Terms of Service

1. The Short Version

STAND/WITH/ME is a platform that connects supporters with peaceful activists through direct funding. Activists build a campaign budget — what they need, how much it costs, and when they need it. Supporters browse those needs and fund the ones they're comfortable with. Activists choose which needs require proof of action before release — where proof is required, supporters see it. That's the deal.

By using STAND/WITH/ME, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, don't use the platform. We're not for everyone — and we're fine with that.

2. The Peace Pledge

This is the foundation of everything. Every user — supporter and activist alike — signs the Peace Pledge before they can use STAND/WITH/ME. It's not a formality. It's a commitment.

Violating the Peace Pledge results in immediate account termination, cancellation of pending payments, and permanent ban. We will pursue recovery of funds on behalf of supporters. No warnings. No second chances.

3. Who Can Use STAND/WITH/ME

• You must be 18 years or older
• You must provide accurate, truthful information
• You must sign the Peace Pledge
• One account per person — no exceptions
• You are responsible for everything that happens under your account
• You must not be located in a country, region, or territory subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions

4. Identity Verification (Activists)

Every activist on STAND/WITH/ME is verified. This is non-negotiable. We use Stripe Identity — the same verification system trusted by Shopify, Lyft, and Instacart — to confirm you are who you say you are.

The verification process:

• Government-issued photo ID — scanned and analyzed by Stripe's machine learning for authenticity, tampering, and fraud
• Facial biometric match — a selfie compared against your ID photo to confirm you are the document holder
• Database validation — your information is checked against government and third-party databases

Your government ID image is processed by Stripe and is not stored on our servers. Stripe retains verification data in accordance with their Privacy Policy.

Submitting fraudulent, stolen, or manipulated identity documents results in immediate permanent ban and referral to law enforcement where required by law.

5. Activist Orientation & Certification

After identity verification, every activist completes a mandatory orientation covering nonviolent action principles, platform policies, de-escalation techniques, legal rights during protest, proof-of-action requirements, and safety tools.

You must pass a 10-question assessment with a score of 8/10 or higher. You may retake the assessment immediately if you don't pass. The questions change with each attempt.

This orientation is not optional. It exists to protect you, protect your supporters, and give you a credential that stands up to scrutiny. When someone calls you a “paid agitator,” your answer is: “I'm a certified, verified activist. What training did your side require?”

6. For Supporters — How Funding Works

Every campaign is a budget — a list of specific needs, each with an amount and a timeline. You don't just throw money at a campaign. You choose exactly what you're funding and when you're comfortable paying.

How Campaign Budgets Work

An activist building a campaign breaks it into line items — what they need, how much it costs, and when they need it. For example:

You Choose What to Fund

As a supporter, you browse a campaign's needs and fund the ones that match your comfort level:

• Fund an upfront need — your payment is charged immediately. You're accepting more risk, but you're making the action possible. No posters without someone paying for posters.
• Fund a future need — you commit now and your card is charged when that need is released. If the campaign is canceled before then, you are never charged.
• Fund a post-action need — you commit now and your card is charged only after the action is completed and proof is accepted. Lowest risk. You are not charged if proof is rejected.
• We do not hold your money. For milestone and post-action needs we securely store your payment method and charge it when the need is released — we do not take the money up front and sit on it. Until that moment the money is in your account, not ours. If the charge fails at release, we will retry and tell you; the activist is not paid for that contribution.

After the Action

• Impact reports — regardless of when you paid, you receive a copy of the activist's impact report showing exactly where every dollar went.
• Dispute resolution — you may dispute any charge through our resolution process. We investigate every dispute. For upfront payments where the activist fails to act, we pursue fund recovery on your behalf.

Important: Contributions to activists are direct payments, not tax-deductible charitable donations. STAND/WITH/ME is not a 501(c)(3) organization. Activists are independent contractors, not employees of STAND/WITH/ME. Funding upfront needs carries inherent risk — you are trusting a verified activist to follow through. Fund the needs that match your comfort level and your budget.

