Terms of Use

1. About these terms

These Terms of Use apply to your use of the HopeOrigins website at https://www.hopeorigins.co.za and any related services (together, the platform).

The platform is operated by Hoyozela (Pty) Ltd, with its registered address at [Registered physical address, South Africa]. In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" refer to HopeOrigins, and "you" refers to anyone who uses the platform.

By creating an account, publishing a cause, donating, signing a petition or otherwise using the platform, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the platform.

These terms should be read together with our Privacy Policy, Refund Policy, Prohibited Causes policy and Fees page, which form part of these terms.

2. What HopeOrigins does

HopeOrigins is a platform, not a charity. We provide the tools that let individuals and organisations publish a Cause page that runs a fundraiser, a petition, or both.

We do not run causes ourselves, and we are not a party to the relationship between an organiser and their supporters or beneficiaries. Organisers are responsible for their causes, their stories and how they use the funds they raise.

Donations are made in South African rand (ZAR) and processed by our payment provider, Paystack.

3. Who can use the platform

You must be 18 or older to create an account, run a cause or make a donation.

You do not need an account to donate or to sign a petition. You do need an account, with a verified email address, to create a cause, post comments or request a payout.

If you use the platform on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to act for that organisation and to bind it to these terms.

4. Your account and security

You are responsible for keeping your login details safe and for everything that happens under your account. Do not share your password with anyone.

If you think someone else has accessed your account, change your password straight away, use the "sign out everywhere" option to end all active sessions, and contact us at support@hopeorigins.co.za.

The information you give us must be accurate and kept up to date.

We may suspend or close your account if we reasonably believe you have broken these terms, put other users at risk, or acted unlawfully. Where appropriate, we will tell you why.

5. Creating and running a cause

When you publish a cause, it goes live straight away. We do not review every cause before it is published, but our team moderates the platform and may pause or remove causes, comments and updates at any time.

A cause can be in one of these states: draft, live, paused, closed or removed. A closed or removed cause cannot accept donations or signatures.

Only the owner of a cause can edit it. You can raise the fundraising goal at any time, but you cannot lower it below the amount already raised.

You can post updates, invite team members to create team fundraising pages linked to your cause, and, for a petition, declare victory. Declaring victory closes the petition to new signatures and lets your supporters know.

6. Your responsibilities as an organiser

If you run a cause, you agree that you will:

• tell a truthful, accurate story and describe honestly how the funds will be used
• clearly disclose who the beneficiary is: yourself, someone else, or an organisation
• have the permission of the person or organisation you are raising for, if it is not yourself
• use the funds only as you have described on your cause page
• keep your supporters updated on your progress and on how the funds are being used
• comply with all laws that apply to you and your cause, including tax laws
• not run a cause that falls under our Prohibited Causes policy

7. Donations

Each donation must be at least R 5 and no more than R 500 000. We may change these limits from time to time.

Donations are gifts to the organiser or beneficiary of the cause. A donation does not buy you any goods, services, rights or returns.

You can choose to donate anonymously. If you do, your name will not be shown publicly on the cause page, but the organiser and our team may still see your details where needed to run the platform, as described in our Privacy Policy.

Donations are not tax-deductible unless the organiser is a registered public benefit organisation (PBO) that issues section 18A certificates. We do not issue section 18A certificates. If you need one, please ask the organiser directly.

Please check the details of a cause before you donate. We cannot guarantee that any cause will reach its goal or that its organiser will achieve what they describe.

8. Fees and tips

We charge a platform fee, which is a percentage of each donation. The current fee is shown on our Fees page. We may reduce or waive the fee in some cases, for example for verified charities.

We absorb the payment gateway fees charged by our payment provider, so these are not deducted from donations.

When you donate, you can choose to add an optional tip to HopeOrigins. Tips are completely voluntary, are separate from your donation, and go to HopeOrigins to help us run the platform. They do not go to the cause.

