Effective Date: May 27th, 2026
These Terms of Service govern your use of the Trace of Hope website, including any pages, forms, donation tools, nomination forms, student profiles, content, communications, and related services available through https://www.traceofhope.org/.
By accessing or using the website, making a donation, submitting a nomination, signing up for updates, submitting content, or otherwise interacting with Trace of Hope online, you agree to these Terms of Service.
If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use the website.
1. About Trace of Hope
Trace of Hope is a New York nonprofit organization and a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Trace of Hope provides needs-based grants to students pursuing higher education goals. Our mission is to reduce financial barriers, support personal growth, and help students continue their education so they can better themselves and contribute positively to their communities.
2. Website Purpose
The website is provided to share information about Trace of Hope, accept donations, collect nominations, share student recipient profiles with consent, invite newsletter signups, and communicate with donors, nominators, students, families, and the public.
The website is for informational, charitable, and nonprofit purposes only.
3. Donations
Donations made through the website support Trace of Hope’s charitable mission and grantmaking work. Trace of Hope retains discretion and control over all charitable funds. Nominations do not guarantee funding, and donations support Trace of Hope’s charitable mission rather than creating a direct legal entitlement for any specific student.
Donations are processed through GiveWP, Stripe, or other third-party payment processors. By making a donation, you agree to provide accurate payment and contact information and authorize the donation transaction.
Donation receipts are generally provided through GiveWP, Stripe, or related donation processing tools. Trace of Hope may maintain donation records for tax, accounting, legal, audit, donor stewardship, and nonprofit compliance purposes.
Anonymous Donations
If you choose to make your donation anonymous, this means your name will not be publicly displayed in connection with your donation. Anonymous donations are not anonymous to Trace of Hope, GiveWP, Stripe, payment processors, or others who need access to donation information for processing, compliance, recordkeeping, or legal purposes.
Recurring Donations
If you choose to make a recurring donation, you authorize recurring charges according to the donation frequency and amount you select. You are responsible for managing, updating, or canceling your recurring donation through the available donation platform tools or by contacting Trace of Hope.
Refunds
Donations are generally non-refundable. However, Trace of Hope may review refund requests on a case-by-case basis where required by law or where Trace of Hope determines that a refund is appropriate.
4. Nominations
Trace of Hope allows website visitors to nominate students for potential grant consideration. Anyone may nominate a student, including teachers, mentors, family members, friends, or community members.
The nomination form may ask for information such as your name, the student’s name, the student’s location, and information about the student. You may also choose to provide details about the student’s educational goals, financial need, personal growth, community involvement, and why you believe the student should be considered.
By submitting a nomination, you represent and agree that:
- The information you provide is accurate and truthful to the best of your knowledge.
- You have the right or appropriate permission to share the information you submit.
- You will not submit false, misleading, defamatory, invasive, exploitative, or unauthorized information.
- You will not submit information for the purpose of harassing, exploiting, embarrassing, or harming a student or any other person.
- You understand that submitting a nomination does not guarantee funding.
- You understand that Trace of Hope has sole discretion over grant review, eligibility, selection, timing, amount, and distribution.
Trace of Hope may contact nominated students, nominators, parents, guardians, schools, references, or others as appropriate to review a nomination, verify information, learn more about the student, or administer potential support.
5. Grant Decisions
Trace of Hope has sole discretion over all grant decisions, including eligibility, selection, timing, amount, distribution, documentation, and use of funds. Grants may support tuition gaps, housing, books, fees, and other essential costs related to a student’s education and wellbeing.
Trace of Hope may consider factors such as financial need, personal growth, educational goals, and community impact. Trace of Hope may change its criteria, process, timing, or grantmaking priorities at any time.
No nomination, donation, student profile, communication, website statement, or prior grant creates a promise, guarantee, entitlement, or obligation that any person will receive funding.
6. Student Profiles and Consent
Trace of Hope may publish student profiles, stories, photos, quotes, or related information on the website and in mission-related communications only with written consent. If the student is under 18, written consent from a parent or legal guardian is required.
Public student profiles may include a student’s first name, photo provided by the student, and personal details voluntarily submitted through a questionnaire or related communication. Trace of Hope does not publicly list grant amounts on student profiles.
Trace of Hope may edit student profile content for clarity, length, grammar, privacy, dignity, and consistency with our mission.
Students, parents, or legal guardians may request removal of a student profile by emailing donations@traceofhope.org. Trace of Hope will review removal requests and take reasonable steps to remove or update the applicable content from the website. Trace of Hope cannot control content that has already been copied, downloaded, screenshotted, archived, cached, or shared by others.