7. For Activists — Your Obligations

• Complete identity verification via Stripe Identity and set up Stripe Connect before posting any actions
• Complete the Activist Orientation with a passing score of 8/10
• All proposed actions must comply with the Peace Pledge
• Build your campaign budget honestly — break it into specific needs with real amounts and real timelines. If you need $400 for posters now, say so. If food isn't needed until the day of, say that. Inflating amounts, fabricating needs, or misrepresenting timelines is fraud.
• You must submit truthful, unaltered proof of completed actions — photos, video, attendance data, and a written impact summary
• Funds must be used for the stated purpose described in your campaign. Misuse of funds is fraud — especially when supporters paid upfront trusting you to deliver.
• If you cannot complete a funded action, you must cancel it as soon as possible. Pre-authorizations will be released, and we will pursue recovery of upfront payments on behalf of supporters.
• Plan for payment failures. Milestone and proof-based needs are charged when the need is released, not when the supporter commits — which can be weeks later. In that gap cards expire, get replaced, get declined, or hit limits. Expect roughly 10-15% of charges to fail and budget your campaign on that basis. We retry soft declines and tell the supporter immediately, but we cannot force a card to work, and STAND/WITH/ME does not cover the shortfall. Your dashboard shows committed versus collected separately for exactly this reason — the committed number is a pledge, the collected number is money. Do not spend against the pledge.

Earnings & Payouts:

• 90% of each contribution goes directly to your Stripe balance — we never hold your money
• 10% platform fee deducted by Stripe at point of payment — covers processing (~3%), AI review, safety infrastructure, verification, and legal aid partnerships
• Standard payouts to your bank: 1-2 business days on a rolling basis
• Eligible accounts may qualify for Stripe Instant Payouts at an additional fee — set by Stripe, not us
• All amounts in USD

8. Prohibited Conduct

The following will result in immediate account termination, cancellation of pending payments, and permanent ban:

Zero Tolerance — Instant Permanent Ban

• ✕Violence, threats of violence, or incitement to violence of any kind
• ✕Property destruction, vandalism, or arson
• ✕Harassment, doxxing, stalking, or intimidation
• ✕Bringing weapons to any action, for any reason
• ✕Hate speech, discriminatory conduct, or targeting people based on identity
• ✕Fabricated, AI-generated, or manipulated proof of action
• ✕Using funds for purposes other than the stated campaign
• ✕Submitting fraudulent or stolen identity documents
• ✕Creating multiple accounts or evading a previous ban

Content Violations — Warning, Then Ban

• ⚠Sexually explicit content
• ⚠Spam or unauthorized commercial promotion
• ⚠Misleading campaign descriptions or exaggerated claims
• ⚠Impersonating another person or organization
• ⚠Sharing another user's personal information without consent

9. AI Review System

Every action proposal submitted to STAND/WITH/ME is reviewed by a dual AI system before going live. This is how we enforce the Peace Pledge at scale.

• Two independent AI models review every submission for compliance with the Peace Pledge, prohibited content, and platform policies
• Submissions that score well on both reviews may publish automatically; low scores are rejected, and anything in between goes to a human reviewer
• AI review supplements — but does not replace — human moderation. Our team reviews flagged content, edge cases, and all disputes
• You may appeal any AI decision through our support team. A human will review your appeal within 48 hours.

We are transparent about using AI. We are not transparent about which specific signals trigger review flags — because people who want to game the system don't need a roadmap.

10. Safety & Emergency Features

STAND/WITH/ME includes safety tools for activists operating in the field. By using these features, you agree to the following:

• Safety Mode — when activated during an action, provides real-time hazard monitoring. Location data is shared only with your designated emergency contacts and is retained only as long as the feature requires.
• Emergency SOS — one-tap alert that shares your precise GPS location with your emergency contacts and, if you choose, with our legal aid partners. Location data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
• Location sharing is always user-initiated. We never track your location without your explicit activation of Safety Mode or Emergency SOS.
• STAND/WITH/ME is not an emergency service. In a life-threatening situation, call 911 first. Our safety tools are supplementary.

11. Payments, Fees & Stripe

All payment processing is handled by Stripe. By using STAND/WITH/ME, you also agree to Stripe's Connected Account Agreement and Services Agreement.

