Terms & Conditions

In shortUsing this site means these terms apply to you.

When you use this website, you agree to these terms. If something here doesn't sit right with you, please don't use the site. If you'd like to talk it through, email us at Info@believefnd.com. We'd rather hear from you than lose you.

The Believe Foundation is a 501(c)⁠(3) public charity. We mentor kids, teens, young adults and adults, and we back that mentoring with practical help for families.

We help anyone who asks, regardless of background or beliefs.

In these documents, "we", "us" and "our" mean The Believe Foundation, and "you" means anyone using believefnd.com or getting in touch with us through it.

These terms work alongside our Privacy Policy, which explains what we do with the information you give us. Together they're the whole agreement between us about this website, except for any separate agreement or consent form you sign with us for a specific program.

In shortRead anything you like. Please don't break anything.

You don't need an account and you don't need to sign in. Everything here is open to read, and you're welcome to share a link to any page with anyone.

Use the site for what it's for: learning about our work, getting in touch, asking for help, volunteering, or giving.

What we ask you not to do

• Collect content or contact details automatically, whether by scraping, crawling beyond ordinary search engine indexing, or harvesting email addresses and phone numbers for marketing.
• Interfere with the site: overloading it, probing it, trying to gain access you haven't been given, or introducing anything harmful.
• Impersonate the foundation, a member of our team, a mentor, or a volunteer, online or anywhere else.
• Give false information in a form, or submit a request on someone's behalf without their knowledge.
• Use the site or anything on it for anything unlawful, or to harass, threaten, or endanger anyone.

If any of that happens we may block access or remove content. We'd rather not; we will if we have to.

In shortAsking isn't the same as us being able to say yes.

We do three things: mentoring, practical support in hard seasons, and seasonal support, which means holiday meals and Christmas gifts. Mentoring is the center of it: the Mentorship Pathway runs in five stages, starting at age five and continuing through adulthood.

A real person reads every request. What happens next depends on capacity, availability and eligibility, so sending a form or a message doesn't create an agreement and doesn't guarantee help. We'll be honest with you either way.

While you're taking part

• Tell us what's actually going on. We can only help with what we know about, and we won't judge you for it.
• Follow the safety guidelines we give you for an activity or a meeting.
• Treat our team, volunteers and mentors with the same respect they owe you.
• Taking part is voluntary. You can stop at any time, without explaining why.

We can also end or pause someone's participation if it isn't working, if our safety guidelines aren't being followed, or if we no longer have the capacity to keep it going well. We'll tell you if that happens.

In shortA parent or guardian agrees first, stays informed, and can stop anything at any time.

The Mentorship Pathway starts at age five, so a lot of our work involves children and teenagers. A parent or legal guardian must give consent before anyone under 18 takes part, and must give us the information we need to arrange it safely.

Mentoring is a relationship, not childcare. Mentors are volunteers; they are not counselors, therapists, social workers, tutors or babysitters, and mentoring is not supervision or treatment.

What we expect from each other

• A parent or guardian agrees to the activities, the meeting arrangements, and anything that changes along the way.
• Tell us what we need to know, such as medical needs, safety concerns, or court or custody arrangements that affect who can be involved.
• Meetings and activities follow the safety guidelines we give you. If something is arranged outside them, it isn't ours.
• A parent or guardian can end participation at any time, for any reason or none.
• If anything about a mentor, a volunteer, or an activity concerns you, tell us straight away and we'll look into it.

What we do with a young person's information, including the guardian consent that comes with it, is set out in our Privacy Policy.

In shortSigning up is an application, not an offer of a role.

Volunteers and business partners start in the same place: signing up on POINT (opens in a new tab), the volunteer platform we use.

Signing up is an application. It doesn't create a role, a partnership, a contract or an offer, and we can't place everyone who applies. We read every one.

What we ask of volunteers

• Treat everyone with dignity, and keep what you're told in confidence.
• Follow our safety guidelines, especially around children and young people.
• Never use your role to sell, solicit, recruit, or gain anything personally.
• Speak up early if something concerns you, or if you need to step back.

Volunteering isn't employment

Volunteering with us is unpaid and voluntary. It doesn't create an employment relationship, and volunteers aren't employees, agents or contractors of the foundation. Either of us can end a volunteer relationship at any time.