7. User-Submitted Content
If you submit any content to Trace of Hope, including nominations, photos, stories, questionnaire responses, messages, testimonials, or other materials, you represent that you have the rights, permissions, and authority necessary to submit that content.
You grant Trace of Hope a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, edit, publish, display, distribute, and share submitted content in connection with Trace of Hope’s charitable mission, website, donor communications, nonprofit communications, and related materials, subject to any applicable written consent requirements for student profiles and minors.
You agree not to submit content that is false, misleading, defamatory, unlawful, invasive, exploitative, discriminatory, harassing, abusive, obscene, infringing, or otherwise inappropriate.
Trace of Hope may remove, edit, decline, or refuse to publish any submitted content at any time.
8. Acceptable Use
You agree not to use the website to:
- Violate any law, regulation, or third-party right
- Submit false, misleading, unauthorized, or harmful nominations
- Impersonate another person or misrepresent your identity
- Interfere with the website’s security, operation, or functionality
- Attempt to access systems, data, accounts, or information without authorization
- Scrape, copy, harvest, or republish website content without permission
- Use student profiles, photos, names, stories, or information for unauthorized purposes
- Contact, solicit, harass, exploit, identify, or attempt to identify students beyond what Trace of Hope has publicly shared
- Use the website for spam, fraud, phishing, malware, or other harmful activity
- Copy, misuse, or exploit Trace of Hope’s name, logo, content, photos, stories, or materials
- Use Trace of Hope content for fundraising outside of Trace of Hope without written permission
9. Intellectual Property
The website, including its text, design, graphics, logos, photographs, student profile layouts, donor-facing materials, nomination materials, stories, and other content, is owned by Trace of Hope or used with permission.
Brunello may have designed or developed the website, but Trace of Hope owns the website content unless otherwise agreed in writing.
You may view and share public website pages for personal, informational, and charitable awareness purposes, provided you do not alter, misrepresent, exploit, or misuse the content. You may not copy, reproduce, modify, distribute, sell, scrape, republish, or use website content for commercial, fundraising, exploitative, or unauthorized purposes without written permission from Trace of Hope.
Student photos, names, stories, and profile information may not be copied, downloaded, reused, republished, or used to contact, identify, solicit, or exploit students.
10. No Professional Advice
The website is provided for informational and charitable purposes only. Nothing on the website is intended as legal, financial, tax, educational, professional, or other advice.
Donors should consult their own tax advisors regarding the deductibility or tax treatment of any donation.
11. No Guarantees
Trace of Hope does not guarantee that:
- Any nominated student will receive funding
- Any donation will support a particular student unless Trace of Hope has expressly stated otherwise in writing and in compliance with applicable law
- Any grant will produce a specific educational, financial, personal, or community outcome
- The website will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or available at all times
- Any information on the website will always be complete, current, or error-free
- Third-party services, plugins, processors, or platforms will operate without interruption or error
12. Third-Party Services and Links
The website may use or link to third-party services, including GiveWP, Stripe, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, WordPress plugins, hosting providers, embedded content, social media platforms, and other tools or services.
Trace of Hope is not responsible for third-party websites, platforms, services, privacy practices, payment systems, content, policies, or security. Your use of third-party services may be governed by those third parties’ terms and privacy policies.
13. Privacy
Your use of the website is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how Trace of Hope collects, uses, shares, and protects information.
14. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Trace of Hope and its directors, officers, employees, volunteers, contractors, advisors, service providers, and representatives will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages arising out of or related to your use of the website, donations, nominations, submitted content, student profiles, third-party services, or these Terms.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Trace of Hope’s total liability for any claim arising out of or related to the website or these Terms will be limited to the amount you paid to Trace of Hope, if any, in connection with the specific transaction giving rise to the claim.
Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability, so some of these limitations may not apply to you.
15. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Trace of Hope and its directors, officers, employees, volunteers, contractors, advisors, service providers, and representatives from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, or expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or related to:
- Your use or misuse of the website
- Your violation of these Terms
- Your violation of any law or third-party right
- Your submission of false, misleading, unauthorized, defamatory, infringing, or harmful content
- Your misuse of student information, photos, stories, or profiles
- Your unauthorized use of Trace of Hope content or intellectual property
16. Changes to the Website or Terms
Trace of Hope may update, modify, suspend, or discontinue the website, forms, content, donation tools, nomination process, student profiles, or these Terms at any time.
When we update these Terms, we will revise the effective date above. Your continued use of the website after changes are posted means you accept the updated Terms.
17. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to conflict of law principles.
18. Contact
For questions about these Terms, donations, nominations, student profile removal, or website use, contact:
Trace of Hope
New York, NY 10003
Email: donations@traceofhope.org