How Money Moves

STAND/WITH/ME uses Stripe Connect destination charges. Zenith Content LLC is the merchant of record: the charge is created on our platform and the activist's share is transferred to their Stripe account. The 10% platform fee is ours; the remaining 90% is the activist's.

Why it works this way. The alternative — charging directly on the activist's account — would put the activist's legal name on your card statement. Activists here use aliases for good reason, so we carry the payment relationship instead. That means we also carry the refunds, the chargebacks, and the losses when a contribution is reversed.

We don't make money off holding your money. We take no interest, no float, no processing markup — the 10% is the whole of it. Funds move between Stripe balances; the only money that reaches a bank account we control is our own 10%. Milestone and post-action needs are not charged until the need is released, so nothing is held on those at all. On upfront needs — the one case where money moves before anything has happened — a new activist's first payouts may be delayed a few days, because a payment reversed after the cash is gone is a loss the platform absorbs. During that delay the funds are already yours and visible in your Stripe balance; what is delayed is Stripe's payout to your bank, not your ownership of the money. It is shown in your dashboard, it is measured in days, and it ends as you build history. Activists must also comply with Stripe's Connected Account Agreement, including Stripe's own holds and reserves, which we do not control.

Refunds — All Sales Final Once Funds Release

Before a need is released — while a contribution is committed but not yet charged, or charged but not yet transferred — you can cancel for a full refund, no questions asked. Contact us and we will process it.

After a need is released, all sales are final. Once funds reach the activist, the money is theirs and we cannot recall it. We are a funding platform, not an escrow service, and we do not hold a reserve to buy back completed contributions. Fund what you are willing to part with.

This is not a loophole for bad actors. If an activist takes funds and does not do what they said, report it. We will investigate, and we can remove them, withhold undisbursed funds, and reverse transfers where their balance allows. What we will not do is promise you a refund we have no mechanism to fund.

When We Take Money Back

If a contribution to your campaign is refunded or charged back, we take it back the way it came — by reversing the transfer to your Stripe account, or by offsetting it against your next payout. We'll tell you what we took and why. If we take more than you owe, you get the difference back. Where your balance doesn't cover it, we absorb the shortfall; that's the cost of being merchant of record and we're not passing it to you. This is a payments remedy — it doesn't require arbitration or any other proceeding, and it stands on its own whether or not section 14 applies.

Chargebacks are your right, not ours to waive. Nothing above limits your ability to dispute a charge with your bank — no terms of service can take that away, and we are not pretending otherwise. We ask that you talk to us first, because a chargeback costs the platform the full contribution plus a fee and takes that money out of funding activists. Filing chargebacks in bad faith, or repeatedly, may result in account termination.

• Platform fee: 10% of each contribution (deducted at point of payment)
• Each campaign need has its own payment timing. Supporters choose which needs to fund. Payments are charged according to the timeline of the specific need funded.
• Standard payouts from Stripe to activist bank accounts settle in 1-2 business days on a rolling basis
• Eligible accounts may qualify for Stripe's Instant Payouts at an additional fee set by Stripe — availability and eligibility are determined by Stripe, not STAND/WITH/ME
• All amounts in USD
• We do not store credit card numbers, bank account details, or SSNs. All financial data is handled by Stripe.

12. Your Content & Intellectual Property

You own the content you create on STAND/WITH/ME — your campaign descriptions, photos, videos, and impact reports. By posting content on the platform, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide license to display, distribute, and promote that content in connection with operating the platform.

We may feature successful campaigns in marketing materials, social media, and press coverage. If you don't want your content featured, email us at legal@stand-with-me.com and we'll exclude it.

13. Limitation of Liability

Let's be honest about what we are and what we aren't.

STAND/WITH/ME is a platform. We connect supporters with activists. We verify identities. We process payments. We provide safety tools. We enforce the Peace Pledge.

STAND/WITH/ME is not responsible for:

• The conduct of individual activists or supporters
• The outcome or impact of funded actions
• Physical injury, arrest, or legal consequences arising from protest participation
• Actions taken by law enforcement during protests
• Third-party services including Stripe, Clerk, or any linked platform

To the maximum extent permitted by law, STAND/WITH/ME's total liability to you for any claims arising from your use of the platform shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid to STAND/WITH/ME, or the platform fees STAND/WITH/ME earned on your campaigns, in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) 100 USD.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, STAND/WITH/ME is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or loss of goodwill, even if we were told they were possible.

