1. Welcome to Lite Raise!

This page explains our Terms of Service. When you use Lite Raise, you’re agreeing to all the rules on this page. Some of them need to be expressed in legal language, but we’ve done our best to offer you clear and simple explanations of what everything means — hence the brief summaries in these blue boxes. The summaries, for the record, are not part of the official legal terms.

Welcome to Lite Raise. By using this website (the “Site”) and services (together with the Site, the “Services”) offered by Lite Raise, and its subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, representatives, consultants, employees, officers, and directors — collectively, “Lite Raise,” “we,” or “us”), you’re agreeing to these legally binding rules (the “Terms”). You’re also  agreeing to our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, and agreeing to follow any other rules on the Site.

We may change these terms from time to time. If we do, we’ll let you know about any material changes, either by notifying you on the Site or by sending you an email. New versions of the terms will never apply retroactively — we’ll tell you the exact date they go into effect. If you keep using Lite Raise after a change, that means you accept the new terms.

Lite Raise is for your personal, non-commercial use, except as explained in section 4 and section 5 below.

2. About Creating an Account

To sign up for a Lite Raise account, you need to be 18 or over. You’re responsible for your account and all the activity on it.

You can browse Lite Raise without registering for an account. But to use some of Lite Raise’s functions, you’ll need to register, choose a username, and set a password. When you do that, the information you give us has to be accurate and complete. Don’t impersonate anyone else or choose names that are offensive or that violate anyone’s rights. If you don’t follow these rules, we may cancel your account.

You’re responsible for all the activity on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you find out that someone’s used your account without your permission, you should report it to support@liteRaise.com.

To sign up for an account, you need to be at least 18 years old, or old enough to form a binding contract where you live. If necessary, we may ask you for proof of age.

3. Things You Definitely Shouldn’t Do

This section is a list of things you probably already know you shouldn’t do — lie, break laws, abuse people, steal data, hack other people’s computers, and so on. Please behave yourself. Don’t do this stuff.

A lot of people use Lite Raise. We expect all of them to behave responsibly and help keep this a nice place. Don’t do any of these things on the Site:

• Don’t break the law. Don’t take any action that infringes or violates other people’s rights, violates the law, or breaches any contract or legal duty you have toward anyone.
• Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent.
• Don’t victimize anyone. Don’t do anything threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, tortious, obscene, profane, or invasive of another person’s privacy.
• Don’t spam. Don’t distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Don’t run mail lists, listservs, or any kind of autoresponder or spam on or through the Site.
• Don’t harm anyone’s computer. Don’t distribute software viruses, or anything else (code, films, programs) designed to interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or equipment on the Site (whether it belongs to Lite Raise or another party).
• Don’t abuse other users’ personal information. When you use Lite Raise — and especially if you create a successful campaign — you may receive information about other users, including things like their names, email addresses, and postal addresses. This information is provided for the purpose of participating in a Lite Raise campaign: don’t use it for other purposes, and don’t abuse it.

We also need to make sure that the Site is secure and our systems function properly. So don’t do any of these things — most of which boil down to “don’t mess with our system.”

• Don’t try to interfere with the proper workings of the Services.
• Don’t bypass any measures we’ve put in place to secure the Services.
• Don’t try to damage or get unauthorized access to any system, data, password, or other information, whether it belongs to Lite Raise or another party.
• Don’t take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or on our third-party providers. (We reserve the right to determine what’s reasonable.)
• Don’t use any kind of software or device (whether it’s manual or automated) to “crawl” or “spider” any part of the Site.
• Don’t take apart or reverse engineer any aspect of Lite Raise in an effort to access things like source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms.

4. How Campaigns Work

Most of our Terms of Service explain your relationship with Lite Raise.  This section is different — it explains the relationship between students and backers of Lite Raise campaigns, and who’s responsible for what. This is what you’re agreeing to when you create or back a Lite Raise campaign.

Lite Raise provides a funding platform for Raise campaigns. When a student posts their campaign on Lite Raise, they’re inviting other people to support their Raise with them.

