Governance
0 of 14 governance documents are adopted.
The board has not met, so nothing here binds anybody yet. That sentence leads this page because a version of it that opened with a list of impressive titles would let you assume otherwise — and assuming otherwise is exactly what this organisation criticises institutions for allowing.
This page describes where this organisation stands on its own governance documents. It is not legal advice, it was not written by a lawyer, and nothing on it creates a contract. Where a document is marked as awaiting counsel, that is the fact about it, not a formality.
What each status means
- Adopted
- The board voted to adopt it, on a date, and that date is recorded. This is the only status that means the document binds anybody.
- Drafted — not adopted
- Written and in the repository, reviewed by no lawyer and adopted by no board. It is a starting point that saves billable hours, and it is not in force.
- Published as practice
- Not a legal instrument. A plain statement of what this organisation actually does, which can be published today because it describes conduct rather than creating obligations.
- Not written yet
- Nobody has written it. Said plainly, because a document that is missing and a document that is unmentioned look identical to a reader.
- Not applicable yet
- It governs an activity this organisation does not yet do. A refund policy for an organisation that takes no payments is a promise about a hypothetical.
The register
Every document, who expects it, and what stands between here and having it.
Accessibility Statement
Not written yetWhat standard this site holds itself to, where it currently falls short, and how to report a barrier.
An education platform that cannot be used by somebody with a screen reader has not published the material to them. The accessibility rubric is already watched by the Education Radar; what is missing is the public statement and the reporting route.
What unblocks it: Writing it, and being honest in it about the gaps.
Our own decision
Articles of Incorporation
Drafted — not adoptedThe document filed with Illinois that creates the corporation, plus the amendment adding the purpose and dissolution language the IRS requires of a 501(c)(3).
Without the IRS's required purpose clause and dissolution clause in the articles themselves, the application fails on the organisational test no matter how good everything else is.
What unblocks it: Filing the amendment with the Illinois Secretary of State.
IRS Form 1023Illinois Attorney General
The board, and what it decided
Drafted — not adoptedWho the directors are, and the minutes of what the board actually resolved.
BBB Standard 2 asks for a minimum of five voting members, and Standard 3 for at least three meetings a year with a majority present. This organisation currently has one person. That is said here rather than left for a reader to work out from a page with one photograph on it.
What unblocks it: Recruiting directors, and holding the meeting.
BBB Wise Giving AllianceIRS Form 990 Part VI
Bylaws
Drafted — not adoptedHow the corporation governs itself: the board, how a person becomes a director, quorum, officers, conflicts, records, dissolution. Sixteen articles.
Bylaws are not filed with the state and not filed with the IRS, but the Form 1023 asks for them and a bank will ask for them. More to the point, they are the answer to 'who decides' -- and an organisation with one person in it needs that answer written down more than a large one does, not less.
What unblocks it: Counsel has ten flagged items to clear, then the board adopts them at the organisational meeting.
IRS Form 1023BBB Wise Giving Alliance
Conflict of Interest Policy
Drafted — not adoptedThe rule for what happens when a director or officer stands to benefit from a decision they are part of making. It requires the interest to be disclosed, the interested person to leave the vote, and the whole thing to be written into the minutes.
It is the single governance document that most often decides whether a small charity keeps its exemption. Private benefit -- the organisation's resources ending up with an insider -- is the failure the 501(c)(3) test is built around, and this policy is the procedure that catches it before it happens.
What unblocks it: A board meeting. The draft follows the IRS's own published sample from the Form 1023 instructions; every director and officer signs an annual disclosure once it is adopted.
Binding version: Bylaws Article IX
IRS Form 1023IRS Form 990 Part VIBBB Wise Giving Alliance
Copyright and DMCA Policy
Drafted — not adoptedHow somebody reports material they own that a user posted here, and how the person who posted it responds.
Section 512's safe harbour is only available to a service that has registered a designated agent with the Copyright Office. The policy is worthless until the agent is registered -- so this is one where the paperwork, not the drafting, is the blocker.
What unblocks it: Registering the designated agent.
