Terms of Use

1. Acceptance of Terms

Welcome to Advocora. These Terms of Use ("Terms") constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Advocora ("Company," "we," "our," or "us") governing your access to and use of the Advocora web application and related services, including any content, functionality, integrations, and tools offered (collectively, the "Service").

By creating an account, accessing, or using the Service, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization (such as a nonprofit, campaign, or association), you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms, and "you" refers to both you individually and that organization. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not access or use the Service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and capable of forming a binding contract to use the Service. By using the Service, you represent and warrant that you meet these eligibility requirements and that your organization is legally permitted to engage in fundraising, advocacy, and donor communications in the jurisdictions where it operates.

The Service is intended for use by organizations and individuals located in the United States. We make no representations that the Service is appropriate or available for use in other locations.

3. Account Registration

3.1 Account Creation

To access the Service, you must create an account and, where applicable, establish an organization workspace. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration and to update such information to keep it accurate, current, and complete.

3.2 Account Security

You are responsible for safeguarding your account credentials, enabling available security features (such as multi-factor authentication), and managing user roles and permissions within your organization workspace. You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account or within your organization workspace. You must immediately notify us of any unauthorized use of your account or any other breach of security.

3.3 Organization Workspaces

Advocora is a multi-tenant platform. Each organization workspace is logically isolated, and account administrators are responsible for inviting, managing, and removing users within their workspace. Administrators are responsible for ensuring that all users of their workspace comply with these Terms.

4. Description of Service

Advocora provides a platform that enables organizations to:

• Manage contact and donor records, household relationships, and engagement history
• Process one-time and recurring donations through integrated payment providers
• Build, host, and embed customizable donation and signup forms
• Send email campaigns, automated communications, and transactional messages such as donation receipts
• Track gifts, generate tax-compliant receipts, and reconcile payouts
• Coordinate advocacy outreach and supporter communications
• Provide a self-service donor portal for end-supporters to manage recurring gifts and subscriptions

The Service relies on third-party providers for certain features (described in Section 6). While we strive for accuracy and availability, we do not guarantee that all data, reports, or communications produced through the Service will be complete, current, or error-free, and you remain responsible for verifying information before relying on it for legal, tax, or financial purposes.

5. Acceptable Use

5.1 Permitted Uses

You may use the Service for lawful purposes consistent with legitimate fundraising, donor stewardship, advocacy, and supporter communications carried out by your organization.

5.2 Prohibited Conduct

You agree NOT to:

• Use the Service to send spam, harassing, threatening, deceptive, or abusive communications
• Send marketing or fundraising messages to recipients who have not provided lawful consent or who have unsubscribed
• Impersonate any person, organization, or government body, or misrepresent your identity, affiliation, or tax-exempt status
• Use the Service to process payments for fraudulent, illegal, or prohibited goods, services, or causes
• Import, upload, or process contact data without the legal right and proper consent to do so, including any use of cold lists, purchased or rented lists, scraped or harvested data, or third-party data appended without the recipient's knowledge and consent
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other accounts or workspaces, or any underlying systems or databases
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers or networks connected to the Service
• Use automated scripts, bots, or scrapers to access the Service in an unauthorized manner
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any portion of the Service, except to the extent permitted by law
• Use the Service to distribute malware or other harmful code
• Violate any applicable laws or regulations, including those governing electronic communications (e.g., CAN-SPAM, TCPA), payment processing, charitable solicitation registration, donor data, tax-exempt status, and consumer privacy

5.3 Email and Communications Standards

When using the Service to send email, SMS, or other communications to your supporters, donors, or contacts, you agree to:

• Communicate respectfully and accurately, including honest representations of your organization and the use of funds raised
• Send communications only to recipients who have a lawful basis to receive them (such as prior consent, an established relationship, or another permitted basis under applicable law)
• Honor unsubscribe requests promptly and maintain a clear, functional opt-out mechanism in every marketing message
• Provide accurate sender identification and a valid physical mailing address where required by law
• Comply with rate limits and deliverability safeguards we apply to protect platform reputation

6. Third-Party Services and Integrations

6.1 Payment Processing

Donations and other payments processed through the Service are handled by third-party payment providers (such as Stripe and Stripe Connect). By using donation features, you authorize us to share the information necessary to process payments and agree to comply with the applicable provider's terms of service, including any underwriting, identity verification, and onboarding requirements. Your organization is the merchant of record for donations it collects, and is responsible for fees, refunds, chargebacks, disputes, and applicable taxes associated with those transactions.

