Terms & Conditions
Sponsor Me Terms & Conditions
Charities Trust is a charity registered with the Charity Commission, (registration number 327489) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England, (company number 2142757). (Collectively "Charities Trust", "We", "Our", "Us") operates the website sponsorme.charitiestrust.org and other related systems and services.
These are the Terms and Conditions which govern each use you make of the payment services provided through that website. They describe what Charities Trust does for you and the Charities and other causes you support through use of our services, together with what we require from you as a user.
These Terms and Conditions may change or be updated from time to time. It remains your responsibility to access and check these Terms and Conditions. The latest version of these Terms and Conditions will govern any future usage by you of the website and its associated services. The date on which these Terms and Conditions were last updated is stated at the end of this document.
These Terms and Conditions apply separately to each single donation or event fee payment that you make. By confirming on the Sponsor Me website that you wish to make a donation or event fee payment you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions for that transaction.
General usage
1. Your use of our Internet sites or any of the products or services offered on those sites (collectively, the "Services") is subject to these Terms and Conditions (Terms). Charities Trust reserves the right to modify these Terms at any time without notice to you by posting revised Terms on our website. Your use of our website or Services constitutes your binding acceptance of these Terms, including any modifications that we make.
2. Charities Trust places expectations on those using its website and services. That means
that we expect users to conduct themselves appropriately. If Charities Trust finds offensive, defamatory, libellous, threatening, harassing or obscene content on the website we will remove it and terminate your access. Charities Trust has the right, but not the obligation, to take any of the following actions in our sole discretion at any time and for any reason without giving you any prior notice.
a) Restrict, suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Services.
b) Change, suspend or discontinue all or any part of the Services.
c) Refuse, move or remove any material that you submit to our sites for any reason.
d) Refuse, move or remove any content that is available on our sites.
e) Deactivate or delete your accounts and all related information and files in your account.
f) Establish general practices and limits concerning use of our sites.
You agree that we will not be liable to you or any third party for taking any of these actions.
3. You understand and agree that we may need to contact you in relation to your donations or for other administrative purposes that these communications are considered part of the
service we provide under the legitimate interest we have for processing your donations.
Donations
4. Any donation which you make using the website will in the first instance be made to Charities Trust itself. Charities Trust is a registered charity, so your donation may be eligible for Gift Aid (see
below for more details).
5. Although your donation is initially made to Charities Trust it will be allocated to the charity or charities nominated by the fundraiser who has set-up the event page raised. Charities Trust will make all reasonable endeavours to pass on your donation to the nominated charity. If in the unlikely event that Charities Trust is unable to pay over the funds to the nominated charity they will be paid to an alternative charity. Where a donation is redirected to an alternative charity Charities Trust will make reasonable efforts to inform the fundraiser of the change.
6. Your donation will be allocated to the charity or charities nominated by the fundraiser who has set the event page up, as soon as payment is made. Your donation plus Gift Aid less Charities Trust's fees will be passed to the charity and will never be applied to Charities Trust's own funds.
7. Donations are passed to the nominated charity on a monthly basis using the BACS payment service.
8. If you select a charity which has not been recently verified by Charities Trust we will contact the charity as part of our verification process and to request bank details. It may speed up this process if you inform the charity independently that you have set up a fundraising page to support them. Please note that we do not normally pay charities by cheque due to the high costs of processing. In circumstances where we do need to issue a cheque there will be an additional charge which will be deducted from the funds raised. (Currently £2.50 per cheque).
9. Once a fundraising page has been created and charities selected you are not able to
amend the charity selection or the percentage split of the donations received.
10. Charities Trust is not responsible for any dissatisfaction you may have about how your
chosen charity uses any donation which you make through the website.
11. Charities Trust will pass the name of fundraisers to the charity or charities they are
supporting as part of the donation process.
12. You can make donations by following the instructions on the Sponsor Me website.
Donations can be made by debit card or credit card (including American Express).
13. Any donations made in currencies other than GBP will be converted to GBP and you may
incur additional fees levied by your card provider for the transaction.
14. Once a donation is made using the website, the transaction is final and cannot be disputed
or reversed unless unauthorised use of your payment card or other payment method is
proved. If you become aware of fraudulent use of your card, or if it is lost or stolen, you
must notify your card provider in accordance with its reporting rules.
Similarly, if you experience any issues of this nature when using another payment method, such as PayPal, you should contact the provider of that payment method for assistance. Charities Trust will never email you or phone you and ask you to provide all your payment details.