Our own decision
Document Retention and Destruction Policy
Not written yetWhat records are kept, for how long, and how they are disposed of. Corporate records, financial records, donor records, and the correspondence that explains a decision.
Two failures it prevents. Records destroyed that a regulator later asks for -- and records KEPT that nobody has a reason to hold, which for a platform holding user data is the larger exposure of the two.
What unblocks it: Writing it. It intersects the privacy work.
IRS Form 990 Part VI
Donor Policy
Published as practiceWhat a donor is told before they give, what happens to their name, what happens to their data, and what they can take back.
BBB Standard 18 requires a prominent privacy policy covering what is collected, who can reach it, how to opt out, and how it is secured -- and requires that written appeals offer an annual opportunity to opt out of having one's name shared. This organisation goes further: recognition has three states and NO DEFAULT, so silence is never consent, and an amount is never shown beside a name.
What unblocks it: Nothing, for the statement of practice. The binding version is Bylaws Article XII, which is adopted when the bylaws are.
Enforced in code: public_support_core.REQUIREMENTS -- eleven of them, and payments do not turn on until all eleven are built. Currently zero are.
Binding version: Bylaws Article XII
BBB Wise Giving AllianceIllinois Attorney GeneralOur own decision
Gift Acceptance Policy
Not written yetWhat this organisation will and will not accept, and from whom. Non-cash gifts, restricted gifts, and gifts whose source would compromise the work.
For a civic-education organisation the interesting half is REFUSAL. A gift from a party committee, a candidate, or a corporate donor with a legislative interest is a gift that costs more than it brings, and the time to have decided that is before one is offered.
What unblocks it: Writing it. The party firewall already forbids the sharpest cases; this generalises it.
BBB Wise Giving AllianceOur own decision
Privacy Policy
Drafted — not adoptedWhat is collected, why, who can reach it, how long it is kept, and what a person can demand of it.
A privacy policy is a set of promises about what the code actually does. Overstating protection is a deceptive-practices problem; understating it wastes trust that was earned. Both failures come from writing the policy and the code separately.
What unblocks it: Every claim in it verified against the running system, then counsel. The verification is the long half and it is ours.
BBB Wise Giving AllianceOur own decision
Public access to the Form 1023, the Form 990 and the financials
Not applicable yetFederal law requires an exempt organisation to make its exemption application and its three most recent annual returns available for public inspection. BBB Standard 17 goes further for any charity that solicits online: the site must carry the annual report information, a mailing address, and electronic access to the most recent Form 990.
It is the whole basis on which a stranger can check a charity rather than trust it -- which is this organisation's own argument about government, applied to itself.
What unblocks it: Filing them. There is no determination letter yet and therefore no Form 990 has ever been due. The page will carry them the day they exist.
IRS Form 990 Part VIBBB Wise Giving AllianceIllinois Attorney General
Refund and Cancellation Policy
Not applicable yetWhat happens when somebody wants their money back, and how a recurring charge is stopped.
This one has a specific answer and it is not the obvious one. See THE_REFUND_QUESTION below.
What unblocks it: Counsel, and then a payment surface. There is no payment surface and no processor account, so today this would be a promise about a hypothetical.
ROSCA815 ILCS 601Our own decision
Terms of Use
Published as practiceWhat a person may do here, what is asked of them, and what this organisation will and will not do with what they post.
The founder asked for one 'even if there arent really any'. He is right that a site with no terms at all looks unfinished, and the repository's own draft is right that publishing UNREVIEWED terms is worse than having none -- it creates the impression of a contract that may not be enforceable. So both are true and the split is by KIND. House rules, said plainly, are publishable today: they describe conduct. The enforceable machinery -- arbitration, limitation of liability, indemnity, class-action waiver, governing law -- is what needs a lawyer, and none of it is published.
What unblocks it: Counsel review of the enforceable half.
Our own decision
Whistleblower Policy
Not written yetA stated route for anybody -- staff, volunteer, member of the public -- to report a concern about the organisation's conduct, and a promise that reporting it will not be held against them.
An organisation whose whole product is public accountability and which has no internal channel for a complaint about itself is holding two standards. This one is ours to be embarrassed about until it exists.
What unblocks it: Writing it. It needs no lawyer to draft and no board to make it useful -- only to make it binding.
