Hi Guys,
We are working on a Social/Not for Profit start-up that will basically raise funds for NGO’s/Social Causes. We are using certain concepts of crowdsourcing, where in users will carry out small tasks for which companies will donate money. In the entire scheme of things we will be interacting with 3 category of persons:
1) Visitors to our website
2) NGO’s we tie up to raise funds for
3) Companies who would want to support us.
We would require proper sets of “terms and conditions” for all these three. A new kid on the block, I am very unsure who would be the right person to approach for the job. I was looking for some inputs and some direction from this esteemed community.
Looking forward to some replies and suggestions.
Thanks!
Deepak Mittal
For your initiative/service – Terms and Conditions should generally be a set of disclaimers or limitation of liability under various situations and making the parties involved fully aware of the possibilities and risks, and your treatment of the money and scope of services, areas that will be beyond the scope of your influence etc.
First and foremost, you should be concerned about the liabilities and obligations that could arise towards any entity/individual in a transaction/dealing of cash or kind(in your case it is perhaps the completion of task) and making each party fully aware of the possibilities and risks. Since you attempt to crowdsource/involve people and in turn raise funds/donations from companies and then disburse them to an NGO as a concept, what you exactly do with finances ought to be clearly outlined for someone could hold you accountable.
The risks should be fully communicated, e.g. the company does not donate for a cause it had committed to, what is the treatment or communication to the individual before the start of task and after the completion of task. Limitation of liability in case of an accident that may occur while executing the task by an individual etc. Your accountability if an NGO does not spend money for the cause it had raised etc. There will be several such cases.
Finally, It may be good idea to limit your liability with a generic disclaimer which is widespread. Generally speaking, you cannot however limit accountability under most cases and in matters involving finance in which your organization been a direct party.
Further, nothing should be left implied, in money matters what may appear very logical is easily challenge-able if left wide open for interpretation. e.g. if there is a fee that you will charge from the donated amount before passing it on to the NGO, or you could possibly earn an interest income if the funds are disbursed in a delayed manner, I will think about putting a clear disclaimer.
It may be a good idea to explore the terms and conditions of NGOs, any entity working on similar or related concept as yours to understand the extent of the scope that you may need to address as terms and conditions. You should also study the legal acceptability of terms and conditions published online in the geography you will operate or raise funds from, for instance there may be a legal obligation to publish the terms and conditions for it to hold good as a contract in certain geographies before anyone donates and seeking an explicit “I Agree” vs. terms and conditions merely appearing as a link on the site.
Based on the brief you’ve provided and in my personal opinion, you should not be worried to include NGOs and companies in the scope of “Terms and Conditions” as you should be independently contracting with them on a B2B engagement basis ideally with clear and detailed agreements in place.
It may be wise to incorporate the initiative under a recognized entity in India to deal as a Not for profit organization- which is usually one of the three – trust/society/Section 25 company. You will have to weigh the merits/demerits and see what suits your requirements and charter the best. This definitely is a sure way of limiting the personal liability to the extent permissible by each of these entities in the eyes of law and it may anyways be required to do certain fund raising activities legally in India.
You must seek expert legal opinion to draft them in proper legal parlance and review for coverage of scope and legal validity before you finally put it up.
Best of Luck!
Deepak Mittal
kunal gupta
Thanks a lot Deepak. It has been enlightening.