15. Notwithstanding the above Charities Trust may at its absolute discretion agree to refund a donation made in error if the funds have not been passed to the nominated charity. Where this occurs an administration fee of £10 will be incurred.
16. Donations made to sponsor a fundraising activity or event (sponsorship) cannot be
refunded if the activity or event is cancelled. The donations will be passed to the charity or charities nominated by the fundraiser on a monthly basis.
17. When you make a donation, it may be necessary for us to verify your identity or the details which you have given to us or to request other information. You agree that you will provide such information or documents as we may reasonably request from time to time to enable us to do this.
Gift Aid
18. If donors indicate that they are eligible to reclaim gift-aid Charities Trust will process a gift aid claim with HMRC and pass the funds received to the nominated charity. In doing so Charities Trust is required to pass details of donors claiming Gift Aid to HMRC and in asking us to claim Gift Aid you are giving us permission to do.
19. By claiming Gift Aid connected to your donation you are confirming that:
- The organisation receiving the donation is a charity registered with the English Charity Commission, Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Charity Commission of Northern Ireland or exempt from registration for Charities Trust to reclaim Gift Aid on their behalf.
- You are a UK taxpayer, in accordance with the requirements of the Gift Aid scheme [link to HMRC’s page on Gift Aid]
- The donation consists solely of your own money and does not include funds donated by others, e.g. a group of friends of team at work
- The donation does not comprise the proceeds from the sale of goods or provision of services – e.g. a charity auction or cake sale
- You are not sponsoring a relative who has received a contribution towards their event costs – e.g. the donor is fundraising overseas and the charity has paid for their travel
- You will not receive a benefit from making the donation in accordance with the requirements of the Gift Aid scheme: https://www.gov.uk/donating-to-charity/gift-aid
Fees
20. There is no registration charge for setting up a fundraising page or event.
A processing fee of 4% will be deducted from any Gift Aid reclaimed, to cover our administrative costs. If your donation is not eligible for Gift Aid the fee of 4% will be deducted from the donation alone.
Online Services
21. When registering to fundraise with Sponsor Me you will be asked to select a password to
protect your account. (Users are not required to register unless setting up their own fundraising event - you do not need an account to make a donation). Charities Trust advises that you keep your password secret, and if you believe that you password may have become lost, stolen, misused, used without authorisation, or have become known to another person you must contact us to go through the process of resetting your password. If you become aware of any fraudulent card use or if it is lost or stolen, you must contact your card provider immediately.
22. The online services may become temporarily unavailable although this mostly occurs
through planned overnight maintenance. Charities Trust will endeavour to inform you of
any planned downtime or account suspension through a general notice on our website.
23. Occasionally the payments service will be interrupted or caused to fail by unforeseen
circumstances beyond the control of Charities Trust, or where we need to act to comply
with the Law. We will not be responsible for the consequences of such events.
Changes to the Service
24. Charities Trust reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue all or any part of the
Website and its associated services at any time with or without notice. All new features,
services or software applications shall be subject to these Terms.
Privacy
25. Charities Trust Privacy Policy forms part of these Terms. By agreeing to these Terms, you also give your consent to the way we handle your personal information under that Policy.
Site usage
26. Charities Trust as the operator of the Sponsor Me website acts as an intermediary
between the charities and the individual or corporate users of our Services. If Charities Trust requests registration information from you, you will provide us with true, accurate, current and complete information.
27. Charities Trust provides a Business to Business fundraising service and we primarily work
with companies to help engage their employees in company fundraising initiatives via
Sponsor Me. To this end, our Services are not directed or marketed to persons under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children aged 13 and under.
28. If you are issued with a password you may not reveal this password to anyone else and
you may not use anyone else's password to access an account that is not your own. Whilst Charities Trust is responsible for maintaining the security of your data in line with our Privacy Policy, this does not extend to where you have willingly shared your account and/or passwords with any other party.
If the security of your account is compromised under these circumstances it is your responsibility to immediately notify us of any unauthorised use of your passwords or accounts or any other breach of security.
29. You also agree to exit from your accounts at the end of each session. We will not be
responsible for any loss or damage that may occur if you fail to comply with these
requirements.
30. The technology and the software underlying our sites and the Services is the property of
Charities Trust, our affiliates and our partners. You agree not to copy, modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, assign, distribute, reverse engineer, grant a security interest in, or otherwise transfer the any right to the technology or software underlying the site of the Services. You agree not to modify the software underlying our sites or the Services. You agree not to modify the software underlying our sites in any manner or form or to use modified version of such software, including (without limitation) for the purpose of obtaining unauthorised access to our sites.