Business partners bring their time, trade or resources alongside ours. That doesn't make either of us responsible for the other's business, and accepting help from a business isn't an endorsement of its products or services.

In shortGivebutter handles the money. We handle the thank-you.

One-time and monthly gifts go through Givebutter (opens in a new tab), the giving platform behind the form on our Donate page. When you give, you're using Givebutter's service as well as ours, under its own terms and privacy policy.

Your card details go to Givebutter and its payment processors. They don't come to us, and we never see or store a full card number.

You can also give through Venmo (opens in a new tab). Venmo processes those gifts under its own terms and privacy policy, and your card or bank details stay with it.

Tax-deductibility

We are a registered 501(c)⁠(3) public charity. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. For a gift through Givebutter, your receipt comes from Givebutter, to the email address you give when you donate. We're not able to give tax advice, but your accountant can tell you what a gift means for your return.

Monthly gifts

You can change or cancel a recurring gift from the link on your Givebutter receipt, or from your Givebutter account. If you'd rather we did it, email Info@believefnd.com and we'll take care of it. No questions, no awkwardness.

If something goes wrong with a gift

Mistakes happen: a wrong amount, a duplicate, a one-time gift that was set to repeat. Email Info@believefnd.com or call (513) 537-4951 and we'll work with you to put it right.

Gifts support our work across our three initiatives. If you'd like yours to go to one in particular, let us know when you give.

In shortA few parts of this site are somebody else's.

To keep things simple and secure, we use a small number of outside services:

Givebutter

The giving form embedded on our Donate page, and the campaign page it links to.

Venmo

Another way to give, linked from our Donate page.

POINT

Our volunteer platform, where volunteers and business partners sign up and sign in.

Resend and our website host

Resend delivers the messages you send us through the contact form; our host serves this website.

We choose these carefully, but we don't control them. Once you're inside their form or on their site, their terms and privacy policy apply instead of ours. The same goes for any other website we link to. A link is not an endorsement. Our Privacy Policy lists who receives what.

In shortOurs stays ours. Yours stays yours.

The words, design, photographs, logo and program names on this site, including The Believe Foundation name and the Mentorship Pathway, belong to us or are used with permission. Some photographs are licensed from their photographers and aren't ours to pass on.

You're welcome to read, print and share pages, and to quote us with credit and a link. Please don't republish the site's content as another organization's, and don't use our name or logo in a way that suggests we're connected or that we endorse something when we haven't.

Anything you send us

Anything you share with us, like a message, a photo or a story, stays yours. We use it to answer you and to do our work, and nothing more.

We ask in writing before we share anyone's story or photograph publicly, and always before a child's. If you've given permission and change your mind, tell us and we'll take it down.

In shortWe're not a substitute for a professional. In an emergency, call 911.

Everything on this site is general information about our work. It isn't legal, medical, financial, counseling, therapeutic or contracting advice, and reading it doesn't create a professional relationship between us.

Our mentors and volunteers show up, listen and encourage. They aren't licensed counselors, therapists, social workers or medical professionals, and mentoring is not treatment.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988.

Please don't put off getting professional help because of something you read here.

In shortWe do our best. We can't promise perfect.

We work to keep this site accurate and current, and we can't promise it's free of mistakes, always available, or right for your situation. The site is offered as it is.

We don't guarantee an outcome. Mentoring is a relationship between people; we can't promise what it will produce, how long it will last, or that a place will be available when you ask.

In shortThere's a limit to what we can be on the hook for.

To the fullest extent the law allows, The Believe Foundation and its board, staff and volunteers aren't liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from your use of this website, from a third-party service you reach through it, or from taking part in one of our programs.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't lawfully be limited. Some states don't allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

If you're unhappy with something, tell us first. We'd rather fix it than argue about it.

Changes to these terms

We update these terms from time to time. The date at the top of the page always says when we last did. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated version, and if a change really matters we'll say so plainly.

Indemnification

If your misuse of this site, or your breach of these terms, leads to a claim against us, we may ask you to cover the reasonable costs of dealing with it.

Severability and assignment

If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still stands. We may transfer these terms to a successor organization (in a merger, for example), and you can't transfer your side without asking us first.

Sorting out disputes

If something goes wrong, email Info@believefnd.com or call (513) 537-4951 first and give us a fair chance to put it right. Most things can be sorted out in a conversation.