Terms and conditions for registering organisations and projects

1. Area of validity

These conditions apply to all projects and organisations that are registered on betterplace’s platform in order to collect donations for a beneficiary. In addition, the Terms of Use and Donation Conditions and the Data Protection Regulations also apply. The platform, betterplace.org, is operated by the gut.org gAG, a recognized non-profit organisation (gut.org gAG, Schlesische Straße 26, D-10997 Berlin, Germany). These terms and conditions regulate the legal relationship between the project sponsor or organisation and gut.org gAG.

2. The role of gut.org gAG and betterplace.org

gut.org gAG provides the technology and therefore a platform, in the form of betterplace.org, which donors and recipients of donations can use to connect for the benefit of a project. gut.org gAG is a charitable organisation eligible to tax exemption. In the event of donations of money to organisations, which are tax-privileged in accordance with German tax law, gut.org gAG operates as a charitable organisation with respect to donors and recipients. In the event of projects that are not tax privileged, gut.org gAG / betterplace.org enables support of the project via a fiduciary account, which has been set up for this purpose. With regard to donations in kind or in time, gut.org gAG operates simply as a mediator.

3. Permitted purposes

Betterplace’s platform only accepts projects that directly minister to non-profit, charitable and church-related purposes as stipulated by the currently applicable version of the German Tax Code (Abgabenordnung (AO)). Not accepted are projects that minister either directly or indirectly to the realization of profits or other commercial projects, also projects that promise a return service for a donation, or proffer the possibility of such a service. Equally disqualified are projects that minister either directly or indirectly to supporting or promoting a political party.

4. Registration of projects or organisations

Projects can be registered on betterplace.org by natural or legal persons under national or foreign law. Both tax-privileged as well as non-tax-privileged projects in accordance with German tax law are permitted. Different regulations apply here particularly with regard to the maximum amount of the donation and the number of permitted projects, see section 4.5.

4.1. Project carrier

4.1.1. Before a project can be registered, for which a legal person (organisation) under national or foreign law is responsible, an organisation has to be registered.

4.1.2 The organisation is registered by one of the organisation’s authorised representatives. This person has to register himself/herself on betterplace.org as a user first. Unless otherwise specified, he/she remains entitled to make binding decisions about all questions referring to the organisation’s presence on betterplace’s platform and to provide explanations as required for gut.org gAG or to be the recipient of information.

4.2. Project manager

A responsible, individual person (the project manager) has to be named for each project of an organisation. This person guarantees and ensures that the actual information about the project and the people involved is accurate and is responsible for the project reports. The project manager is required to register himself/herself on betterplace.org, unless the project manager is already registered as the person responsible for the organisation.

In the event that a different project manager is appointed, this information must be communicated immediately. The former project manager remains visible on the platform until the new project manager is named/registered. Until a new project manager is named or registered, the person responsible for the organisation (4.1.2) is also deemed responsible for the project.

4.3. Individual projects

Users can also recruit donations via the platform and register projects. The user is both the project entity and the project manager at the same time.

4.4. Tax-privileged projects and organisation

Organisations that are recognized by German tax authorities as being tax-privileged (tax-privileged organisations) are required to document their tax-privilege for gut.org gAG immediately after registering, either by presenting a current notice of exemption or evidence of the non-profit character of tax-exempt bodies. gut.org gAG reserves the right to inform the relevant tax authority. gut.org gAG has to be notified in writing of any change to this status immediately. The tax-advantaged organisation ensures the tax-advantage until notification of possible changes has been received by gut.org gAG.

If evidence of the non-profit character is submitted, projects and organisations are identified as such on the platform so that money donations to these projects can be deducted from taxes.

4.5. Non-tax-deductible projects and organisations

Organisations that are not tax-privileged in accordance with German tax law can also be registered on betterplace.org. The following limitations apply.

A maximum of 3 projects can be published at the same time, or donations can be recruited for a maximum of 3 projects at the same time. In the course of donation recruitment, a maximum of EUR 2,500 per quarter can be received.

The same applies to projects for which an individual person is responsible, rather than an organisation (Individual projects, see section 4.3).

