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Our Circle

Organization Portal and Gather terms of use

For organization administrators. Your personal use of the Our Circle app as a parent is covered by the main terms of service.

Effective Date: June 18, 2026
Last Updated: October 4, 2026
Version: 1.2

If you need these Terms in another format—large print, audio, or another language—please contact us at help@ourcircle.org.

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Our Circle Organization Portal (the "Portal," at portal.ourcircle.org) and the Gather by Our Circle mobile application ("Gather"), operated by Our Circle, Inc., an Illinois nonprofit corporation ("Our Circle," "we," "us," or "our"). Gather is distributed for iOS and Android exclusively through the Apple App Store and Google Play. By creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the Portal or Gather, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Portal or Gather.

These Terms apply to you as an individual. They are separate from, and in addition to, the Our Circle Organization Subscription Agreement that governs the commercial relationship between Our Circle and your organization. They are also separate from the consumer Terms of Service that govern parents and caregivers using the Our Circle mobile app.

Definitions

  • Portal: The Our Circle Organization Portal web application at portal.ourcircle.org.
  • Gather: The Gather by Our Circle mobile application (iOS/Android) for organization administrators.
  • Services: The Portal and Gather, collectively, together with related administrative tools and features.
  • Organization (or Subscriber): The school, clinic, hospital, nonprofit, community group, or other entity on whose behalf you are authorized to use the Services.
  • Subscription Agreement: The Our Circle Organization Subscription Agreement between Our Circle and your Organization, as amended from time to time (referred to in the consumer documents as the "Partner Agreement").
  • Authorized Administrator (or you): The individual person who accesses the Services on behalf of an Organization in a role granted to them.
  • Member (or Family): A parent or caregiver who uses the Our Circle consumer mobile app and may join a group managed by an Organization.
  • Scout: The directory of sponsored listings for organizations, providers, and businesses in the Our Circle consumer app (and, where available, on the Our Circle website).
  • Scout Listing: Your Organization's listing in Scout, including any member perk offered through it.
  • Member Data: The limited Member information made visible to Authorized Administrators through the Services: a Member's display name, profile photo, account email address, general location (city and state), join date and how the Member joined (including any invite code used), engagement summary (such as counts of posts and comments), and any badges your Organization assigns, together with content Members share through your group or with your Organization (posts, comments, event RSVP responses, and messages exchanged with your Organization) and any other Member information made visible through your authorized administrative tools. Member Data does not include—and the Services do not make available to Organizations—children's profiles, support-needs details, Member phone numbers, precise location, or Members' private family-to-family messages.

1. Acceptance & Eligibility

  • You must be at least 18 years old and authorized by your Organization to use the Services in the role assigned to you.
  • By using the Services, you represent that you are acting within the scope of authority granted to you by your Organization and that the information you provide is accurate.
  • You accept these Terms when you first sign in to or otherwise use the Services.

Relationship to Other Agreements

  • Subscription Agreement controls commercial terms. Fees, subscription plans, sponsored family memberships, billing, term, renewal, and the entity-level rights and obligations of your Organization are governed by the Subscription Agreement. When your Organization subscribes through the Portal, checkout is completed by a designated super administrator and billing is processed by Stripe; the Subscription Agreement governs all acceptance mechanics, payment methods, and renewal terms. If these Terms conflict with the Subscription Agreement on a commercial matter, the Subscription Agreement controls.
  • Consumer Terms govern parent use. A single Our Circle login may hold both a parent role and an Authorized Administrator role. Which documents govern depends on the capacity in which you act, not on the account: your use of the Our Circle consumer mobile app or website as a parent or caregiver is governed by the consumer Terms of Service and consumer Privacy Policy—even if you use the same login—while your use of the Portal or Gather as an Authorized Administrator is governed by these Terms.
  • Privacy. The Organization Portal & Gather Privacy Policy describes how Our Circle handles your personal information as an Authorized Administrator and is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

2. Description of the Services

The Services provide organization administrators with tools to operate a community presence within Our Circle, including: creating and managing groups; creating and managing events and announcements; generating and managing Member invitations (including QR codes); viewing and managing Members and join requests; messaging Members in one-to-one chats; posting and commenting on community content; sharing group resources (a file and PDF library); managing organization staff, roles, and teams; managing billing and subscriptions (Portal only); and configuring notification, security, and support settings.

