Community Guidelines

1. Be Real

• Use your real name on your personal profile, and your organization's real name on its page.
• Only create or manage a page for an organization you're authorized to represent. Staff of an existing organization should join as themselves and ask the page's owner to add them.
• Log only gifts, hours and results that really happened. Celebrate generously, but don't inflate.
• Photos and logos should be yours, or ones you have permission to use.

2. Be Kind

• Disagree respectfully. No harassment, bullying, threats or slurs, toward anyone.
• Don't share other people's private information (addresses, phone numbers, personal details) without their permission.
• Tag and mention people in good faith, to thank or include them, not to pressure or embarrass them.

3. Room for Different Views

Onward is open to nonprofits, businesses and people across the full range of beliefs and causes: faith communities, advocacy groups on every side of public debates, and organizations with their own membership rules, like a congregation for members of its faith or a club for women. You'll find causes here you don't agree with, and that's by design. Disagreeing with a cause, belief, religion or position is not hate.

What we ask is that you champion your own cause and leave other people's alone. Don't use Onward to attack, mock or campaign against another organization or its supporters.

4. No Hate Speech or Hate Groups

We draw the line at attacking people for who they are. We don't allow:

• Hate speech: slurs, dehumanizing language, threats, harassment, or calls for violence or exclusion aimed at people because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or serious illness.
• Hate groups: pages for, or content that praises or supports, any organization whose core purpose is attacking people for those characteristics, such as white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups. Tax-exempt status doesn't change this.
• Violent or extremist groups of any kind.

5. Keep It About Giving Back

• Businesses and professionals are welcome to share who they are and how they give. Onward isn't a place for hard selling: no spam, mass invitations or unrelated ads.
• Fundraisers should say clearly who the money is for and send people to the nonprofit's own way to give. Onward never handles donations.
• Keep content suitable for a general audience. No sexually explicit or graphic content.
• No scams, misleading claims, or anything illegal.

6. Respect Each Nonprofit's Page

Each nonprofit decides who shows on its page and confirms the gifts logged to it. If a nonprofit declines a gift or disputes hours, please accept that or contact them directly; don't re-log it.

7. What Happens When Something's Reported

• Onward reviews every report, usually within a day. We don't tell the person who reported it.
• Depending on what we find, we may leave it, ask the person to fix it, hide or remove the content, take a page down, or suspend an account. Repeated or serious problems mean removal.
• If you think we got something wrong, email us and we'll take another look.

Onward is a privately owned website. Being on Onward is a privilege, not a right, and we decide who joins and who stays. See our Terms of Use.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 first.

8. Questions

Not sure whether something fits? Ask us before you post. These guidelines will grow with the community, and we'll note the date at the top when they change.