AFP Connect Community Code of Conduct
Thank you for being part of the AFP Connect community. To ensure the best possible experience for all members, we have established some basic guidelines for participation.
By joining and using this community, you agree that you have read and will follow these rules and guidelines. You also agree to reserve discussions and shared files and content to that best suited to the medium. This is a great medium with which to solicit the advice of your fundraising profession peers, benefit from their experience, and participate in an ongoing conversation. Questions should be directed to us via the Contact Us link on this site.
Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with these important guidelines. In order to preserve an environment that encourages both civil and constructive dialogue, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership in this community for anyone who violate these rules.
The AFP Connect Rules
- Respect others. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Please extend the benefit of the doubt to newer guests and members; there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
- Respect the purpose of the community. Use the community to share successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions, and goals instead of products or services that you provide. If you’ve found a product or service helpful, please share your experience with the group in a respectful way.
- Use caution when discussing products. Information posted on the discussion groups and in the libraries is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.
- All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited. Do not post anything that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you.
- Respect intellectual property. Post content that you have personally created or have permission to use and have properly attributed to the content creator.
- When posting items in our collaborative environment, please indicate if the item is not available for reuse. It’s also advisable to contact the owner of any material if you would like to reuse it.
- Post your message or documents only to the most appropriate communities. This helps ensure all messages receive the best response by eliminating "noise."
AFP Connect Posting Guidelines
AFP welcomes your questions and posts on AFP Connect, and appreciates your efforts to continuously build upon our community's knowledge base. At the same time, AFP is very mindful of our members' expectations and privacy, and would like to guarantee this forum remains a safe, communal experience for all without any such worries.
Of particular concern are posts that promote or link to external events, resources, discussions or other opportunities (for example, webinars or meetings conducted by the poster or non-AFP organizations, Zoom calls, webinars, Facebook groups, new reports and studies, and the like).
Before posting, please note the following rules and ensure that your external opportunity or resource:
- Is timely, useful and relevant to the discussion at hand or the current fundraising environment;
- Does not charge or require a purchase of any manner to access or participate;
- Is free and open to anyone interested; and
- Does not require the entry or provision of any personal information (such as name and email), or - if so required for registration/downloading/access - explicitly states that this information will not be used outside this sole purpose and will not be used for any marketing purposes (this includes professional email, newsletter and mailing lists) nor be sold to any other entity. The poster should note in their post that the website linked to or material requested will be asking for personal information in order to access the documents. If the poster is interested in adding the requesting individual's email to their professional email, newsletter or mailing list, they must first explicitly ask the requester for permission to do so, and provide an unsubscribe/remove option, otherwise be in violation of these guidelines.
Any posts that AFP deems to violate these requirements - whether in actual terms or in spirit of a trusting community - may be removed by AFP staff from the forum.
In addition, so that the AFP community as a whole can benefit and build its knowledge base, we do ask - as a condition of utilizing this forum for promotion - that if you do promote/conduct any such external meeting, event, or resource, that when completed you post back to the community (whether by actual post or upload to the Library) either a recording or copy of the event, discussion or generated materials, or a link to said product.
Please Note: The following types of posts are explicitly prohibited:
- Self-promotion. Any posts that are purely self-promotional in nature and attempt to advance the services and products of the poster for the express sole purpose of generating business opportunities will be removed from open discussions on AFP Connect. This determination will be made by AFP staff and removal at the sole discretion of AFP. If you are interested in advertising and promoting your services with us, please visit https://afpglobal.org/advertise-afp.
- Job postings/openings. Any job openings posted will be removed from open discussions on AFP Connect. If you wish to post a job opening, you may do so at https://careers.afpglobal.org/.
- Soliciting. Any posts requesting contributions or donations (whether of funds or material goods) - no matter the cause or initiative - will be removed from open discussion on AFP Connect.
Discussion Group Etiquette
- State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
- Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link in every message.
- Do not send administrative messages, such as "remove me from the list," to the group. Instead, use the web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing email addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new email address. Simply change your settings.
The Legal Stuff This site is provided as a service for the members of Association of Fundraising Professionals. Association of Fundraising Professionals is not responsible for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. We disclaim all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by Association of Fundraising Professionals or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall Association of Fundraising Professionals be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data, or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site.
Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials. Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants Association of Fundraising Professionals and users of this site the nonexclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material.
Messages should not be posted if they encourage or facilitate members to arrive at any agreement that either expressly or impliedly leads to price fixing, a boycott of another's business, or other conduct intended to illegally restrict free trade. Messages that encourage or facilitate an agreement about the following subjects are inappropriate: prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale; salaries; profits, profit margins, or cost data; market shares, sales territories, or markets; allocation of customers or territories; or selection, rejection, or termination of customers or suppliers.
Association of Fundraising Professionals does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to the attention of Association of Fundraising Professionals we will take all appropriate action.
Association of Fundraising Professionals reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these guidelines.
Privacy Policy The Association of Fundraising Professionals is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of those who use this website, or use related products and services.
This site compiles conventional log files to monitor and assess activity including traffic and visits on, and related to, the site. This activity does not specifically identify any individual user without prior notice to the user through use of the site.
We do not use or disclose information about your individual visits. Neither do we provide the information you give us on this site to outside companies, without your approval. The information we collect is used to improve and enhance the content and services of the AFP online experience.
Government and Legal Disclosures
We may disclose the personal information we collect through this Site, when we, in good faith, believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with the law (or a court order or subpoena); to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce our Terms and Conditions or other agreements that govern your use of this Site; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others.
External Sites
We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.
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A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows us to recognize you each time you visit this site (personalization, etc). Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information, and we do not use cookies to collect personal information. Cookies may also be used by 3rd party content providers such as news-feeds.
Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet
While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. In addition other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through our site have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies. For any other information please contact us using the Contact Us page.