If Our Circle includes your Organization in Scout, the Services also let you manage your Organization's Scout Listing and member perk (see Section 7A).

Gather is a companion mobile application that provides the same administrative functions on iOS and Android. Some functions—including subscription checkout and billing management—are available only in the Portal; Gather does not process payments.

We may modify, suspend, discontinue, or replace features of the Services from time to time.

Administrative tools only. The Services are for organization administration. They are not the Our Circle consumer experience and do not provide discovery, matching, Moments, Loops, or other consumer features.

Not a clinical or medical tool. The Services are community-engagement tools. You must not use them for clinical care, emergency services, care management, discharge planning, patient follow-up, medical records, or other regulated healthcare operations unless Our Circle and your Organization have separately agreed in writing.

3. Your Account & Security

  • Provide accurate account information and keep it current.
  • Accounts are provisioned by your Organization or by Our Circle; there is no self-signup. If you receive temporary credentials, promptly set your own password.
  • Keep your credentials confidential. Accounts are individual; do not share your account or allow others to use it.
  • Multi-factor authentication (MFA) via SMS is required for access to the Services. Standard messaging rates may apply.
  • You are responsible for activity occurring under your account to the extent caused by your actions, omissions, failure to maintain account security, or unauthorized sharing of credentials.
  • Our Circle support personnel may, for support, security, or troubleshooting purposes, access or sign in to your account. These support sessions are time-limited, are visibly indicated in the interface, and are recorded in our audit logs, as described in the Organization Portal & Gather Privacy Policy.
  • Notify us immediately at help@ourcircle.org of any unauthorized use or suspected compromise of your account.

4. Authorized Use & Your Role

  • Subject to these Terms, Our Circle grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and use the Services solely to perform your authorized role for your Organization. The Gather license in Section 8 supplements this license for the mobile application.
  • You may use the Services only for your Organization's legitimate community-management purposes and only within the role granted to you (for example, super administrator, organization administrator, or staff).
  • Your Organization controls your role and may change or revoke it at any time. Organizations must promptly deprovision staff whose role or relationship with the Organization has ended.
  • You must ensure your use complies with applicable laws and with the Subscription Agreement.
  • You may not use the Services to benefit any entity other than the Organization that authorized your access.
  • When your role or relationship with the Organization ends, your right to use the Services ends, and Our Circle or your Organization may revoke your access.

5. Member Data — Confidentiality & Restrictions

The Services give you access to limited Member Data so you can verify Members and keep your group safe and private. Member Data is Members' personal information, collected under and governed by the consumer Privacy Policy; it is made available to you only as permitted there and under the Subscription Agreement. Member Data is sensitive, and protecting it is a core condition of your access. You agree that you will:

  • Use Member Data only to administer your group within the Services, and only Member Data made available through your authorized administrative tools.
  • Keep Member Data confidential, not disclose it to any third party, and share it within your Organization only with staff who need it to administer your group.
  • Not export, copy, scrape, harvest, or retain Member Data outside the Services, whether manually or by automated means.
  • Not use Member Data as part of clinical, medical, or health records; for marketing or advertising outside the Our Circle platform; for fundraising or solicitation outside the platform; for enrollment or eligibility decisions; for profiling; for resale or data enrichment; for training artificial-intelligence or machine-learning systems; or for any purpose other than operating your community group on the platform.
  • Contact Members only through the Services. Communicate with Members through the platform's features, and do not add Members to external mailing lists, group chats, or other communication channels without that Member's own separate consent.
  • Not attempt to access Member information beyond what your administrative tools provide, including child profiles, connection history, messages outside your group, or precise location data, none of which are available to Organizations (Organizations see only the general city and state included in Member Data).
  • Not provide Our Circle with patient records, patient lists, protected health information (PHI), or other regulated health data through the Services.
  • Comply with all applicable privacy laws in connection with your handling of Member Data.

Organizations and Authorized Administrators do not have access to private messages exchanged between families; you communicate with Members only through features designated for organization communications (such as one-to-one chats between Members and your Organization).

Notification and digest emails. You may receive and retain notification and digest emails we send you—which may contain excerpts of platform activity, including Members' names and content excerpts—solely to administer your group. Treat any Member Data they contain as confidential under this Section, and destroy such copies when they are no longer needed or upon the Member's departure.