IRS Form 990 Part VIBBB Wise Giving Alliance
Who expects these
Naming the authority is what turns “we should probably have one” into something you can check.
- IRS Form 1023
- IRS Form 1023, the application for 501(c)(3) recognition, asks whether the organisation has adopted this.
- IRS Form 990 Part VI
- IRS Form 990 Part VI (Governance, Management and Disclosure) asks the organisation to state, on the public return, whether it has this policy. The IRS does not require the policy; it requires the ANSWER, and the answer is published.
- BBB Wise Giving Alliance
- A BBB Wise Giving Alliance Standard for Charity Accountability.
- Illinois Attorney General
- The Illinois Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau, which registers and supervises charities operating in Illinois.
- ROSCA
- The Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, which governs recurring charges arranged over the internet.
- 815 ILCS 601
- The Illinois Automatic Contract Renewal Act, 815 ILCS 601.
- Our own decision
- Nobody outside requires it. This organisation decided it should exist.
Donors, and the 11 things that come first
BBB Standard 18 requires a prominent privacy policy covering what is collected, who can reach it, how to opt out, and how it is secured -- and requires that written appeals offer an annual opportunity to opt out of having one's name shared. This organisation goes further: recognition has three states and NO DEFAULT, so silence is never consent, and an amount is never shown beside a name.
0 / 11
built before this organisation accepts a single dollar
A payment surface does not exist. This is enforced by a test rather than remembered, and the count above is read from that test.
A public amount beside a public name is a disclosure nobody agreed to.
DONOR_POLICY 7
Processor-hosted fields only.
DONOR_POLICY 7
So it changes in one place when the determination letter lands.
DONOR_POLICY 7
A donor can ask what we hold and get it.
DONOR_POLICY 7
Backups, analytics, shares -- all of them.
DONOR_POLICY 7
Gifts and membership fees are uncapped; access fees are capped at the greater of $5,000 or 1%. The three are not recoverable from each other later.
PUBLIC_SUPPORT 9 / Bylaws 12.8
Shows nothing without an explicit opt-in.
DONOR_POLICY 7
Effective in 30 days or fewer.
DONOR_POLICY 7
The nonprofit's merchant account, the nonprofit's EIN.
PUBLIC_SUPPORT 9 / Bylaws 12.7
The 509(a)(2) caps are per payor per year. Schedule A is not computable without this, and it cannot be reconstructed in 2031.
PUBLIC_SUPPORT 9 / Bylaws 12.8
Three states, no default. Silence is not consent.
DONOR_POLICY 7
Terms of use, such as they are
These describe what this organisation does. They are not yet a contract, and publishing unreviewed terms as though they were would create the impression of an agreement that may not be enforceable.
Everything on the record is free, and always will be.
No course, no bill, no filing, no phone number, no vote is ever behind a price. Money buys decoration. The whole of it is at /disclosure.
What you write is yours.
This organisation claims no ownership of what you post. It needs permission to display it here, and that permission ends when you delete it.
Nothing about you travels further than you chose.
Post visibility is set per post. Being visible in the app and being indexed by a search engine are separate switches, and both are off until you turn them on.
A location is a city, a town, or a region. Never an address.
The single exception is a business that listed itself, because it gave an address on purpose so customers could arrive.
Say what you like about the government. Argue with each other.
This is a civic platform and disagreement is the point. What is moderated is conduct -- harassment, threats, deliberate falsehood presented as sourced fact -- not position.
Do not impersonate a person or an office.
Claiming to be an elected official, an agency, or another user is the one deception this platform cannot absorb, because the product is a record people rely on.
Corrections are welcome and are published.
If something here is wrong, report it. What we fix and when is public, at /transparency.
If you are under 13, a parent has to be involved.
The children's surface is separate, and it is built so that an adult context can never be reached from inside it.
What this deliberately does not say
- Whether disputes go to arbitration, and whether a class action is waived. Not published, because it is enforceable machinery and needs a lawyer.
- Any limitation of liability, or any indemnity you would owe us.
- Which state's law governs, and where a case would be heard.
- Anything about refunds or cancellation, because nothing is sold yet.
