Creating an Account

To sign up for a Givaly account, you need to be 18 or over. You’re responsible for your account and all the activity on it.

You can browse Givaly without registering for an account. But to use some of Givaly’s functions, you’ll need to register, enter your email, and set a password. When you do that, the information you give us has to be accurate and complete. Don’t impersonate anyone else or choose names that are offensive or that violate anyone’s rights. If you don’t follow these rules, we may cancel your account.

You’re responsible for all the activity on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you find out that someone’s used your account without your permission, you should report it to contact@Givaly.com.

To sign up for an account, you need to be at least 18 years old, or old enough to form a binding contract where you live. If necessary, we may ask you for proof of age.

Things You Definitely Shouldn't Do

This section is a list of things you probably already know you shouldn’t do — lie, break laws, abuse people, steal data, hack other people’s computers, and so on. Please behave yourself. Don’t do this stuff.

Other people use Givaly. We expect everyone to behave responsibly and help keep this a nice place. Don’t do any of these things on the Site:

Don’t break the law. Don’t take any action that infringes or violates other people’s rights, violates the law, or breaches any contract or legal duty you have toward anyone.

Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent.

Don’t offer prohibited items. Don’t create projects that are illegal, violate any of Givaly’s policies, rules, or guidelines, or violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance, or regulation.

Don’t victimize anyone. Don’t do anything threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, tortious, obscene, profane, or invasive of another person’s privacy.

Don’t spam. Don’t distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Don’t run mail lists, listservs, or any kind of auto-responder or spam on or through the Site.

Don’t harm anyone’s computer. Don’t distribute software viruses, or anything else (code, films, programs) designed to interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or equipment on the Site (whether it belongs to Givaly or another party).

Don’t abuse other users’ personal information. When you use Givaly — and especially if you create a successful project — you may receive information about other users, including things like their names, email addresses, and postal addresses. This information is provided for the purpose of participating in a Givaly project: don’t use it for other purposes, and don’t abuse it.

We also need to make sure that the Site is secure and our systems function properly. So don’t do any of these things — most of which boil down to “don’t mess with our system.”

Don’t try to interfere with the proper workings of the Services.

Don’t bypass any measures we’ve put in place to secure the Services.

Don’t try to damage or get unauthorized access to any system, data, password, or other information, whether it belongs to Givaly or another party.

Don’t take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or on our third-party providers. (We reserve the right to determine what’s reasonable.)

Don’t use any kind of software or device (whether it’s manual or automated) to “crawl” or “spider” any part of the Site.

Don’t take apart or reverse engineer any aspect of Givaly in an effort to access things like source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms.

How Projects Work

Most of our Terms of Use explain your relationship with Givaly. This section is different — it explains the relationship between creators and supporters of Givaly projects, and who’s responsible for what. This is what you’re agreeing to when you create, participate in, or contribute to a Givaly project.

Givaly provides a platform for solving community problems. When a creator posts a project on Givaly, they’re inviting other people to form a contract with them. Anyone who supports a project is accepting the creator’s offer, and forming that contract. Any participants that show up in person do so wholly at their own inclination and Givaly is not responsible for injuries, accidents, misguidance, or anything else that can go wrong associated with the project or otherwise.

Givaly is not a part of this contract — the contract is a direct legal agreement between creators and their supporters. Here are the terms that govern that agreement:

When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill the project specifications. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their supporters.

Throughout the process, creators owe their supporters a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, supporters must understand that when they back a project, they’re helping to create something new or to fix something that's broken — they are working with other people that may or may not know exactly what they are doing. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised.

If a creator is unable to complete their project as specified, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for supporters. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to supporters if:

they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;

they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to supporters;

they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;

they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to supporters; and

they offer to return any remaining funds to supporters if there are funds to return in proportion to what was contributiond (funds cannot be spent on anything outside of the project scope) or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.

The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by supporters.

How Participating & Contributing Works

This section goes over the details of either contributing financially or participating in projects — things like how money gets collected, what to expect when showing up to a strangers project, whether project details can be changed or canceled, and how creators can contact supporters after, before, or during a project.

