Terms

Terms of Service

Last updated: October 17, 2026

These are the rules for using The Kintsugi Collective. By creating an account or using the site, you agree to follow them. The Kintsugi Collective is the name of a community website, not a separate company. In these terms, “we” means the people who maintain the site.

What this is

The Collective helps people find community members willing to offer expertise, services, connections, time, resources, or effort. It is not a marketplace, employer, agency, school, escrow service, or professional service provider.

Help is offered voluntarily by individual community members, not by The Kintsugi Collective. The Collective does not verify credentials or guarantee advice, services, safety, or results. Payment cannot be required. Use qualified licensed professionals and emergency services when appropriate.

Who may use the site

You must be at least 18 and use your own Google account. Keep your account and profile accurate, protect access to your account, and do not impersonate anyone or create an account for someone else.

Accounts may be provisional, full, or suspended. Access varies by status. Full membership is not an endorsement and does not mean we verified a person's identity, credentials, character, or trustworthiness. We may limit who can create or use an account and may change invitation and access rules.

Community conduct

Treat people with dignity and respect their consent, privacy, and boundaries. No harassment, threats, hate, discrimination, impersonation, fraud, spam, scraping, doxxing, illegal activity, or schemes targeting other participants. Do not claim credentials you do not have or perform regulated work unlawfully. The Collective is not an emergency service.

Voluntary help and payment

Help must be voluntary. Payment cannot be required—not as a fee, quote, rate, tip, purchase, or condition of helping. A recipient may choose to send a gift or tip after help is complete. The site does not process money, supervise help, or become a party to arrangements between participants.

You are responsible for deciding whom to contact, what advice to follow, whether to meet, and whether a person is qualified. Use qualified licensed professionals and emergency services when appropriate.

Contact information and off-site communication

Use another person's contact information only for the connection they agreed to, and do not publish or pass it on without permission. Some existing request flows reveal stored contact links after acceptance or send introduction emails that contain the participants' email addresses. Continuing through those flows means you agree to that disclosure. Off-site conversations and meetings are at your own risk.

Public content

A profile marked for public listing and a sponsored public Need can be viewed by anyone and may be indexed by search engines. Do not publish sensitive information you do not want shared. Messages in a request are visible to its participants. The Privacy Policy explains current visibility in more detail.

Your content

You keep ownership of content you submit. You give the people maintaining the site a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free permission to host, store, reproduce, format, display, and transmit that content only as needed to operate and secure the service and show it to the audiences described in the Privacy Policy. This permission ends when the content is deleted, except for limited backup, safety, dispute, and legal retention.

Only submit content you have the right to share. Do not post unlawful, deceptive, infringing, or malicious material.

Reports and suspension

Profiles can be reported to the person who moderates the site. Reports may be dismissed, or an account may be suspended and later reactivated. We may restrict access without advance notice when we reasonably believe that is needed to protect people, the community, or the service. Current moderation does not promise an appeal process. Records may be preserved for safety and dispute handling.

Closing your account

You can close your account in account settings. Sign-in access and public profile content are removed immediately. Limited de-identified request, message, report, agreement, safety, and service-integrity records may remain as described in the Privacy Policy.

Third-party services

Google, Vercel, Neon, and Resend support the service. Member profiles may also link to outside sites, social accounts, contact tools, or payment services. Those services have their own terms and policies, and we do not control them.

Availability and responsibility

The site is provided as available and without promises that it will always be secure, uninterrupted, accurate, or error-free. Features may change or stop. To the fullest extent the law allows, the people maintaining the site are not responsible for a participant's conduct, advice, work, promises, off-site interactions, or third-party services, or for indirect or consequential losses. Nothing in these terms excludes responsibility that the law does not allow us to exclude.

Changes and questions

We may update these terms as the service changes. The current version and date will be posted here, with additional notice for material changes when practical. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Questions or safety concerns: email hello@thekintsugicollective.com.