We provide the platform “as is” without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not guarantee that the platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure at all times.

Sections 14 and 15 stand on their own. If any part of this section is held unenforceable, sections 14 and 15 remain in full force.

14. When You Cost Us

Start with the part that matters most to activists. We will never send you our legal bill for lawful, peaceful political action. If you organize, march, speak, or get arrested doing something lawful and peaceful, and someone comes after us because of it, that is our problem and we carry it. This section does not apply to you.

The only way that changes is if a court or an arbitrator finds — or you admit — that you committed fraud, violence, threats, or property destruction. An accusation is not enough. Someone has to prove it. Until then we pay for our own defense.

If a third party brings a claim against Zenith Content LLC — or its owners, managers, officers, staff, or affiliated companies — and the claim comes out of any of the following, you agree to cover our reasonable defense costs, attorneys' fees, and any resulting damages or settlement:

• (a) fraud or intentional misrepresentation by you — fabricated, altered, or AI-generated proof of action; invented or inflated needs; a false statement about who you are;
• (b) using funds for something other than the campaign you described;
• (c) violence, threats, property destruction, harassment, doxxing, or stalking — the zero-tolerance conduct in section 8;
• (d) content you posted that infringes someone's copyright or trademark, discloses someone's private information, or states as fact something false about an identified person;
• (e) breaking a law you knew or should have known applied to you;
• (f) breaking these terms or the Peace Pledge, where doing so is what got us sued.

That list is closed. Nothing outside it triggers this section.

There's a ceiling, unless you lied. For (d), (e), and (f), the most you can ever owe us under this section — every claim added together — is the greater of the total amount you have received through or paid to the platform, or 100 USD. For (a), (b), and (c) there is no ceiling. We are not going to cap what someone owes for defrauding a supporter or hurting a person.

We will never come after you for what we did. Not for our own negligence or misconduct. Not for how our AI screening decided anything. Not for how our safety tools performed or failed to. Not for how we handled payments, refunds, or disputes. Those are ours.

How this works in practice. We'll tell you promptly if a claim lands that we think this covers. We may take over the defense; if we do, you cooperate with reasonable requests and we pay for it. We will not settle in a way that admits fault on your behalf, puts an obligation on you, or restricts your future activism, without your written consent. If our interests and yours pull apart, hire your own lawyer — we won't treat that as a failure to cooperate.

This is not how we handle chargebacks. Refunds, chargebacks, and dispute fees are covered in section 11. You do not owe us anything under this section because a supporter's card was disputed.

Otherwise, we each pay our own lawyers. In any dispute between you and us outside this section, each side bears its own fees and costs regardless of who wins — unless an arbitrator finds a claim or defense was frivolous or brought in bad faith.

This section survives after your account is gone.

15. Disputes Between Users

We introduce people. We verify identity, we screen campaigns, we move the money, and we run the dispute process in section 17. We are not a party to the deal between a supporter and an activist, and we do not guarantee that anyone will do what they said they'd do. Identity verification confirms a government ID matched a live selfie. It is not a background check and it is not a prediction of anyone's future conduct.

So: your dispute with another user is your dispute. For any disagreement between you and another user, you release STAND/WITH/ME and Zenith Content LLC — and its owners, managers, officers, staff, and affiliated companies — from claims arising out of that dispute or out of the other user's conduct. That includes a campaign that never happened, funds spent on the wrong thing, proof you don't believe, what someone said to you in a message, and what did or didn't happen at an action.

This covers claims you don't know about yet at the time you agree to these terms. Some states have a law that would otherwise keep those claims alive for you; where you're allowed to give that protection up, you're giving it up for the claims described above. Where you aren't, this paragraph doesn't apply to you and the rest of this section still stands.

The risk you're taking, said plainly. Funding a stranger is a risk. Public political action is a risk — injury, arrest, prosecution, property loss. You're choosing it, and you know that going in. The safety tools in section 10 are supplementary and best-effort. They are not a monitoring service, not an emergency service, and not a promise that any alert will be sent, received, or acted on. To the extent a release of injury claims isn't enforceable where you live, that part of this section doesn't apply to you and the rest still stands.

