Terms of use

These terms are the agreement between you and Golden Hint. We have tried to write them as a promise, not small print. If anything is unclear, write to us at hello@goldenhint.com and we will explain.

Who we are

Golden Hint is an initiative of the Rouben Malian Memorial Foundation Inc (the "Foundation"). The Foundation is a New York nonprofit corporation. It is recognized as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which is the part of federal tax law that covers charities.

When these terms say "we", "us" or "Golden Hint", they mean the Foundation, acting through Golden Hint.

Address: 1 Rockefeller Plaza, Level 15, New York, NY 10020
Email: hello@goldenhint.com
Foundation website: www.roubenmalianmemorial.org (opens another site)

What these terms cover

Golden Hint is opening in stages.

Today, anyone can read our public guides, use the Start a Charity pathway and its tools, browse resources and news, join the early-access waitlist, ask a person for help, and contact us about partnering. There are no member accounts yet.

Later, we will open membership. Members will be able to use the Expertise Exchange (where people trade skills and time), messaging, credits, profiles and the forum.

These terms cover both. The parts about membership describe how it will work. You will be asked to accept the terms, the Community Guidelines and the Credit Rules when you join. The site keeps a record of which version each member accepted.

By using the site today, you agree to the parts of these terms that apply to visitors.

Who can use Golden Hint

Golden Hint is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use the forms on this site or to become a member.

If you use Golden Hint on behalf of an organization, you are telling us you have permission to do so.

Using the site well

We want Golden Hint to be a safe, useful place. When you use it, please do not:

break the law, or help anyone else break it
pretend to be someone else, or misstate who you represent
send spam, junk messages or chain letters
try to get into parts of the site or data you are not allowed to see
disrupt the site, overload it, or get around its security or spam checks
copy the site in bulk with automated tools, except as allowed by the content licence below
upload viruses or harmful code
harass, threaten or abuse anyone
post anything hateful, sexually explicit or that puts a child at risk
use what you learn here to mislead donors or the public

We may block access, remove content or close an account if someone breaks these rules. Where it is safe and fair to do so, we will tell the person why.

We want our guides to travel. Please share them.

Guides and articles. Our written guides are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (opens another site) (CC BY-NC 4.0). In plain words, you may copy, share and adapt them for non-commercial purposes, as long as you:

give credit to Golden Hint and link back to the original page
say if you changed anything
do not sell them or use them mainly to make money

Templates. Our templates (for example, sample policies and letters) are meant to be used. You may freely copy, change and use them for your own organization, with or without credit. Please check any template carefully and adapt it to your situation before you rely on it.

What the licence does not cover. The Golden Hint name and logo, the Foundation's name and logo, the design of the site, and anything on the site that belongs to someone else (for example, links to outside sources) are not part of the licence. Please do not use our name or logo in a way that suggests we endorse you.

Information, not advice

Our guides and tools give general information. They are not legal, tax or financial advice, and reading them does not make us your lawyer, accountant or adviser. Rules change and every situation is different. Please read our disclaimer and check with a qualified professional before you make important decisions.

Forms you send us

When you send us a form, please give true information. We use what you send only as our Privacy policy describes. We will do our best to reply, but we cannot promise an answer to every question or a particular response time for help requests.

Membership (when it opens)

This section describes how membership will work. It will apply to you once you join.

Your account

Keep your login details safe and do not share your account.
Tell us right away if you think someone else has used your account.
Keep your profile accurate and up to date.
You are responsible for what happens under your account.

Verification

We check who members are, so people can trust each other.

Charities are checked against the IRS list of tax-exempt organizations using their EIN (Employer Identification Number, the nine-digit number the IRS gives an organization).
Founders whose charity is still forming join a clearly labeled founder tier with limited permissions until their organization is recognized.
Individual professionals can add verified credentials to their profile.

We may refuse or remove verification if information turns out to be wrong.

The Expertise Exchange

The Exchange lets members offer and ask for help, such as an hour of bookkeeping advice or a review of a grant application.

An exchange is an arrangement between the members involved. Golden Hint is not a party to it and does not employ or supervise the people giving help.
We do not check or guarantee the quality of the help given. Use your own judgment, as you would with any volunteer.
Agree the scope clearly before work starts. Keep your promises, or say early if you cannot.
Help given through the Exchange is not paid work, and nothing in it creates a job, partnership or agency between members, or between a member and us.
If a member is a licensed professional, the Exchange does not by itself create a professional-client relationship. Members should agree in writing if they intend one.

Credits

Members earn and spend credits for help given and received. Credits are a record of contribution within a community. They have no cash value. The Credit Rules explain how they work.

Status

Members can earn status tiers (Member, Gold and Laureate) through completed exchanges and good reviews. Status is always earned. It can never be bought.

Leaving

You can close your account at any time. You can export or delete your data, as our Privacy policy explains. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, the Community Guidelines or the Credit Rules.

What you post

Some of this applies today (for example, a note you send in a form). Most of it applies once membership opens.

You own what you post. Your profile, forum posts, reviews, resources and messages stay yours.
You give us permission to show it. By posting, you let us store, display, copy and format your content on Golden Hint so the platform can work. This permission ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies we must keep by law, and except for forum answers other members have already relied on, which we may keep with your name removed.
Resources you submit to the library. If you submit a resource and we approve it for the library, we will agree with you at that time how it may be shared.
Private documents stay private. Documents shared inside an exchange stay private to the two parties. We do not publish them.
Only post what you have the right to share. Do not post someone else's work, private information or confidential material without permission.

We may remove content that breaks these terms or the Community Guidelines.

Links to other sites

We link to official sources and other useful websites. We do not control them and are not responsible for what they say or do. A link is not an endorsement.

No promises beyond these terms

We work hard to keep Golden Hint accurate, safe and available. But we provide the site and everything on it "as is". That means:

We do not promise that the site will always be available, error-free or free of harmful code.
We do not promise that our guides are complete or up to date for your situation.
We do not promise anything about the help, advice or conduct of other members.

Some places do not allow these kinds of limits. If that applies to you, the limits apply only as far as the law allows.

Limits on our responsibility

Golden Hint is a free service run by a charity. To keep it free, we need to limit what we can be held responsible for.

As far as the law allows:

We are not responsible for losses caused by relying on our general information, by other members, or by outside websites.
We are not responsible for indirect losses, such as lost funding, lost opportunities or lost data.
If we are found responsible for something, our total responsibility to you is limited to one hundred US dollars (US$100).

Nothing in these terms limits responsibility that the law does not allow us to limit, such as responsibility for fraud or for deliberate wrongdoing.

If something goes wrong

Please talk to us first at hello@goldenhint.com. Most problems can be fixed with a conversation.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York. Any legal dispute will be handled by the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York, unless the law where you live gives you a right to bring it somewhere else.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Golden Hint grows. When we do, we will change the version date at the top of this page.

For visitors, the new version applies from its effective date.
For members, we will tell you about important changes before they take effect, and ask you to accept the new version where the law or fairness requires it. The site keeps a record of which version you accepted.

Other things to know

If a court decides part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.
If we do not enforce a rule straight away, we can still enforce it later.
These terms, together with the policies they link to, are the whole agreement between you and us about using Golden Hint.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Write to hello@goldenhint.com or to Golden Hint, Rouben Malian Memorial Foundation Inc, 1 Rockefeller Plaza, Level 15, New York, NY 10020.