Fees and tips are calculated to the cent and rounded down.

We may change our fees. Changes will be shown on the Fees page and will not apply to donations already made.

9. Payouts to organisers

Before you can receive a payout, you must pass our identity checks (known as KYC). This includes providing identity or organisation documents and proof of address, and adding a verified bank account.

Each payout request is reviewed manually by our Finance team. The minimum payout is R100, and each cause can have only one open payout request at a time.

A payout is made from the cause's available balance, which is the total donations minus fees, refunds and any earlier payouts.

We hold funds on your behalf until they are paid out. Funds held by us do not earn interest.

We may withhold or delay a payout if the cause is under investigation, if we suspect fraud, if there are chargebacks or disputes, or if the law requires us to. Where we are allowed to, we will tell you why.

10. Refunds

Refunds are handled by our Finance team and are governed by our Refund Policy. Organisers cannot issue refunds directly; all refunds go through us.

11. Petitions

Petitions are free to run and free to sign.

A signature only counts once the signer has verified their email address. Each email address can sign a petition only once.

When you sign, you choose whether your name is shown publicly. [Confirm with legal and product: signers' names and comments may be shared with the petition's decision maker only if the signer chose to show them publicly.]

An organiser may deliver the signatures to the petition's decision maker. We do not guarantee that a decision maker will respond or act on any petition.

Petitions must not be used to harass or target private individuals.

12. Your content

You keep ownership of the content you post on the platform, such as your cause story, images, updates and comments.

By posting content, you give HopeOrigins a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display, reproduce and share that content in order to operate and promote the platform and your cause. This licence ends when your content is removed from the platform, except where it has already been shared or where we need to keep it for legal reasons.

Only upload content that you own or have permission to use. Do not post content that infringes anyone else's intellectual property or privacy.

When you upload images, we remove location metadata from them to help protect your privacy.

13. Acceptable use and moderation

You must not use the platform for anything unlawful, misleading or harmful, or for any cause listed in our Prohibited Causes policy.

You must not interfere with the platform's security or operation, try to access accounts or data that are not yours, or use automated tools to scrape or overload the platform.

Anyone can report a cause, comment or update they believe breaks these terms. Our team reviews reports and may pause or remove content, withhold payouts, suspend accounts, or refer matters to the authorities.

14. Our role and liability

We carry out identity checks before payouts and moderate content on the platform, and we act on reports we receive. Beyond this, we are not responsible for how organisers use the funds they raise, for the accuracy of what organisers say, or for whether a cause reaches its goal.

To the extent permitted by South African law, including the Consumer Protection Act, the platform is provided as is and as available, and we do not guarantee that it will always be available, uninterrupted or error-free.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential loss, or for loss of profits, data or goodwill, arising from your use of the platform. [Legal review: confirm any cap on total liability, for example the fees and tips you paid us in the [12] months before the claim.]

Nothing in these terms limits any rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act or other law that cannot be limited or excluded.

15. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify HopeOrigins against any claims, losses, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these terms, your content, your cause, or your misuse of funds raised through the platform.

16. Privacy

We process your personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and our Privacy Policy. For privacy questions, contact us at privacy@hopeorigins.co.za.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make significant changes, we will give you notice, for example by email or on the platform, before they take effect. [Legal review: confirm notice period, for example [30] days.]

If you keep using the platform after the changes take effect, you accept the updated terms.

18. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

If you have a complaint or dispute, please contact us first at support@hopeorigins.co.za so we can try to resolve it with you.

If we cannot resolve it, the dispute may be referred to the courts of South Africa, [High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, or another appropriate court to be confirmed].

19. Contact us

General support: support@hopeorigins.co.za

Trust and safety reports: trust@hopeorigins.co.za

Refunds and payouts: finance@hopeorigins.co.za

Privacy: privacy@hopeorigins.co.za

Postal address: Hoyozela (Pty) Ltd, [Registered physical address, South Africa]