Lite Raise is not a part of the student’s school/Raise — the support is directly between students and their backers. Here are the terms that govern that agreement:

When a campaign is successfully funded, the student must complete the campaign and update their schooling status. Once a student has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.

Throughout the process, students owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to fulfilling their Raise needs. At the same time, backers must understand that when they back a campaign, they’re helping to support their academic growth. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the student from being able to start classes as promised.

If a student is unable to complete their campaign goal, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of fulfilling their Raise needs to the best possible conclusion for backers. A student in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:

• they post an update that explains what progress has been done and what prevents them from finishing the Raise campaign as planned.
• they work diligently and in good faith to bring the campaign to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers.
• made every reasonable effort to complete the campaign as promised.
• they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and

The student is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their campaign. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

5. How Funding Works

This section goes over the details of backing and creating campaigns — things like how money gets collected, whether contributions can be changed or canceled, and how students can contact backers to provide insight.

These are the terms that apply when you’re backing a campaign:

• You’re charged even if the campaign does not reach its fundraising goal. You’ll provide your payment information when you contribution and charged upon completing your contribution. The exact amount you contributed is the amount Lite Raise will collect.
• In some cases, we’ll reserve the charge on your card. Lite Raise and its payment partners may authorize or reserve a charge on your credit card (or whatever payment method you use) for any amount up to the full contribution, at any time between the contribution and the collection of funds.
• Contact us at support@liteRaise.com if you receive a request for information that seems inappropriate or excessive.
• Lite Raise refunds. Responsibility for finishing a campaign lies entirely with the campaign student. Lite Raise cannot guarantee students’ academic success, but will refund contributions, minus processing fees, if the student does not enroll in school or provide their enrollment verification form.

These are the terms that apply when you’re creating a campaign:

• You can refund individual contributions if you want. While your campaign is active and running, you can request to cancel and refund a backer’s contribution at any time. They will be refunded their contribution minus processing fees.
• We’ll charge our fees before disbursing funds to your school account. Lite Raise and its payment partners will subtract fees before transmitting the proceeds of a campaign.
• Some contributions can’t be collected, which might reduce the amount of funding you get. Because some payments can’t be collected — for instance, if a backer disputes a contribution before funding ends, and they don’t provide updated information — we can’t guarantee that the amount of funding you receive will be exactly equal to the full amount contribution minus fees.
• We’ll help resolve payment-card disputes. If a backer of your campaign disputes the charge with their card issuer, we’ll handle re-presenting the charge to settle the dispute with the card issuer. You’ll be notified that a dispute has been filed, and you’ll be able to provide evidence to help us resolve it in your favor.  If the cardholder’s dispute is found valid, you authorize us to withhold the funds from your campaign contributions.
• Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Don’t assume you’ll be able to launch your campaign when you want; there could be a reason we’re not able to accept it, or a problem that takes time to resolve. Don’t assume you’ll be able to immediately collect your funding; there may be a delay between the end of a successful campaign and the delivery of funds. And don’t take any actions in reliance on collecting any of the money contribution until you see the funds enter your school account.
• Proof of Enrollment Required or contributions will be refunded. You will have up to 30 days from the close of your campaign to submit your Enrollment Verification form. If it is not received no later than 30 days after your campaign has closed, then the campaigns funds will be refunded to backers minus processing fees.

6. Stuff We Don’t Do and Aren’t Responsible For

We don’t oversee campaigns’ performance, and we don’t mediate disputes between users.

Lite Raise isn’t liable for any damages or losses related to your use of the Services. We don’t become involved in disputes between users, or between users and any third party relating to the use of the Services.  We don’t oversee the performance or punctuality of campaigns, and we don’t endorse any content users submit to the Site. When you use the Services, you release Lite Raise from claims, damages, and demands of every kind — known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed — arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and the Services. All content you access through the Services is at your own risk. You’re solely responsible for any resulting damage or loss to any party.