31. You must, at all times, use the Website and its associated services in a responsible and
legal manner and ensure that the content you provide does not breach any intellectual property rights of a third party or breach any right or duty owed to a third party.
Without limiting the foregoing, you agree that you will not use our sites to take any of the
following actions:
a) Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten, or otherwise violate the legal right of others;
b) Publish, post, upload, e-mail, distribute, or disseminate (collectively, "transmit") any inappropriate, profane, defamatory, infringing, obscene, racist indecent, misleading or
deceptive or unlawful content;
c) Transmit files that contain viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or
programs that may damage or adversely affect the operation of another person's
computer, our sites, any software or hardware, or telecommunications equipment;
d) Advertise or offer to sell any goods or services for any commercial purpose unless
you have our written consent to do so;
e) Transmit surveys, contests, pyramid schemes, spam, unsolicited advertising or
promotional materials, or chain letters;
f) Download any file that you know or reasonably should know cannot be legally
obtained in such manner;
g) Falsify or delete any author attributions, legal or other proper notices or proprietary
designations or labels of the origin or the source of software or other material;
h) Restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying any public area within our
sites;
i) Collect or store personal information about other end users;
j) Interfere with or disrupt our sites, servers, or networks;
k) Impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a Charities Trust
representative, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person
or entity;
l) Forge headers or manipulate identifiers or other data in order to disguise the origin of
any content transmitted through our sites or to manipulate your presence on our sites;
m) Take any action that imposes an unreasonably or disproportionately large load on our
infrastructure;
n) You should not use the Website to conduct, display or forward raffles, lotteries or contests; we reserve the right to cancel pages used in this manner, especially where the option to add Gift Aid has not been switched off by the page owner when the page was created.
o) You must not attempt to bypass the network firewall;
p) Engage in any illegal activities.
32. If you choose a username that, in our sole discretion, is obscene, indecent, abusive or that might otherwise subject us to public disparagement or scorn, we reserve the right, without prior notice to you, to automatically change your username, delete your posts from our sites, deny you access to our sites, or any combination of these options.
33. Unauthorised access to our sites is a breach of these Terms and a violation of the law.
You agree not to access our sites by any means other than through the interface that is provided by Charities Trust for use in accessing our sites. You agree not to use any automated means, including, without limitation, agents, robots, scripts, or spiders, to access, monitor, or copy any part of our sites, except those automated means that we have approved in advance and in writing.
34. Use of our sites is subject to existing laws and legal process. Nothing contained in these
Terms shall limit our right to comply with governmental, court, and law-enforcement requests or requirements relating to your use of our sites.
35. Charities Trust reserves the right to cancel your access and delete any Sponsor Me page
without notice in the event you fail to follow any of the above expectations. Charities Trust may also suspend or delete a Sponsor Me page if the relevant cause is no longer receiving donations via Sponsor Me or is no longer active.
36. Building a Sponsor Me page in aid of a cause in no way implies Charities Trust or the Causes endorsement of your fundraising activity. Prior to commencing a fundraising activity, it is your responsibility to ensure that the benefitting Cause has no objection to the nature of the proposed activity.
Charities Trust reserves the right, at its absolute discretion and without notice, to cancel our personal fundraising page at the request of the Cause if the Cause, in its absolute discretion, deems your fundraising activity inappropriate or unnecessarily dangerous.
Content
37. Our sites include a combination of content that we create, that our partners create, and
that our users create. All materials published on our sites, including, but not limited to, written content, photographs, graphics, images, illustrations, marks, logos, sound or video clips, and Flash animation, are protected by our copyrights or trademarks or those of our partners. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or in any way exploit any of the materials or content on our sites in whole or in part.
38. You are solely responsible for all materials, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, that you upload, post, e-mail, transmit, or otherwise make available on our sites ("Your Content"). You certify that you own all intellectual property rights in Your Content. You hereby grant us, our affiliates, and our partners a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, sub licensable license to use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transfer, transmit, distribute, and publish Your Content and subsequent versions of Your Content for the purposes of (i) displaying Your Content on our sites, (ii) distributing Your Content, either electronically or via other media, to users seeking to download or otherwise acquire it, and/or (iii) storing Your Content in a remote database accessible by end users, for a charge. This license shall apply to the distribution and the storage of Your Content in any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed.
39. Our site contains content that we create as well as content provided by third parties. It also
includes information about products and services offered by parties other than Charities Trust, such as product descriptions, specifications, pricing, availability, and performance.
