cause,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). By using Kind Cause, submitting a cause, creating or using an account, or making a donation, you agree to these Terms and acknowledge our Privacy Policy.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering a binding agreement to make a donation, submit or manage a cause, or use financial or account features, unless Kind Cause expressly offers a legally compliant program with different rules. You may not use Kind Cause where prohibited by applicable law, sanctions restrictions, payment-provider rules, or these Terms.
3. Kind Cause’s role
Kind Cause provides technology and administrative tools that help people discover, submit, review, and support crowdfunding causes. Unless we expressly state otherwise for a specific transaction, Kind Cause is not the beneficiary, a bank, fiduciary, escrow agent, broker-dealer, investment adviser, tax adviser, or charitable organization receiving a contribution for its own charitable purpose.
Cause information is generally supplied by organizers, beneficiaries, or their representatives. We may review and verify information, but we cannot guarantee every statement will remain accurate, every organizer or beneficiary will act as expected, a cause will reach its goal, or donated funds will produce a particular outcome.
4. How we verify causes
When Kind Cause marks a cause as verified, it means we completed the review process we reasonably considered appropriate for that cause at the time. Depending on the cause, review may include organizer identity or authority checks, beneficiary relationship or consent, supporting documents, publicly available information, contact with relevant people or organizations, consistency checks, fraud screening, or payment/provider compliance review.
A verified label is not a guarantee, insurance policy, endorsement of every statement, promise of future conduct, or assurance that circumstances will not change. We may request additional information, require edits, pause, unpublish, or remove a cause before or after approval if new information raises concerns about accuracy, safety, fraud, legal compliance, payment-provider requirements, or platform integrity.
5. Cause organizer responsibilities
By submitting or managing a cause, you represent and warrant that:
- You have authority to create the cause and, if acting for another person, family, organization, or beneficiary, you have valid authorization or consent to act.
- All material statements, identities, images, documents, links, goals, intended uses of funds, and updates are truthful, current, not misleading, and supported by a reasonable basis.
- You own or have permission to use submitted text, photos, logos, videos, documents, and other content.
- You will use proceeds materially consistently with the stated purpose, subject only to reasonable changes that are disclosed transparently where appropriate.
- You will not omit material facts that would reasonably affect a donor’s decision.
- You will comply with applicable fundraising, charitable-solicitation, consumer-protection, tax, privacy, sanctions, anti-fraud, and other laws and maintain records reasonably appropriate to the cause.
- You will provide truthful verification information and respond promptly to reasonable review, payment, safety, or compliance requests.
6. Beneficiaries, minors, and sensitive stories
If a cause concerns another person, you must have the legal right or valid authorization to share the person’s name, story, location, images, and other information submitted for review or publication. Causes involving minors must be submitted by an authorized adult. Do not publish unnecessary medical, identity, financial, or other highly sensitive information.
7. Donor responsibilities and acknowledgments
Donations are voluntary. Before donating, review the cause information, donation amount, recipient context, and any disclosed fees. Unless checkout expressly states otherwise, donations are one-time payments.
You acknowledge that crowdfunding involves risk. Kind Cause cannot guarantee how every recipient will use funds, whether facts will change after verification, or whether every hoped-for outcome will occur. You are responsible for deciding whether to donate.
8. Tax treatment
Do not assume a Kind Cause contribution is tax deductible. Contributions to individuals generally are not charitable deductions, and crowdfunding proceeds may have tax consequences for organizers or recipients depending on the facts and applicable law. A Kind Cause receipt is a transaction record, not a legal determination of deductibility.
If a cause is eligible for tax-deductible treatment through a qualified charitable organization, that status should be identified only when supported by the applicable arrangement. Donors, organizers, and beneficiaries are responsible for their own tax advice, records, filings, and reporting.
9. Payments and third-party processors
Kind Cause may use third-party crowdfunding infrastructure, payment processors, banks, and card networks. By submitting a payment, you authorize the applicable payment participants to charge your selected payment method for the displayed amount and any clearly disclosed fees. Their terms and privacy notices may also apply to their services.
Payments may be declined, delayed, held, reserved, reversed, refunded, or subjected to additional verification because of fraud controls, chargebacks, sanctions screening, card-network rules, legal requirements, provider policies, or technical issues.