No retention after departure. When a Member leaves a group, or when your Organization's subscription or relationship with Our Circle ends, you and your Organization must not retain, use, or reconstruct that Member's Member Data outside the Services, and must destroy any temporary copies that were permitted while administering the group (including the emails described above).

Health-related information. Information Members share through the Services may reveal health- or disability-related information about children. You must treat any such information with heightened care and must not copy it into your Organization's systems except as strictly needed to administer your group through the Services.

Mandatory reporting. Nothing in these Terms prevents legally required child-safety or other mandatory reporting.

Your Organization's own legal obligations. Your Organization remains solely responsible for its own legal obligations—for example, under FERPA, state student-privacy laws, or professional licensing rules—in how you and its other staff use information learned through the Services.

Audit logging. Your administrative actions within the Services (for example, generating invites, approving or removing Members, and posting content) are logged in an audit trail for security and accountability. These confidentiality and use restrictions survive the termination of your access.

Equitable relief. Unauthorized use or disclosure of Member Data may cause irreparable harm for which monetary damages would be inadequate, and Our Circle may seek injunctive or equitable relief in addition to any other remedies available at law.

6. Acceptable Use & Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to:

  • Use the Services for any unlawful, harmful, deceptive, or abusive purpose.
  • Harass, intimidate, or discriminate against Members, staff, or other users.
  • Discriminate unlawfully in administering groups, including in approving or rejecting join requests.
  • Upload malware or harmful code, or interfere with the operation, integrity, or security of the Services.
  • Access the Services through automated means (bots, scrapers, crawlers) except as we expressly permit.
  • Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, copy, modify, or create derivative works of the Services, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law.
  • Circumvent, disable, or attempt to defeat any security, authentication, rate-limiting, or access-control feature.
  • Impersonate any person or organization or misrepresent your affiliation or authority.
  • Misuse invitations, QR codes, or invite links, or generate them for any purpose other than enrolling families your Organization serves.

7. Content You Submit

  • You are responsible for content you submit through the Services, including group names and photos, event details, announcements, posts, messages, group resources, and other organization content ("Organization Content").
  • You represent that you have all rights and permissions necessary to submit Organization Content, including consent to use any photos or images of identifiable individuals, and that the content does not infringe any third party's rights or violate any law.
  • You grant Our Circle a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, reproduce, display, process, transmit, and use Organization Content solely as necessary to provide, operate, maintain, and improve the Services.
  • Content you submit may be reviewed by automated systems, including third-party artificial-intelligence services, and by human moderators, before or after it is visible, and may be removed or held for review. We may remove or restrict content that violates these Terms, the Subscription Agreement, or our community standards.

Feedback

If you provide suggestions, ideas, enhancement requests, or feedback regarding the Services, Our Circle may use, modify, and incorporate such feedback without restriction, attribution, or obligation to you.

7A. Scout Listings and Member Perks

  • What Scout is. Scout is a directory of sponsored listings in the Our Circle consumer app. A Scout Listing is an advertisement that highlights your Organization's work for families, and it is labeled "Sponsored." It is separate from your groups: a Scout Listing does not make any group visible, searchable, or joinable, and Members join your groups only through your own invitations and approvals.
  • Inclusion. Our Circle decides whether to include your Organization in Scout and may begin, pause, or end that inclusion at any time. Any fees for a Scout Listing are governed by the Subscription Agreement or another written agreement with Our Circle. Our Circle does not guarantee any number of views, contacts, or customers from Scout.
  • Your listing content. Everything you submit for a Scout Listing (including photos, logo, descriptions, category, the services and attributes you select, location and service area, hours and other details, contact information, links, and perk terms) is Organization Content. You must keep it accurate, current, and not misleading; select only services and attributes your Organization actually provides; have the rights to every photo and logo you upload; and not include personal information about Members or children, or images of identifiable children without written permission from a parent or guardian. You must not state or imply that Our Circle endorses, certifies, verifies, or recommends your Organization.
  • Review and publication. Scout Listing content and perks are checked by automated systems, including third-party artificial-intelligence services, before they are published. Content that passes may appear to families right away. Content that is flagged, or that cannot be checked, is held until Our Circle reviews it, and the version already published stays visible in the meantime. Our Circle may edit content for clarity or format and may decline, hide, suspend, or remove any Scout Listing or perk at any time. Some details, such as the listing name, placement, and any featured status, are set only by Our Circle.
  • Showing or hiding your listing. Unless Our Circle has paused it, you may hide your Scout Listing at any time and show it again later. Hiding a listing does not affect your groups or your Members.
  • Member perks. If your Organization offers a perk, it must honor the perk as described, including its terms, dates, and limits, for any Member who presents a valid redemption screen in the Our Circle app. Your Organization is responsible for ensuring its offers comply with applicable law, including any rules that apply to discounts or incentives offered by healthcare providers. Our Circle may pause or remove a perk at any time.
  • No Member information from Scout. Scout gives your Organization only aggregate counts, such as how many times a perk was redeemed. It never identifies the Members who viewed your listing, contacted you, or redeemed a perk, and you must not try to identify them from Scout activity.