6.2 Email Delivery

Outbound email is delivered through one or more third-party email service providers. Delivery to any particular inbox is not guaranteed and depends on factors outside our control, including sending reputation, recipient mail server policies, and content.

6.3 Hosting and Infrastructure

The Service is hosted on third-party cloud infrastructure providers. Your use of the Service is also subject to the operational characteristics of those underlying providers.

6.4 AI-Assisted Features

The Service may include AI-assisted features that help generate drafts, summaries, or recommendations (for example, message drafts or contact insights). AI-generated content is provided for informational purposes only, may contain errors or inaccuracies, and should be reviewed by you before use. AI output should not be relied upon as legal, tax, financial, or fundraising-compliance advice.

7. Customer Data and Donor Data

7.1 Ownership of Customer Data

As between you and us, you retain all rights, title, and interest in the data your organization submits to or generates within the Service, including contact records, donor records, gift history, email content, forms, and other content ("Customer Data"). You are responsible for the accuracy, legality, and quality of all Customer Data and for the lawful basis on which it is collected, stored, and used.

7.2 License to Operate the Service

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, copy, transmit, display, process, and otherwise use Customer Data solely as necessary to provide, secure, and improve the Service for you and to comply with our legal obligations.

7.3 Donor and Supporter Data

When supporters submit information through your forms, donation pages, or other public surfaces hosted on the Service, that information is collected on your behalf and forms part of your Customer Data. You are the controller of that data and are responsible for providing appropriate notices and obtaining any required consents from supporters, including with respect to recurring giving and electronic communications.

7.4 Permission-Based Contact Lists (Required Attestation)

Advocora is a permission-based platform. As a condition of using the Service to store, segment, or communicate with contacts, you represent, warrant, and attest, on an ongoing basis and each time you import, upload, sync, or otherwise add contacts to your workspace, that:

• Each contact has a direct, prior opt-in relationship with your organization, established through an affirmative action such as making a donation, signing a petition, attending an event, subscribing to your communications, registering on your website, volunteering, becoming a member, or otherwise knowingly providing their information to you;
• You have a lawful basis under applicable law (including, where relevant, CAN-SPAM, TCPA, GDPR, and U.S. state privacy laws) to store and contact each individual, and you have provided any notices required at the point of collection;
• Each contact reasonably expects to receive communications from your organization based on the nature of the relationship described above; and
• You will promptly honor opt-out, deletion, and unsubscribe requests, and will not re-import or re-add contacts who have opted out, been suppressed, or otherwise withdrawn consent.

Prohibited sources are strictly forbidden. You may not import, upload, sync, or send communications to contacts obtained from any of the following sources, regardless of how those contacts may have been processed, enriched, or formatted before reaching the Service:

• Cold lists — individuals with whom your organization has no prior relationship and from whom you have not directly obtained consent to communicate;
• Purchased, rented, leased, traded, or shared lists — contacts obtained from list brokers, data vendors, marketing partners, affiliate networks, coalition shares, or any other third-party source where the contact did not opt in directly to your organization;
• Scraped or harvested data — contacts collected from public websites, social media platforms, professional networks, government records, voter files (for non-campaign uses), or any automated extraction technique;
• Appended or enriched data without consent — email addresses, phone numbers, or other contact identifiers obtained through third-party append services where the contact has not consented to receive communications from your organization at that identifier;
• Lookalike or inferred audiences — contacts generated through modeling, prospecting, or inference based on other audiences, where the resulting individuals have no direct opt-in with your organization.