5. Platform presence

Registered organisations set up an organisation profile on the platform in order to publish their projects. The precise options available are provided by the functionality of betterplace’s platform. With regard to the contents published by an organisation on betterplace’s platform, section 4 of the Terms of Use and Donation Conditions applies respectively. gut.org gAG is particularly entitled to suspend contents that conflict with the terms and conditions. Organisations are also obliged - before actually participating or publishing their content - to ensure that attributable behaviour or attributable content does not breach the statutory regulations, is not offensive to the general public and does not violate the rights of third parties (e.g. trademark law, law relating to the use of names, copyrights and data protection and laws pertaining to the legal protection of children and young persons); in particular, before publishing text or pictures, they are also obliged to obtain the legally required consent of the involved/affected/concerned parties, for example from the photographer or the people featuring in the photograph, even where this concerns their own officers or representatives; the organisation exempts gut.org gAG from any possible claims from third parties, which could emerge from a violation of these obligations.

Equally disqualified are all kinds of product advertising or the targeted individual approach of other users for the purposes of selling the product.

6. Project management

6.1. Publishing a project

A project is published on the platform and requires a precise, complete, realistic and detailed description of the planned project including the following minimum information:

• A person who is responsible (“project manager”)
• Relevant text describing the project, incl. project target or designated purpose. Also, information about the project plan and time frame
• One or several specifications, which detail in concrete terms what is likely to be required in order to realize the project in accordance with the designated purpose (“need”)
• Type of support (money, donations in kind, in time or other contributions) required per need.

6.2. Amendments to the project description

Once the project description has been published, subsequent amendments have to be clearly marked and, together with the project specifications and the project report, enable realistic insight into the status of the planning and realisation of the project. Needs that are already receiving support cannot be amended. For adjustments required after this point in time, see section 7.

6.3. Project reports

The project manager ensures that project reports published on betterplace’s platform include regular, prompt, reliable and accurate information about the progress and fulfilment of the published project as well as the use of funds. Project reports should, in particular, provide information about all the transactions, purchases/expenses, possible delays or deviations from the project planning. Project reports, in the form of blog posts, uploaded photos, documents and/or videos are made available on the project page.

The project manager is required to notify receipt of requested donations in kind, in time or other kinds of donations immediately by announcing this in the respective project profile on betterplace.org via the provided functionality, independent of whether these donations have been recruited via betterplace’s platform or via third parties (outside of the platform). Section 4 of the Terms of Use and Donation Conditions also applies respectively.

6.4. Use of donations

Donations may only be used in accordance with the designated purpose defined in the project description. Minor deviations, for example with regard to the quality or quantity of the purchased items or minor differences in price are permitted providing they are listed promptly and clearly in the project reports. A regular difference of less than ten per cent would be considered a minor deviation. Donations contributed directly to projects have to be forwarded by the project manager to the project need so that the donation can be paid. With regard to donations made to his/her organisation, the project officer may decide which project and which project need in his organisation he will forward the donation to for payment. The Payment Conditions in accordance with section 8 apply here. Direct payment of donations to an organisation or a project is not possible. Payment must be processed by forwarding the payment to a project need.

7. Project breakdowns

7.1. A project breakdown is any major deviation to how the project is executed that conflicts with the project description and puts compliance with the project plan or achievement of the target of the project named in the project description at risk. Project breakdowns are, in particular, subsequent amendments to the required overall sum of a requirement, major transgression from the time frame and any changes to goods or services purchased with donated funds or changes to the designated purpose.

7.2. Project breakdowns have to be documented immediately in a project report (blog entry), providing concrete details about the estimated impact.

7.3. Project abortion and repayment

7.3.1. If the project target can no longer be achieved or if, due to serious violations of the terms and conditions of publication, there is considerable risk that the responsible person will have to abort the project, gut.org has to be notified immediately and a respective announcement has to be made on the platform. In addition, gut.org gAG is entitled to cancel the project or to suspend the project manager/organisation.

7.3.2. In the following cases, the project manager, as well as any possible recipients, are jointly and severally liable to compensate for claims for donations to the amount of the already paid sum:

• Project cancellation
• Serious violation of the terms and conditions of publication

The payment has to be transferred to the same account in favour of the same account owner who made the payment, without deduction of costs.