7. Our Fees

The platform is free for students to use. Lite Raise charges 5% of the funds contributed by supporters for each campaign, in addition to any fees from our payment’s partners.

Creating an account on Lite Raise is free. If you create a campaign that is successfully funded, we (and our payment partners) collect fees. Our partners’ fees may vary slightly based on your location.

We will not collect any fees without giving you a chance to review and accept them. If our fees ever change, we’ll announce that on our Site.  Some funds contributed by backers are collected by payment providers.  Each payment provider is its own company, and Lite Raise isn’t responsible for its performance.

8. Other Websites

If you follow a link to another website, what happens there is between you and them — not us.

Lite Raise may contain links to other websites. (For instance, campaign pages, user profiles, and comments may link to other sites.) When you access third-party websites, you do so at your own risk. We don’t control or endorse those sites.

Lite Raise partners with other companies for payment processing. When you back or create a campaign, you’re also agreeing to the payment processor’s terms of service.

9. Your Intellectual Property

We don’t own the stuff you post on Lite Raise. But when you post it, you’re giving us permission to use or copy it however we need in order to run the site or show people what’s happening on it. (We generally just use this to promote campaigns and showcase our community on the website.) You’re responsible for the content you post, and you’re vouching to us that it’s all okay to use.

Lite Raise doesn’t own content you submit to us (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. When you submit a campaign for review, or launch a campaign, you agree to these terms:

• We can use the content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content.
• When we use the content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, delete, or translate any of your Content.
• You won’t submit stuff you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant Lite Raise all the license rights outlined here).
• Any royalties or licensing on your Content are your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity based on your Content, or on Lite Raise’s hosting of that Content.
• You promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If Lite Raise or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in this agreement, you promise that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.
• You’re responsible for the stuff you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom that content originated.
• We’re not responsible for mistakes in your content. Lite Raise will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any content.

10. Lite Raise’s Intellectual Property

The content on Lite Raise is protected in various ways. You do have the right to use it for certain personal purposes, but you can’t use it for anything commercial without getting permission first.

Lite Raise’s Services are legally protected in various ways, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, and other rights and laws. You agree to respect all copyright and other legal notices, information, and restrictions contained in any content accessed through the Site. You also agree not to change, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of the Service.

Lite Raise grants you a license to reproduce content from the Services for personal use only.  This license covers both Lite Raise’s own protected content and user-generated content on the Site. (This license is worldwide, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable.) If you want to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, or store any of this content for a commercial purpose, you need prior written permission from Lite Raise or the relevant copyright holder. A “commercial purpose” means you intend to use, sell, license, rent, or otherwise exploit content for commercial use, in any way.

11. How We Deal with Copyright Issues

We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. To learn more about how we deal with claims of copyright infringement, read our Copyright Policy.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act lays out a system of legal requirements for dealing with allegations of copyright infringement.  Lite Raise complies with the DMCA, and we respond to notices of alleged infringement if they comply with the law and the requirements set forth in our Copyright Policy. We reserve the right to delete or disable content alleged to be infringing, and to terminate accounts for repeat infringers. (We do this when appropriate and at our sole discretion.)

If you’d like to submit a claim of copyright infringement, please visit our Copyright Policy. Our designated agent for notice of alleged copyright infringement is:

Lite Raise
Attn: Copyright Agent
P.O. Box 995
Mount Clemens, MI 48046
copyright@liteRaise.com

12. Deleting Your Account

You can delete your account at any time. Deleting your account won’t automatically make some content you’ve already posted go away.

You can terminate your account at any time through your account settings.  We may retain certain information as required by law or as necessary for our legitimate business purposes. All provisions of this agreement survive termination of an account, including our rights regarding any content you’ve already submitted to the Site. (For instance, if you’ve launched a campaign, deleting your account will not automatically remove the campaign from the Site.) You can contact us at support@liteRaise.com for additional information or to request campaign page deletion (this is not available in all circumstances).