8. Mobile Application License (Gather)

Subject to these Terms, Our Circle grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to install and use Gather on a mobile device that you own or control, solely to perform your authorized role for your Organization. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. You may not rent, lease, lend, sell, redistribute, or sublicense Gather.

Apple App Store — Additional Terms

If you download Gather from the Apple App Store, the following additional terms apply, and you acknowledge and agree that:

  • Acknowledgement. These Terms are concluded between you and Our Circle only, and not with Apple. Our Circle, not Apple, is solely responsible for Gather and its content. These Terms do not provide usage rules for Gather that conflict with the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
  • Scope of license. Your license to use Gather is limited to a non-transferable license to use Gather on any Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules set forth in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that Gather may be accessed and used by other accounts associated with you via Family Sharing or volume purchasing.
  • Maintenance and support. Our Circle, not Apple, is solely responsible for providing any maintenance and support services for Gather, as specified in these Terms or as required under applicable law. Apple has no obligation whatsoever to furnish any maintenance and support services with respect to Gather.
  • Warranty. Our Circle is solely responsible for any product warranties, whether express or implied by law, to the extent not effectively disclaimed. In the event Gather fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) for Gather to you. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Apple will have no other warranty obligation whatsoever with respect to Gather, and any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, or expenses attributable to any failure to conform to any warranty are Our Circle's sole responsibility.
  • Product claims. Our Circle, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or any third party relating to Gather or your possession and use of Gather, including: (i) product liability claims; (ii) any claim that Gather fails to conform to any applicable legal or regulatory requirement; and (iii) claims arising under consumer protection, privacy, or similar legislation.
  • Intellectual property rights. In the event of any third-party claim that Gather or your possession and use of Gather infringes that third party's intellectual property rights, Our Circle, not Apple, will be solely responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of any such claim.
  • Legal compliance. You represent and warrant that (i) you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a "terrorist supporting" country, and (ii) you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
  • Developer name and address. Gather is provided by Our Circle, Inc., 24321 S Iroquois Dr, Channahon, IL 60410, USA. Direct any questions, complaints, or claims regarding Gather to help@ourcircle.org.
  • Third-party terms. You must comply with applicable third-party terms of agreement when using Gather (for example, your wireless data service agreement).
  • Third-party beneficiary. Apple and Apple's subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms as they relate to Gather, and upon your acceptance of these Terms, Apple will have the right (and will be deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

Google Play

If you download Gather from the Google Play Store, your use of Gather is also subject to the Google Play Terms of Service and Google's applicable policies. Google is not a party to these Terms and is not responsible for Gather or for providing support for it.

Updates, Data Rates & Export Control

We may release updates to Gather, and installing an update may be required for continued use. Your carrier's message and data rates may apply to SMS verification codes, push notifications, and other data used by Gather. You agree to comply with all applicable U.S. and foreign export-control laws and regulations in connection with your use of Gather.

9. Notifications & Communications

We send service communications related to your account, security, and the operation of the Services:

  • Email. Service notification emails are sent through our email provider. You can manage per-category preferences in your notification settings, including immediate delivery or daily or weekly digest emails.
  • Push notifications. Push notifications are delivered only through Gather; the web Portal does not send push notifications. Enabling them is optional in your device settings, and a push-notification token is stored while you are signed in to Gather.
  • SMS. We use SMS to deliver multi-factor authentication verification codes. Standard message and data rates may apply.
  • Required communications. Certain transactional, security, and legal communications are necessary to provide the Services and cannot be opted out of while you hold an account.