7.3.3. Violation of the terms and conditions of publication is particularly termed as serious in the following cases:

• Incorrect information about the people involved or about major characteristics of the project
• Serious or continued violation of the duty to provide project reports
• Use of donations for other purposes.

7.3.4. Other criminal or civil penalties remain unaffected hereof.

8. Terms and conditions of payments

For the donation to be paid the following prerequisites have to be complied with:

• Overall donations must exceed EUR 20.00 with regard to projects for non-profit organisations in accordance with German tax law and EUR 50.00 for all other projects. betterplace.org establishes the donation amount. betterplace.org can also serve third parties.
• The last donation/forwarding transaction to the project need must have occurred more than two weeks ago.
• The project manager documents the planned use in the form of a meaningful entry in the project blog on the project profile page to correspond with the payment date.

Payment is made within six weeks after the project officer’s payment processing request. betterplace.org reserves the right to pay the full amount unrequested once the project requirement has been fully financed. The transfer is made out to the organisation, which is responsible for the project, or to the project manager with regard to individual projects.

Under no circumstances can gut.org gAG be held liable for claims for payment of donations allocated to project requirements. The publisher is expressly informed about the fact that the allocation of donations is non-binding under applicable law and therefore cannot be enforced via legal action.

Organisations, which are recognized as tax-privileged organisations by German tax authorities, and which have received project donations from gut.org gAG shall confirm receipt of these donations by a donation confirmation to gut.org gAG. Collective confirmations for donations within a calendar year are permitted. The donation confirmations have to be sent within two months of the end of the calendar year in which the donations were made.

9. Sponsor data

gut.org gAG enables the donor of an organisation or a project to decide, after the payment process, if he wants his sponsor data to be forwarded to the supported organisation or made available to the project manager. This decision is made for the respective donation only. This decision is made by actively setting a checkmark in the respective box on the website. This information is stored together with the information about the transaction.

When requested by the organisation or project manager, gut.org gAG forwards selected data about the respective project donor, who has agreed to it being forwarded, to the respective organisation. The data consists of the first name, second name, address data and the email address of the donor. In addition, the date of the donation, amount and donation target are stored.

Bank or credit card data are on no account stored by gut.org gAG.

10. Links/Trademark laws

10.1. Individual projects

The project officers for individual projects are obliged to establish links from their own Internet sites to betterplace’s platform. Banner and widget materials have been made available for download on the platform for this purpose by gut.org gAG and shall be used in their complete and unchanged formats. The links shall be removed immediately should gut.org gAG request.

gut.org gAG is entitled to make reference to the cooperation on betterplace’s platform by using the name or logo of the project officer and a link to any home pages.

10.2. Organisation projects

10.2.1. Should the organisation upload its own trademark, for example, a logo, via the tools on the platform which have been designed for this purpose, it is hereby associated with the unlimited and irrevocable right to the designated use on the platform without any time limit.

10.2.2. Organisations and gut.org gAG are entitled to make reference to the cooperation on their respective own Internet pages, whilst the organisation is registered, specifying the name of the cooperation partner and using the trademark. In the process, a link shall be underpinned by the standard logo for this type of link. It is available for download from betterplace’s platform.gAG.

10.2.3 gut.org gAG is also entitled to make general reference to the cooperation by using the organisation name and the trademark in print media, on the radio or on the Internet. This right can be suspended in individual cases upon instruction by the organisation.

11. Cancellation or suspension of access or registration

11.1. The cooperation can be terminated by gut.org gAG or by the project carrier at any time in the form of written notification no later than the end of the month following the notification. Already published projects, which are still being sponsored in the form of money donations, donations in kind, in time or other kinds of donation, remain unaffected. These projects have to be concluded in accordance with the terms and conditions of publication. In addition, all projects and organisations as well as related contents that have been published shall continue to remain visible after the termination/cancellation for reasons of transparency until the former projects and the use of the donated money can be tracked.

11.2. The right to an extraordinary cancellation of the contract with good cause remains unaffected. Good cause for a cancellation by gut.org gAG would be the serious violations of the terms and conditions of publication. (Section 7.3.3.)

11.3. In order for contents on betterplace’s platform to be suspended by gut.org gAG, section 6 of the Terms of Use and Donation Conditions shall apply respectively; also with regard to project descriptions or reports.