The short version: take the ideas and run them at your organization. Do not resell the site as your own, and do not treat any of it as legal or tax advice.
These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and Steward-Ship, an independent publication operated by Devone Williams as a sole proprietor in the United States. By visiting steward-ship.com, opening a prototype, or subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to them. If you do not agree, please stop using the site.
If you are using Steward-Ship on behalf of a nonprofit, university, or other organization, you confirm that you have the authority to accept these terms for that organization.
Steward-Ship is a publication. It produces written ideas, working prototypes, and guidance about donor stewardship for fundraising professionals. Everything on the site is provided free of charge and offered for you to adapt.
Steward-Ship is not a software service, a data processor, or a vendor to your organization. It does not connect to your CRM, store constituent records, or handle donor information. Ideas are published on a rolling basis and the site may add, edit, or remove any of them at any time.
You may take any idea published here and run it at your own organization, internally, at no cost, without asking permission and without attribution. That is the entire point of the site. Adapt the concept, rewrite the copy for your voice, rebuild the prototype in your own stack, brief your team on it, or put it in a board deck.
Subject to these terms, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive, revocable, non-transferable license to access the site and to use its ideas and prototype code for your organization's own stewardship work, including internal training and internal presentations.
That license does not extend to:
Want to do something the license does not cover, such as reprinting a guide for a conference or using material in paid training? Ask. The answer is usually yes. Email hello@steward-ship.com.
The site's text, design, illustrations, code, and the Steward-Ship name and star mark are owned by Steward-Ship and protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of any of it to you.
When using this site, you agree not to:
If you send feedback, a suggestion, a story about an idea you tried, or a correction, you grant Steward-Ship a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use it, including publishing it in a future idea or article. We will not identify you or your organization by name without asking you first.
Please do not send confidential information or anything you would not want repeated. Ideas sent to us may resemble ideas we are already developing independently, and you agree that we owe no compensation for a suggestion you volunteered.
Subscribing means you consent to receive the daily stewardship idea and occasional related notices at the address you provided. There is an unsubscribe link in every message and it works immediately. We may pause, change the frequency of, or discontinue the newsletter at any time. Handling of your address is described in the Privacy Policy.
Steward-Ship publishes ideas, not advice. Nothing on this site is legal, tax, accounting, compliance, employment, or fundraising-regulatory advice, and reading it does not create a professional or advisory relationship of any kind.
Donor stewardship touches areas that are genuinely regulated: gift acceptance and gift agreements, charitable solicitation registration, donor privacy law, restricted fund use, endowment spending policy, tax substantiation and acknowledgment requirements, and student or patient privacy rules such as FERPA and HIPAA. Ideas here are written generally and cannot account for your jurisdiction, your governing documents, or your donor agreements.
Before you run anything from this site, have it reviewed by the people at your organization whose job that is: your general counsel or outside counsel, your finance or gift administration team, and your privacy or compliance officer. You are solely responsible for what you choose to implement.
The site links to outside research, tools, and vendors, and embeds a small number of third-party components such as fonts, an email signup form, and a contact form. Those are operated by other companies under their own terms and privacy policies. A link is not an endorsement, and Steward-Ship is not responsible for third-party content, availability, or practices.
THE SITE AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, STEWARD-SHIP DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, secure, or error free, that content is accurate, complete, or current, or that any idea published here will produce any particular fundraising result. Research cited here is summarized in good faith and may be superseded. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, STEWARD-SHIP AND ITS OPERATOR WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DONATIONS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR DONOR RELATIONSHIPS, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THE SITE OR YOUR IMPLEMENTATION OF ANY IDEA PUBLISHED HERE, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SITE WILL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED US DOLLARS ($100). Because the site is provided free of charge, this allocation of risk is a fundamental part of the agreement between us. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Steward-Ship and its operator from any claims, damages, losses, and reasonable legal fees arising out of your use of the site, your implementation of any idea published here, your violation of these terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right.
We may suspend or block access to the site at any time, for any reason, including a violation of these terms. You may stop using the site at any time. Sections 4, 6, and 8 through 15 survive termination.
These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and both parties consent to that jurisdiction.
Before filing anything, please email hello@steward-ship.com and describe the problem. Most disagreements about a free publication can be settled in one message. Any claim must be brought within one year after it arises.
Steward-Ship
Email: hello@steward-ship.com
Web: steward-ship.com/contact