Five things this does NOT do

1. It does not release the other user. If an activist took your money and lied to you, go after them. Nothing here protects them, and section 11 already says we'll investigate, remove them, withhold undisbursed funds, and reverse transfers where their balance allows.
2. It does not release us for our own gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud. Those are never released.
3. It does not touch your right to dispute a charge with your bank. We said in section 11 that no terms of service can take that away. This isn't a back door to it.
4. It does not waive anything your state says can't be waived.
5. It does not make us a party to your fight. Claims between users aren't covered by the arbitration agreement in section 17, because we aren't in them.

About finding the other user. Activists here use aliases. We don't hold an activist's legal name — identity is verified and held by Stripe, not by us, and section 4 explains why. If we receive valid legal process, we produce the records we actually hold. We don't act on informal demands, we tell the affected user unless the law forbids it, and we'll push back on process that's overbroad or retaliatory.

This section survives after your account is gone.

16. Account Termination

You may delete your account at any time through the app settings. If you have outstanding funded actions or unreleased funds, you must complete or cancel those obligations before deleting your account.

We may terminate your account immediately and without notice for Peace Pledge violations, prohibited conduct, fraudulent activity, or any behavior that threatens the safety of our community. Terminated accounts cannot be reinstated for zero-tolerance violations.

17. Dispute Resolution

If a supporter believes an activist's proof of action is fraudulent, incomplete, or does not match the funded campaign, they may file a dispute through the app. Our process:

• Disputes are reviewed by a human moderator within 48 hours
• The activist is notified and given 72 hours to respond with additional evidence
• If the dispute is upheld, funds are returned to the supporter and the activist receives a strike. Three strikes result in permanent ban.
• If the dispute involves fraud (fabricated proof, fund misuse), it is treated as a zero-tolerance violation — immediate permanent ban.

Talk To Us First

Before either of us starts a formal proceeding, we both agree to try to sort it out directly. Email legal@stand-with-me.com with your name, the email on your account, what happened, and what you want. We have 60 days to work it out with you. Most things end here, and it costs neither of us anything. Any deadline for bringing a claim pauses while we are talking. If we can't resolve it in 60 days, either of us can move on to arbitration.

For legal disputes between you and STAND/WITH/ME, you agree to binding arbitration under the rules of the American Arbitration Association. Arbitration is held remotely, or in the federal district where you live, at your choice. You waive the right to participate in class action lawsuits against STAND/WITH/ME. If that class waiver is held unenforceable as to a claim, it is severed and the rest of this section still applies to that claim.

Either of us may go to court instead for: a claim small enough for small claims court, brought individually; a claim for an injunction or other equitable relief, or to protect intellectual property. Our recovery of refunds, chargebacks, and fees under section 11 is not a dispute under this section and requires no proceeding of any kind.

Claims of sexual assault or sexual harassment may always be brought in court.

If 25 or more arbitration demands of a similar nature are filed against us by the same or coordinated counsel, the AAA's Supplementary Rules for Multiple Case Filings apply and the cases are handled in batches. Deadlines for filing pause for anyone waiting on a batch. If that arrangement is held unenforceable as to you, it is severed and your claim proceeds individually.

Claims between users are not covered by this section. We are not a party to them.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms as the platform evolves. Material changes will be communicated via email and in-app notification at least 30 days before taking effect. Continued use of STAND/WITH/ME after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated terms. If you disagree with a change, you may delete your account.

Some things outlive your account. These survive termination of your account or of these terms: section 11 (amounts owed and payment recovery), section 12 (content license), section 13 (limitation of liability), section 14 (indemnification, including the carve-out for lawful peaceful political action), section 15 (disputes between users), section 17 (dispute resolution), and section 19 (governing law). Section 14's carve-out applies to conduct that happened while it was in effect, no matter how these terms change later.

19. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, United States, without regard to conflict of law principles.

20. Contact

STAND/WITH/ME is operated by Zenith Content LLC, a Minnesota limited liability company.

For questions about these Terms of Service:

legal@stand-with-me.com