Terms of Service — Personal Fundraiser Hosts and Beneficiaries

Posted/Revised: August 1, 2020

This Personal Fundraiser Hosts and Beneficiaries policy ("Policy") is incorporated into Pledgeling’s Terms of Service (“Terms”). Nothing in this Policy supersedes the Terms of Service; this Policy only extends the Terms. In the event of a conflict between this Policy and the Terms, this Policy shall prevail.

This Policy applies to any user who creates a Personal Fundraiser on our platform or via a partner’s platform (“Host”) or receives funds from a Personal Fundraiser (“Beneficiary”). If you are a Host or Beneficiary, you agree to this Policy. If you don't agree with this Policy, do not create a personal fundraiser or receive funds from a personal fundraiser.

Personal Fundraiser Hosts

If you are a personal fundraiser Host:

  • you represent that you have truthfully described your fundraiser and warrant that any funds you receive will be used solely for the purpose you stated;

  • you represent that your fundraiser is in compliance with the terms of this Policy;

  • you must comply with your legal and regulatory obligations, including – but not limited to – laws regarding personal or charitable solicitation, gift or sales or any other tax, money laundering, and political contributions;

  • your ability to accept payments is subject to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, available at https://stripe.com/us/connect-account/legal.

Personal Fundraiser Beneficiaries

Each personal fundraiser has one or more beneficiaries (“Beneficiary” or “Beneficiaries”), designated by the Host, who will receive the proceeds. By default the Host is the Beneficiary. The Beneficiary must have a US bank account and US identity verification documents that comply with “Know Your Customer” requirements from our payment processor and US regulators. A fundraiser only has one Beneficiary at a time; the Host may switch Beneficiaries, but donations before the change will still go to the original Beneficiary while donations after the switch will go to the new Beneficiary.

If you are a personal fundraiser Beneficiary:

  • you must complete the identity, banking, and other information requests necessary to configure your account. If you do not, we will not be able to send you any donations;

  • you must comply with all legal and regulatory obligations, including – but not limited to – laws regarding personal or charitable solicitation, gift or sales or any other tax, money laundering, and political contributions. It is solely your responsibility to determine what, if any, taxes apply to the funds you receive, and to ensure that they are reported and / or remitted to the appropriate tax agencies.

  • your ability to receive funds is subject to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, available at https://stripe.com/us/connect-account/legal.

Payment to Beneficiary

Beneficiaries must complete the account sign-up process in order to receive funds. If the Beneficiary does not complete the process, which may include responding to requests for additional information, the funds raised will be returned to donors after 120 days.

For any personal fundraiser, the first payment to the Beneficiary will be deposited in their bank account approximately 10 business days after the first donation was made, subject to their having provided identity verification information and completing other account setup tasks. Subsequent payments will be deposited approximately 7 - 8 business days after donations are processed. These delays are subject to different time zones and US bank holidays.

Beneficiaries may request that we suspend receipt of payments and refund unpaid donations to donors. If this functionality is not available on when you log in to our dashboard, contact us via http://help.pledgeling.com

Prohibited Types of Personal Fundraiser

Generally, personal fundraisers must be legal; truthful; and not create incremental regulatory, compliance, legal, or tax burden on us in any jurisdiction where we operate. If your fundraiser involves something potentially illegal, heavily regulated, or possibly dangerous, and you’re unsure if we’ll allow it, contact us.

All transactions are also subject to our payment processing partners' terms of service. Some of their prohibitions include any use directly or indirectly related to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and other regions they may designate, due to concerns involving sanctions, money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crimes risks.

Personal fundraisers are explicitly prohibited if they, in our sole judgement:

  • violate any of our agreements, including this Policy, the Terms, and our Acceptable Use Policy;

  • are flagged by our own or third party anti-fraud and security checks;

  • are fraudulent, misleading, or inaccurate;

  • violate or potentially violate any applicable law, statute, ordnance, or regulation; including any fundraiser that:

    • potentially infringes the intellectual property rights of a third party;

    • contains sexually explicit content;

    • supports causes associated with hate, harassment, violence, discrimination, or terrorism;

  • involve US-sanctioned countries, entities, or persons;

  • create a regulatory or compliance risk or burden, such as fundraisers involving:

    • any political candidate, campaign, or political action committee;

    • any investment activity;

    • contests, sweepstakes, raffles, random drawings, or gambling;

    • any drug, controlled substance, supplement, or device claiming any medical or health benefit;

    • any weapon;

  • raise funds for legal defense of alleged violent crimes.

The above list is not exhaustive, and we may suspend or remove any personal fundraiser for any reason, or no reason.

Policy Violations

If we deem a fundraiser to be in violation of this Policy, we may do one or more of the following:

  • temporarily suspend or permanently stop processing of donations;

  • temporarily suspend or permanently stop payment of some or all funds raised to the Beneficiary;

  • refund some or all funds raised to the donors;

  • suspend or terminate your access to our personal fundraising service and / or any other services we provide;

  • utilize all legal means to recover funds disbursed to the Beneficiary, and to obtain reimbursement for our direct costs as well as our costs to investigate and remediate your Policy violation;

  • report you to appropriate law enforcement or regulatory authorities,

  • take any other legal or remedial action as we see fit.