10. Third-Party Services

The Services interoperate with third-party providers, including without limitation Google Firebase and Google Cloud (authentication, including delivery of SMS verification codes, database, storage, hosting, serverless computing, app-integrity attestation, and push messaging); Render (hosting of our API services in the United States); Cloudflare (image and video hosting and delivery); Stripe (subscription billing and payment processing under the Subscription Agreement); Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise (abuse prevention); Mailgun (email delivery); Sentry (crash and performance diagnostics in Gather and error monitoring for our API services); OpenAI (automated content-moderation review); and Apple and Google (mobile app distribution and push-notification delivery). These services are provided under their own terms and privacy policies. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Our Circle is not responsible for the availability, security, or performance of third-party services; nothing in these Terms limits any non-waivable rights under applicable law.

11. Intellectual Property

  • Our Circle owns all right, title, and interest in and to the Services, including the Portal, Gather, software, designs, and the Our Circle and Gather names, logos, and brand elements.
  • Except for the limited rights expressly granted to you, you receive no rights in our intellectual property. Do not copy, reverse-engineer, or create derivatives of it.
  • Copyright complaints. Send notices of claimed copyright infringement, including the information described in 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), to legal@ourcircle.org or by mail to Our Circle, Inc., Attn: Copyright Complaints, 24321 S Iroquois Dr, Channahon, IL 60410, USA.

12. Suspension & Termination

  • We may suspend or terminate your individual access to the Services, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms, if required to protect Members or the platform, or if directed by your Organization.
  • Your Organization may add, change, or remove your role and access at any time.
  • If the Subscription Agreement ends, your Organization's administrative access—and therefore your access to administrative features—ceases, as described in the Subscription Agreement.
  • On termination or deactivation, your account records may be deactivated rather than immediately deleted. Requests to delete your account data are handled as described in the Organization Portal & Gather Privacy Policy.
  • The obligations that by their nature should survive—including Member Data confidentiality and the post-departure retention restrictions, intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and indemnification—survive termination.

13. Disclaimers

The Services are provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent permitted by law, Our Circle disclaims all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free from unauthorized access. The Services are community-engagement tools and do not constitute medical, clinical, psychological, or legal advice. Some features may be in beta and may change or become temporarily unavailable.

14. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Our Circle will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, loss of data, or business interruption, arising out of or relating to your use of the Services. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Our Circle's total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services will not exceed one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100). These limitations do not apply to liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including for fraud, willful misconduct, or personal injury caused by our negligence. Liability between Our Circle and your Organization is governed separately by the Subscription Agreement.

15. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Our Circle and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any third-party claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your Organization Content or your conduct on the Services; (b) your violation of these Terms; (c) your misuse or unauthorized disclosure of Member Data; or (d) your violation of applicable law or a third party's rights.

16. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. You consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts located in Cook County, Illinois, for any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you and Our Circle each waive the right to a trial by jury in any such dispute. Nothing in these Terms limits any non-waivable rights you may have under applicable law.

17. General Provisions

  • Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.
  • Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the documents they incorporate by reference (including the Organization Portal & Gather Privacy Policy), are the entire agreement between you and Our Circle regarding your individual use of the Services and supersede any prior understandings on that subject. As described in Section 1, the Subscription Agreement controls commercial matters between Our Circle and your Organization.
  • Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your access rights. Our Circle may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, reorganization, or transfer of the Services.
  • No waiver. Our Circle's failure to enforce any provision of these Terms is not a waiver of its right to enforce that or any other provision later.
  • Notices. We may provide notices to you by email to the address associated with your account or through the Services. Send legal notices to Our Circle at legal@ourcircle.org or to the mailing address in Section 19.
  • Force majeure. Our Circle is not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, internet or utility failures, acts of government, labor disputes, or third-party service outages.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will provide notice by email or by notice within the Services. Your continued use of the Services after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

19. Contact Information

20. Acknowledgment

  • You have read, understood, and agree to these Terms.
  • You are at least 18 years old and authorized by your Organization to use the Services.
  • You understand that Member Data is confidential and will handle it only as these Terms allow.
  • You understand that Member Data may reveal health- or disability-related information about children and requires heightened care.