These are the terms that apply when you’re supporting a project:

You’re charged as soon as you make the contribution.You’ll provide your payment information when you contribute, and you will be charged. The exact amount you contributioned is the amount Givaly will collect. If the project doesn't reach enough of its fundraising goal to actually happen, the project creator must let Givaly know so that refunds can be processed to anyone that supported the project.

If you sign up to participate, you are obligated to show up to the project. If you can't make it to the project, you must let the project creator know in a timely manner or be penalized on your profile for missing a project.

You sign up to participate at your own risk. The project creator is obligated to provide sufficient details in the project description for participants to make educated assumptions about their safety. If you do not know the creator of the project, you may want to participate with friends or ask to speak on the phone before the project. Givaly is not liable if anything goes wrong.

In some cases we’ll reserve the charge on your card. Givaly and its payment partners may authorize or reserve a charge on your credit card (or whatever payment method you use) for any amount up to the full contribution, at any time between the contribution and the collection of funds.

You can increase your contribution at any time during the campaign by contributing again.

The project date is the creator’s decision. The date listed for the project is the creator’s estimate of when they will start the project — not a guarantee to start at that date. The schedule may change as the creator works on the project. We ask creators to think carefully, set a date they feel confident they can work toward, and communicate with supporters about any changes.

The creator may need to send you questions about your participation. To coordinate effectively, the creator might need information from you, like your mailing address or your physical fitness. Creators should not ask for personal information that is not necessary to provide your reward, and should never request sensitive personal information

such as your Social Security number or payment information. Contact us at contact@Givaly.com if you receive a request for information that seems inappropriate or excessive.

Givaly doesn’t offer refunds. Responsibility for finishing a project lies entirely with the project creator. Givaly doesn’t hold funds on creators’ behalf, cannot guarantee creators’ work, and does not offer refunds.

These are the terms that apply when you’re creating a project:

You can refund individual contributions if you want. After your project has been funded, you can cancel and refund a supporter’s contribution at any time. If you do, you have no further obligation to that specific supporter, and no agreement exists between you. Email contact@givaly.com with the refund details.

We’ll charge our fees before putting funds in your account. Givaly and its payment partners will subtract fees before transmitting the proceeds of a campaign.

Some contributions can’t be collected, which might reduce the amount of funding you get. Because some payments can’t be collected — for instance, when a supporter’s credit card expires, and they don’t provide updated information — we can’t guarantee that the amount of funding you receive will be exactly equal to the full amount contributioned minus fees.

We'll help resolve payment-card disputes. If a supporter of your project disputes the charge with their card issuer, we'll handle re-presenting the charge to settle the dispute with the card issuer. You’ll be notified that a dispute has been filed, and you’ll be able to provide evidence to help us resolve it in your favor. If the cardholder’s dispute is found valid, you authorize us to charge the credit card number you provided when you started your project for the amount of the chargeback.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Don’t assume you’ll be able to launch your project when you want; there could be a reason you'll not able to start on time, or a problem may come up that takes time to resolve. Don’t assume you’ll be able to immediately collect your funding or get to work; there may be a delay between the end of a successful campaign and your access to the funds. And don’t take any actions in reliance on collecting any of the money contributioned until you actually have the ability to withdraw it from your account and spend it.

Your Intellectual Property

We don’t own the stuff you post on Givaly. But when you post it, you’re giving us permission to use or copy it however we need in order to run the site, or show people what’s happening on it. (We generally just use this to promote projects and showcase our community on the website.) You’re responsible for the content you post, and you’re vouching to us that it’s all okay to use.

Givaly doesn’t own content you submit to us (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. When you submit a project for review, or launch a project, you agree to these terms:

We can use the content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content.

When we use the content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, delete, or translate any of your Content.

You won’t submit stuff you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant Givaly all the license rights outlined here).

Any royalties or licensing on your Content are your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity based on your Content, or on Givaly’s hosting of that Content.

You promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If Givaly or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in this agreement, you promise that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.