13. Our Rights

To operate, we need to be able to maintain control over what happens on our website. So, in this section, we reserve the right to make decisions to protect the health and integrity of our system. We don’t take these powers lightly, and we only use them when we absolutely have to.

Lite Raise reserves these rights:

• We can make changes to the Lite Raise Site and Services without notice or liability.
• We have the right to decide who’s eligible to use Lite Raise. We can cancel accounts or decline to offer our Services. (Especially if you’re abusing them.) We can change our eligibility criteria at any time. If these things are prohibited by law where you live, then we revoke your right to use Lite Raise in that jurisdiction.
• We have the right to cancel any contribution to any campaign, at any time and for any reason.
• We have the right to reject, cancel, interrupt, remove, or suspend any campaign at any time and for any reason.

Lite Raise is not liable for any damages as a result of any of these actions, and it is our policy not to comment on the reasons for any such action.

14. Warranty Disclaimer

We work hard to provide you with great services, but we can’t guarantee everything will always work perfectly. This site is presented as-is, without warranties.

You use our Services solely at your own risk. They are provided to you “as is” and “as available” and without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

LITE RAISE SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ANY WARRANTIES IMPLIED BY ANY COURSE OF DEALING, COURSE OF PERFORMANCE, OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION (ORAL OR WRITTEN) OBTAINED BY YOU FROM LITE RAISE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY.

15. Indemnification

If you do something on Lite Raise that winds up getting us sued, you have to help defend us.

If you do something that gets us sued or break any of the promises you make in this agreement, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and other legal costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of Lite Raise. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to this indemnification clause, in which case you agree that you’ll cooperate and help us in asserting any defenses.

16. Limitation of Liability

If something bad happens as a result of your using Lite Raise, we’re not liable (beyond a small amount).

To  the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Lite Raise, its  directors, employees, partners, suppliers, or content providers be  liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, consequential, special,  or exemplary damages of any kind, including but not limited to damages  (i) resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use  the Services; (ii) for any lost profits, data loss, or cost of  procurement or substitute goods or services; or (iii) for any conduct of  content of any third party on the Site. In no event shall Lite Raise’s liability for direct damages be in excess of (in the aggregate) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100.00).

17. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law

We’re located in Michigan, and any disputes with us have to be handled in Michigan under Michigan State law.

We at Lite Raise encourage you to contact us if you’re having an issue, before resorting to the courts. In the unfortunate situation where legal  action does arise, these Terms (and all other rules, policies, or  guidelines incorporated by reference) will be governed by and construed  in accordance with the laws of the State of Michigan and the United  States, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law, and  without application of the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act  or the United Nations Convention of Controls for International Sale of  Goods. You agree that Lite Raise and its Services are deemed a passive website that does not give rise to jurisdiction over Lite Raise or its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, assigns, employees, agents, directors, officers, or shareholders, either specific or general, in any jurisdiction other than the State of Michigan. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these Terms, or your use or non-use of Lite Raise, shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in Macomb County in the State of Michigan, and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. You hereby irrevocably waive any right you may have to trial by jury in any dispute, action, or proceeding.

18. The Rest

These are our official terms and our rules for how things work. (So, if you ever see confusing or conflicting information about any of this stuff, just check these terms — they’re the last word.) Thanks so much for reading them, and for using Lite Raise!

These Terms and the other material referenced in them are the entire agreement between you and Lite Raise with respect to the Services. They supersede all other communications and proposals (whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and Lite Raise with respect to the Services and govern our future relationship. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under the law, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms otherwise will remain in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure of either you or Lite Raise to exercise any right provided for in these Terms in any way won’t be deemed a waiver of any other rights.

These Terms are personal to you. You can’t assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get Lite Raise’s prior written consent. Lite Raise has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms without your consent. Lite Raise will provide you notice via email, written notice, or by conspicuously posting the notice on our Site.

These updated terms will go into effect on September 01, 2023, at 12 a.m. Eastern Time, and apply to all campaigns launched on Lite Raise on or after that date.