10. Fees
Kind Cause or its service providers may charge platform, payment-processing, currency-conversion, network, or other transaction fees. Applicable fees, if any, will be disclosed in the relevant flow or cause terms before completion of a transaction when required by law. Fee structures may change prospectively.
11. Refunds, reversals, and chargebacks
Unless required by law, provider rules, a cause-specific promise, or a posted refund policy, completed crowdfunding donations are generally final. Kind Cause may facilitate or require a refund or reversal where a transaction was unauthorized, duplicated, technically erroneous, legally prohibited, subject to a valid chargeback, associated with material misrepresentation, or otherwise required by law or provider rules.
Do not initiate a knowingly false or abusive chargeback. If you believe a payment is incorrect, contact help@realkindcause.com.
12. Cause proceeds and disbursement
Timing and method of disbursement may depend on the cause, payment settlement, crowdfunding infrastructure, verification status, reserves, refunds, chargebacks, fraud review, banking information, sanctions screening, and other legal or provider requirements. Displayed “raised” totals may include funds that are pending, later reversed, refunded, disputed, or subject to fees.
13. Prohibited causes and activity
You may not use Kind Cause to solicit, raise, route, or use funds for unlawful activity; fraud or deception; sanctions evasion; money laundering; terrorism or extremist support; trafficking or exploitation; unlawful weapons or controlled substances; stolen goods; intellectual-property infringement; harassment; hate or violence; impersonation; deceptive medical, financial, or fundraising claims; or any purpose that violates payment-provider or crowdfunding-provider rules.
You also may not probe, scan, attack, disrupt, overload, scrape at unreasonable scale, bypass access controls, introduce malicious code, use another person’s account without authorization, or attempt to obtain passwords, payment credentials, or other protected information. Kind Cause may establish additional restricted-category rules and may reject lawful causes that present unacceptable safety, fraud, regulatory, payment, or platform-integrity risk.
14. Accounts and security
If account features are available, you are responsible for providing accurate account information and for protecting your credentials, recovery methods, devices, and payment methods. Use a unique strong password and multi-factor authentication when available. Do not share login codes, password-reset links, or credentials with anyone claiming to be Kind Cause support.
You are responsible for activity conducted through your account to the extent permitted by law, except where the activity results from Kind Cause’s own failure to use legally required safeguards. Notify us promptly at help@realkindcause.com if you suspect unauthorized access. We may require additional verification before account recovery or other high-risk changes, and we may temporarily restrict access when reasonably necessary to investigate suspected compromise or fraud.
15. Cause and user-content license
You retain ownership of content you submit. You grant Kind Cause a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, copy, format, reproduce, display, distribute, communicate, and use that content as reasonably necessary to review, verify, operate, administer, and promote the cause and Kind Cause, subject to our Privacy Policy and applicable law.
You represent that our permitted use of submitted content will not violate another person’s intellectual-property, publicity, privacy, contractual, or other rights.
16. Public supporter information and cause content
If you choose to show your name publicly, Kind Cause may display it with the cause you support when that feature is available. Public cause information can be copied, indexed, archived, or reshared by others. Removing content from Kind Cause does not guarantee removal from search engines, archives, screenshots, or third-party sites.
17. Kind Cause intellectual property
Kind Cause software, design, branding, copy, interfaces, logos, graphics, and documentation are owned by or licensed to Kind Cause and are protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, revocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable right to use Kind Cause for its intended lawful purposes.
If you believe content on Kind Cause infringes your copyright or other intellectual-property rights, send a detailed notice to help@realkindcause.com identifying the protected work, the allegedly infringing material, your contact information, and the basis for your claim. We may request additional information needed to evaluate the notice.
18. Third-party services and links
Payment processors, crowdfunding infrastructure providers, banks, card networks, hosting companies, authentication providers, social networks, and other third parties may provide services or links used by Kind Cause. Their independent terms and privacy practices apply to their services. We are not responsible for their independent acts, outages, security incidents, rules, fees, freezes, reversals, or decisions except to the extent applicable law makes us responsible.
19. Communications and electronic records
You agree that we may send service-related communications electronically, including donation receipts, verification requests, account-security notices, legal notices, and support responses. Marketing communications, if any, will be sent in accordance with applicable consent and opt-out requirements. Keep your contact information current when account tools are available.
20. Suspension and enforcement
We may suspend or terminate access, remove or restrict content, pause a cause, restrict transactions, or refer matters to providers or authorities when reasonably necessary to enforce these Terms, protect users or the public, investigate fraud or security risk, comply with law, or satisfy payment/provider requirements. Where practical and legally permitted, we may provide notice and an opportunity to respond.
21. Disclaimer of warranties
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, KIND CAUSE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT CAUSES, ORGANIZERS, BENEFICIARIES, DONORS, CONTENT, FUNDING OUTCOMES, PAYMENT SERVICES, THIRD-PARTY SERVICES, ACCOUNT FEATURES, OR THE PLATFORM WILL BE ACCURATE, SUCCESSFUL, AVAILABLE, SECURE, UNINTERRUPTED, OR ERROR-FREE. CAUSE REVIEW AND VERIFICATION ARE NOT GUARANTEES OR INSURANCE AGAINST FRAUD, MISUSE, OR CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES.
22. Limitation of liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, KIND CAUSE AND ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES; LOST PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, DONATIONS, OR OPPORTUNITIES; OR LOSSES CAUSED BY CAUSE MISREPRESENTATION, RECIPIENT CONDUCT, PAYMENT PROVIDERS, CHARGEBACKS, THIRD-PARTY SERVICES, SECURITY INCIDENTS, OR EVENTS OUTSIDE OUR REASONABLE CONTROL.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING FROM A KIND CAUSE TRANSACTION OR CAUSE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF US$100 OR THE FEES PAID DIRECTLY TO KIND CAUSE IN CONNECTION WITH THE SPECIFIC TRANSACTION OR CAUSE GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT. THIS LIMIT DOES NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY THAT CANNOT LEGALLY BE LIMITED.
23. Indemnification
To the extent permitted by law, cause organizers agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Kind Cause and its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, contractors, and agents from claims, losses, liabilities, taxes, penalties, chargebacks, and reasonable costs arising from their cause content, use of proceeds, breach of these Terms, infringement of third-party rights, or violation of law. Other users agree to indemnify us for claims arising from their unlawful use of Kind Cause or violation of these Terms. These obligations do not apply to the extent a claim results from Kind Cause’s own unlawful conduct.
24. Informal dispute resolution
Before filing arbitration or litigation, you and Kind Cause agree to attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute informally for at least 30 days. Send a notice describing the dispute, requested relief, relevant transaction or cause identifier, and your contact information to help@realkindcause.com.
25. Binding individual arbitration and class-action waiver
Except for disputes eligible for small-claims court, certain intellectual-property or unauthorized-access claims, or claims that applicable law does not permit to be arbitrated, disputes arising from Kind Cause or these Terms will be resolved through binding individual arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its applicable Consumer Arbitration Rules unless the parties agree otherwise.
No class or representative proceedings. To the extent permitted by law, you and Kind Cause waive a jury trial and agree to bring claims only in an individual capacity, not as a plaintiff or class member in a class, collective, consolidated, or representative action.
30-day arbitration opt-out. You may opt out by emailing help@realkindcause.com within 30 days after first accepting these Terms, stating your full name and that you opt out of Kind Cause arbitration.
26. Governing law and venue
These Terms are governed by applicable U.S. federal law and, where state law applies, the law of the U.S. state in which Kind Tech LLC is organized or maintains its principal U.S. place of business, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where mandatory law requires otherwise. Non-arbitrable disputes will be brought in a court with proper jurisdiction over the parties and dispute unless applicable law gives you a different non-waivable forum.
27. Consumer rights preserved
Nothing in these Terms waives rights or remedies that applicable consumer-protection, charitable-fundraising, payment, privacy, tax, or other law does not permit you to waive.
28. Changes to Kind Cause or these Terms
Kind Cause features, providers, fees, cause rules, eligibility, payment methods, verification processes, and these Terms may change. Changes apply prospectively after posting or other required notice. We will not retroactively deprive you of rights that applicable law protects with respect to a completed transaction.
29. Contact
Questions, payment concerns, cause concerns, account-security notices, or legal notices may be sent to help@realkindcause.com.