You’re responsible for the stuff you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom that content originated.

We’re not responsible for mistakes in your content. Givaly will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any content.

Givaly's Intellectual Property

The content on Givaly is protected in various ways. You do have the right to use it for certain personal purposes, but you can’t use it for anything commercial without getting permission first.

Givaly’s Services are legally protected in various ways, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, and other rights and laws. You agree to respect all copyright and other legal notices, information, and restrictions contained in any content accessed through the Site. You also agree not to change, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of the Service.

Givaly grants you a license to reproduce content from the Services for personal use only. This license covers both Givaly’s own protected content and user-generated content on the Site. (This license is worldwide, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable.) If you want to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, or store any of this content for a commercial purpose, you need prior written permission from Givaly or the relevant copyright holder. A “commercial purpose” means you intend to use, sell, license, rent, or otherwise exploit content for commercial use, in any way.

Givaly's Rights

To operate, we need to be able to maintain control over what happens on our website. So in this section, we reserve the right to make decisions to protect the health and integrity of our system. We don’t take these powers lightly, and we only use them when we absolutely have to.

Givaly reserves these rights:

We can make changes to the Givaly Site and Services without notice or liability.

We have the right to decide who’s eligible to use Givaly. We can cancel accounts or decline to offer our Services. (Especially if you’re abusing them.) We can change our eligibility criteria at any time. If these things are prohibited by law where you live, then we revoke your right to use Givaly in that jurisdiction.

We have the right to cancel any pledge to any project, at any time and for any reason.

We have the right to reject, cancel, interrupt, remove, or suspend any project at any time and for any reason.

Givaly is not liable for any damages as a result of any of these actions, and it is our policy not to comment on the reasons for any such action.

Indemnification

If you do something on Givaly that winds up getting us sued, you have to help defend us.

If you do something that gets us sued, or break any of the promises you make in this agreement, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and other legal costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of Givaly. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to this indemnification clause, in which case you agree that you’ll cooperate and help us in asserting any defenses.

Limitation of Liability

If something bad happens as a result of your using Givaly, we’re not liable (beyond a small amount).

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Givaly, its directors, employees, partners, suppliers, or content providers be liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, consequential, special, or exemplary damages of any kind, including but not limited to damages (i) resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Services; (ii) for any lost profits, data loss, or cost of procurement or substitute goods or services; or (iii) for any conduct of content of any third party on the Site. In no event shall Givaly’s liability for direct damages be in excess of (in the aggregate) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100.00).

Dispute Resolution & Governing Law

We’re located in Illinois, and any disputes with us have to be handled in Illinois under Illinois State law.

We at Givaly encourage you to contact us if you’re having an issue, before resorting to the courts. In the unfortunate situation where legal action does arise, these Terms (and all other rules, policies, or guidelines incorporated by reference) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois and the United States, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law, and without application of the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act or the United Nations Convention of Controls for International Sale of Goods. You agree that Givaly and its Services are deemed a passive website that does not give rise to jurisdiction over Givaly or its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, assigns, employees, agents, directors, officers, or shareholders, either specific or general, in any jurisdiction other than the State of Illinois. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these Terms, or your use or non-use of Givaly, shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in Illinois County in the State of Illinois, and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. You hereby irrevocably waive any right you may have to trial by jury in any dispute, action, or proceeding.

The Rest

These are our official terms and our rules for how things work. (So if you ever see confusing or conflicting information about any of this stuff, just check these terms — they’re the last word.) Thanks so much for reading them, and for using Givaly!

These Terms and the other material referenced in them are the entire agreement between you and Givaly with respect to the Services. They supersede all other communications and proposals (whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and Givaly with respect to the Services and govern our future relationship. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under the law, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms otherwise will remain in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure of either you or Givaly to exercise any right provided for in these Terms in any way won’t be deemed a waiver of any other rights.

These Terms are personal to you. You can’t assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get Givaly’s prior written consent. Givaly has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms without your consent. Givaly will provide you notice via email, written notice, or by conspicuously posting the notice on our Site.