We do not guarantee the accuracy, the integrity, or the quality of the content on our sites, and you may not rely on any of this content. Without limitation, we are not responsible for postings by users in the user opinion, message board, or feedback sections of our sites.
40. You may be exposed to content that you find offensive, indecent, or objectionable or that
is inaccurate, and you bear all risks associated with using that content. We have the right, but not the obligation, to remove any content that may, in our sole discretion, violate these
Terms or that is otherwise objectionable.
Links
41. Charities Trust's website and its associated services may contain links to other websites,
including the websites of charities on individual’s fundraising pages. Inclusion of a link to
another website does not imply endorsement of its content or opinions. Charities Trust is
not responsible for the privacy practices, the content or the product or service offerings of
any third-party website and your relationship and any transactions with other people or
organisations through their websites or otherwise are your own responsibility.
Failure to comply with these terms
42. If you break these Terms, we reserve the right at our sole discretion, to immediately and with or without notice, suspend or permanently deny your access to all parts of the Website and associated services; to delete any content and to prohibit you from using all or part of the Services. The obligations contained herein will continue to apply to your past use.
Termination
43. You may discontinue use of the Website and associated services at any time. These will continue to apply to your past use.
Trademarks
44. The names Sponsor Me, sponsorme.org, sponsorme.co.uk, Charities Trust, the Sponsor
Me logo and any other products or Services that we may provide through our website are property of Charities Trust or our partners and affiliates. As such they may not be used in connection with any other product that is not Charities Trust's, nor in any manner that may present Charities Trust in a bad light, cause confusion or disparage or discredit Charities Trust. Other logos or trademarks that appear on the Sponsor Me website are normally (but not exclusively) owned by charities. They must not be used without explicit consent from both the charity and Charities Trust.
Indemnification
45. You hereby agree to indemnify, defend and hold Charities Trust and all our officers,
directors, employees, agents, information providers, affiliates, partners and licensors
(collectively, the "Charities Trust Parties") harmless from and against any and all liability,
losses, costs and expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred by any Charities Trust
party in connection with any claim, including, but not limited to, claims for defamation,
violation of rights of publicity/or privacy, copyright infringement, or trademark infringement
arising out of:
- a) Your use of our sites;
b) Any use or alleged use of your accounts or your passwords by any person, whether
or not authorised by you;
c) The content, the quality, or the performance of content that you submit to our sites;
d) Your connection to our sites;
e) Your violation of these Terms; or
f) Your violation of the rights of any other person or entity.
g) We reserve the right, at our own expense, to assume defence and control of any
matter for which you are required to indemnify us, and you agree to cooperate with
our defence of these claims.
Disclaimer
46. We disclaim any responsibility for the deletion, the failure to store, the mis delivery, or the
untimely delivery of any information or material. We disclaim any responsibility for any harm resulting from downloading or accessing any information or material on the Internet using search results from our sites. We disclaim any responsibility for, and if you subscribe to one of our fee-based services you will not be entitled to a refund as a result of, any service outages that are caused by our maintenance on the servers or the technology that underlies our sites, failures of our service providers (including telecommunications, hosting, and power providers), computer viruses, natural disasters or other destruction or damage of our facilities, acts of nature, war, civil disturbance, or any other cause beyond our reasonable control.
47. We do not warrant that our sites will be uninterrupted or error free. In addition, we do not
make any warranty as to the content on our sites. Our sites and their content are distributed on an "as is, as available" basis. Any material that you download or otherwise obtain through our sites is done at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any potential damages to your computer system or loss of data that results from your download of any such material. Neither we nor any of our partners makes any warranty that (i) our sites will meet your requirements, (ii) our sites will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free, (iii) the results that may be obtained from the use of our sites will be accurate or reliable, (iv) the quality of any products, services, information, or other material that you purchase or obtain through our sites will meet your expectations, and (v) any errors will be corrected. Neither we nor any of our partners makes any warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, without limitation, warranties of title or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to our sites, any content, or any of our services, tools, products, or properties. You expressly agree that you will assume the entire risk as to the quality and the performance of our sites and the accuracy or completeness of its content.
48. Neither we nor our partners shall be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, or
consequential damages arising out of the use of or inability to use our sites, even if we
have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Third party rights
49. A person who is not a party to these Terms has no right to enforce any term of these Terms.
Governing law
50. These terms of service are governed by English law and are subject to the exclusive
jurisdiction of the English courts.
51. You and Charities Trust will comply with all applicable laws.
Last updated: 24 February 2020
Charities Trust