We may, at our sole discretion, investigate suspected violations of this Section 7.4 — for example, in response to spam complaints, unusually high bounce or complaint rates, blocklist activity, recipient reports, or other signals of non-permissioned sending. We may request that you produce documentation of opt-in for any contact or list, and you agree to provide such documentation promptly upon request. Violations of this Section 7.4 are a material breach of these Terms and may result in immediate suspension or termination of your account under Section 13.2, in addition to any other remedies available to us.

8. Intellectual Property

8.1 Our Intellectual Property

The Service, including its software, design, interfaces, branding, documentation, and underlying technology (excluding Customer Data and third-party content), is owned by Advocora and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or lease any part of our Service without our prior written consent.

8.2 Feedback

If you provide feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the Service, you grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.

9. Fees, Billing, and Payment

Access to the Service may be offered under free, trial, or paid plans. Fees, billing periods, and plan features for paid subscriptions will be presented at the point of purchase or in a separate order form or agreement. Unless otherwise stated, fees are billed in advance, non-refundable, and exclusive of applicable taxes, which are your responsibility.

We may change pricing or plan features from time to time. Changes to recurring fees will take effect on your next billing cycle and will be communicated in advance where required by law. Late payments may result in suspension or termination of access.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that:

• The Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free
• The results obtained from the Service will be accurate or reliable
• Any errors in the Service will be corrected
• Reports, receipts, or other documents generated by the Service will meet any specific legal, tax, or accounting requirements
• Emails or other communications sent through the Service will be delivered, opened, or received
• Payments will be successfully processed by third-party payment providers

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event shall Advocora, its directors, employees, partners, agents, suppliers, or affiliates be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including without limitation loss of profits, donations, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from:

• Your access to or use of (or inability to access or use) the Service
• Any conduct or content of any third party on the Service
• Any content or output obtained from the Service
• Unauthorized access, use, or alteration of your transmissions or Customer Data
• Failure of emails or other communications to be delivered to intended recipients
• Failure, delay, or error in the processing of donations or other payments
• Any errors or inaccuracies in data, reports, or AI-generated content

Our total cumulative liability to you for any claims arising from or relating to the Service shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us for the Service in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US $100).

12. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Advocora and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or in any way connected with:

• Your access to or use of the Service
• Your violation of these Terms
• Your violation of any third-party rights, including intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights
• Customer Data you submit, import, or transmit through the Service, including donor and supporter data
• Your communications, fundraising activities, donation solicitations, or advocacy outreach conducted through the Service
• Your noncompliance with applicable laws, including those governing electronic communications, payment processing, charitable solicitation, and tax-exempt status

13. Termination

13.1 By You

You may terminate your account or organization workspace at any time by following the cancellation process in your account settings or by contacting us. Upon termination, your right to use the Service will cease, and you are responsible for exporting any Customer Data you wish to retain prior to deletion in accordance with our then-current data retention policies.

13.2 By Us

We may suspend or terminate your account and access to the Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason, including if you breach these Terms, create risk or possible legal exposure for us, or fail to pay applicable fees. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any lawful reason at any time.

13.3 Effect of Termination

Upon termination, all provisions of these Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive, including ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnification, limitations of liability, and dispute resolution.

14. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

14.1 Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Tennessee, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions.

14.2 Dispute Resolution

Any dispute arising from or relating to these Terms or your use of the Service shall first be attempted to be resolved through good-faith negotiation. If negotiation fails, you agree to submit to binding arbitration in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association.

14.3 Class Action Waiver

You agree that any arbitration or proceeding shall be limited to the dispute between us individually. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you waive any right to participate in a class action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration.

15. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the updated Terms on this page and updating the "Effective Date" above, and where appropriate, by notifying account administrators. Your continued use of the Service after any changes constitutes acceptance of the new Terms.

It is your responsibility to review these Terms periodically for changes.

16. General Provisions

16.1 Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any order form or plan terms you accept, constitute the entire agreement between you and Advocora regarding your use of the Service.

16.2 Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect.

16.3 Waiver

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

16.4 Assignment

You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your rights under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights and obligations under these Terms without restriction, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets.

17. Contact Information

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at: