Terms of use

1. About these terms

These terms apply when you visit Goodzera, create an account, or give to an NGO through Goodzera, including through a Give button on an NGO’s own website. In these terms, “Goodzera”, “we” and “us” mean the company that runs Goodzera, which runs the platform. “You” means the person using Goodzera. “NGO” means a non-governmental or nonprofit organization that Goodzera has verified to receive gifts.

By using Goodzera or making a gift you agree to these terms and to the policies they link to: the privacy notice, the fees page and the refund policy. NGOs that fundraise on Goodzera also agree to the NGO terms.

You must be at least 18 years old, or have the permission of a parent or guardian, to make a gift. If you use Goodzera on behalf of a company or other organization, you confirm that you are authorized to do so.

2. What Goodzera is, and is not

Goodzera provides public NGO profiles, campaign pages, a giving basket, receipts, supporter updates and tools for NGOs. It is a technology platform. In particular:

• Goodzera is not a charity and does not collect gifts for its own charitable purposes. Each gift is made to the NGO named at checkout.
• Goodzera is not a bank, a deposit-taker or a payment service provider. Payments are processed by a payment provider licensed in Nigeria. When the payment is confirmed, the provider settles each NGO’s share directly to that NGO’s own settlement account. Goodzera does not hold your gift; it receives only its own platform charges where they apply.
• Goodzera does not run the NGOs. Each NGO is independent and is solely responsible for its programmes, its statements and how it uses gifts. We do not guarantee that an NGO will achieve a campaign’s goal or use a gift in a particular way.
• Goodzera does not give tax, legal or financial advice. We do not state that a gift is tax-deductible. Ask a qualified adviser about your own situation.

3. Using Goodzera and accounts

You can give without an account. An account lets you see your giving history, follow NGOs, read updates for supporters and manage your data. Sign-in is provided by a specialist authentication service. Keep your sign-in details secure and tell us promptly if you think someone else has used your account.

Information you give us must be accurate. Use an email address you control, because receipts and any updates go there.

4. Making a gift

• You can add gifts to a basket from NGO profiles, campaign pages and curated lists. The basket is kept in your browser until you check out.
• Each gift is at least ₦1,000. A basket holds at most 10 gifts and its total cannot exceed ₦5,000,000 in one payment.
• Before you pay, checkout shows each gift, the processing fee if you choose to cover it, and the total. A checkout total is held for 10 minutes. If anything changes, we show the new total and ask you to confirm it.
• We check every gift again when you pay. If an NGO is no longer verified or a campaign has closed, we tell you and you can remove that gift.
• A gift is complete only when the payment provider confirms it and we have verified that confirmation. You then receive a receipt by email listing each NGO and gift.
• A gift is a voluntary donation. You do not receive goods or services in return.
• You confirm that the money you give is your own or that you are authorized to give it, and that it does not come from unlawful activity. Like any regulated payment flow, we and the payment provider may decline, hold or review a payment to prevent fraud or to meet anti-money-laundering obligations.

5. The processing fee

Checkout shows one line called Processing fee. It covers payment and platform costs, so when you choose to cover it, the full gift you chose reaches each NGO. Covering it is your choice. If you do not cover it, the costs come out of the gift. The fees page explains exactly how it is worked out, with examples. Cards issued outside Nigeria cost more to process, so on those cards the NGO may receive slightly less than shown.

6. Your name, amount and contact choices

• Hide my name on public pages. Your name does not appear on public pages such as a campaign’s supporter list. The NGO still receives your name and email, and authorized Goodzera staff can see them, because donor identity must be kept for anti-money-laundering record-keeping. In short: anonymous to the public, known to the NGO.
• Show my gift amount. Your gift amount appears on the campaign’s supporter list only if you choose this.
• Who can contact you. For each NGO in your basket you choose whether it may contact you about its work. Each NGO receives your name and email either way, for its records. The privacy notice explains what this means.

7. Monthly giving

Monthly giving is not available yet. We plan to add it later. Until then, every gift is a single payment and nothing is charged again. If monthly giving is introduced, you will see its terms, and be asked for your explicit permission, before any repeat payment is set up.

8. Refunds and payment disputes

The refund policy explains when a gift can be refunded. In short, we accept refund requests until payout, which is normally the next working day after your gift. After payout, a refund needs the NGO’s agreement.

If you think a payment was made without your permission, contact us and your bank straight away. If you raise a dispute or chargeback with your bank, we and the NGO may share the payment records with the payment provider and your bank to respond to it.

We will never ask you to send money, a card PIN or a one-time password to “release”, “verify” or “speed up” a refund.

9. Verification, ratings and alerts

• Verified. Before an NGO can receive gifts, Goodzera staff check its registration documents and bank account evidence against the documents it uploads. We do not check public registries automatically. Verification describes what we checked at that time; it is not a guarantee of the NGO’s future conduct.
• Trust score and stars. An NGO’s score comes only from evidence we have verified, such as its Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and SCUML registrations, audited accounts and its reporting on Goodzera. It is shown as zero to four stars. When there is not enough evidence, the NGO is shown as “Not yet rated”. How we rate lists every check.
• Alerts. We may show a public alert on an NGO profile, for example while we look into a complaint.

Ratings and alerts are information to help you decide. They are not financial advice, an endorsement or a promise about any NGO.

10. Posts, updates and reporting content

NGOs publish updates and reports on Goodzera. Some posts are for supporters only: you can read them when you are signed in and have a confirmed gift to that NGO, linked to your account, that has not been fully refunded. Each NGO is responsible for what it posts.

Anyone can report a post they think is false, harmful or unlawful. We review reports and may hide a post, with a recorded reason. We may also remove or restrict any content that breaks these terms or the law, or that we are required to remove.

11. Giving on an NGO’s own website

An NGO can add a Goodzera Give button to its own website. The button opens Goodzera’s checkout for that NGO only. These terms and our privacy notice apply to that checkout. The rest of the NGO’s website is the NGO’s responsibility and is governed by its own terms and policies.

12. Acceptable use

You must not:

• use Goodzera for fraud, money laundering, terrorism financing or any other unlawful purpose, or use payment details you are not authorized to use;
• impersonate a person or NGO, or give false information;
• harass, threaten or abuse others, or post or report content in bad faith;
• interfere with Goodzera’s security, bot protection or rate limits, or try to access data that is not yours;
• copy, scrape or harvest data from Goodzera at scale without our written permission.

13. Our content and yours

Goodzera’s name, design, software and our own text belong to us or our licensors. NGOs keep ownership of the content they publish and give us permission to show it on Goodzera. You may share links to Goodzera pages freely.

14. Availability and changes to the service

We work to keep Goodzera available and accurate, but it may sometimes be unavailable, for example during maintenance or when a provider we rely on has a problem. We may change, add or remove features. We will not change the terms of a gift that has already been confirmed.

15. Our responsibility to you

Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018 or other Nigerian law that cannot be limited by agreement, or our liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

Subject to that, and as far as the law allows:

• we are not responsible for the acts, statements or use of funds of any NGO, or for losses caused by a payment provider, a bank or a network outside our reasonable control;
• we are not responsible for losses that were not reasonably foreseeable when you used Goodzera, or for indirect losses;
• our total liability to you for any claim about a gift is limited to the amount you paid for that gift, including any processing fee.

16. Suspending access

We may suspend or close an account, or refuse a payment, if we reasonably believe it is being used in breach of these terms, for fraud, or to break the law, or if the law or a regulator requires it. Where we can, we will tell you why.

17. Complaints, governing law and courts

If something has gone wrong, contact us at our support page with your payment reference. We will acknowledge your complaint, look into it, and tell you what we will do. If you are not satisfied, you may contact the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). Questions about your personal data can also go to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), as the privacy notice explains.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Subject to any right you have to bring a claim elsewhere under Nigerian consumer law, the courts of Lagos State, Nigeria have jurisdiction over any dispute about them.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when we add a feature or the law changes. The version and effective date at the top show which terms apply. For significant changes we will give notice on Goodzera before they take effect. A gift is governed by the terms in force when you made it.

19. Contact

Email our support page or use the support page. Include your payment reference for questions about a gift. Never send card numbers, PINs or one-time passwords.