- A binding statement of the rules above. They describe what this organisation does. They are not yet a contract, and saying otherwise would be the exact error the drafts warn about.
Refunds — an open question, worked through in public
“PERHAPS A SIMPLE NO REFUNDS FOR ANY PURCHASES (IF ITS NOT STEPPING ON LEGAL SOMEHOW)”
It probably does step on something, and the sharpest reason is specific to Illinois. This is a question for counsel and the notes below are written so a lawyer can answer it in one pass.
Nothing here is legal advice. Every finding is cited so counsel can check it rather than take it.
Illinois offers a safe harbour, and its price is refunds.
Under the Illinois Automatic Contract Renewal Act (815 ILCS 601), a violation is an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act -- but a business that maintains established written compliance procedures AND gives a full refund when an error occurs may avoid liability. A blanket 'no refunds, ever' would give up the protection this organisation's own home state offers it.
For counsel: Does a stated no-refund policy forfeit the ACRA good-faith safe harbour, or does the safe harbour turn only on what is done in the individual case?
https://law.justia.com/codes/illinois/chapter-815/act-815-ilcs-601/
If somebody subscribes online in Illinois, they must be able to cancel online.
ACRA requires that a consumer who accepts an offer online be allowed to terminate it exclusively online. It also sets out the disclosures -- that service continues until cancelled, the cancellation window, the recurring charge, the renewal term -- and requires them in larger or contrasting type, not buried in body copy.
For counsel: Confirm the disclosure formatting requirement and whether a membership tier at $3 or $5 a month is within scope.
https://law.justia.com/codes/illinois/chapter-815/act-815-ilcs-601/
Federal law applies whatever the policy says.
ROSCA governs recurring charges arranged over the internet and requires three things: material terms disclosed clearly before billing information is taken, express informed consent before charging, and a simple mechanism to stop the charges. The FTC's 'click-to-cancel' rule was vacated by the Eighth Circuit in 2025 on procedural grounds, but the FTC restarted the rulemaking in March 2026 and has continued enforcing the same conduct under ROSCA and Section 5 in the meantime. The rule going away did not make the conduct lawful.
For counsel: Where does the revived rulemaking stand, and should the cancellation flow be built to the vacated rule's standard anyway on the assumption it returns?
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/statutes/restore-online-shoppers-confidence-act
A no-refund policy does not stop a chargeback.
The card networks give a cardholder dispute rights that a merchant's stated policy does not override. A refused refund that becomes a chargeback costs more than the refund did and counts against the merchant account.
For counsel: None. This is a commercial fact rather than a legal question, and it is here because it changes what the policy is FOR.
Nothing sold here is information, which changes the shape of the question.
Everything behind a price on Outpost is decoration or the arrangement of a person's own view, plus one check bought at cost -- see /disclosure. Nobody who cancels loses access to anything they were learning from. A refund here returns money for a colour scheme, which is a much smaller thing to be generous about than a course somebody lost.
/disclosure
What we would put to counsel
Rather than 'no refunds', a policy that costs almost nothing and forfeits no protection: cancel any time, effective at the end of the period already paid for; no automatic refund of a period already used; a full refund for a charge that was an error, a duplicate, or one the person did not authorise -- which is the conduct Illinois's safe harbour is built around. Since nothing sold here is information, the exposure is a few dollars per case and the goodwill is worth more than the recovery.
No payment surface exists, no processor account exists, and eleven requirements stand between here and accepting a dollar. A refund policy published today would be a promise about a hypothetical, so the register says not_applicable_yet rather than inventing one.
What this page cannot tell you
- Whether a drafted document is any good. It has been read by no lawyer, and 'drafted' says only that words exist.
- Whether this organisation will be recognised as a 501(c)(3). The application decides that, and it is not filed.
- Whether the practices described are actually followed. Some are enforced by tests that fail the build; most are not, and this page does not distinguish them row by row.
- Anything about the founder's separate political organisation. It shares nothing with this one -- no code, no money, no accounts, no data -- and it is governed by different law entirely.
The live register, with its gates re-run when you ask, is at /api/governance. What money buys here is at /disclosure.