Terms of Service

Good Church — Terms of Service 1. ABOUT GOOD CHURCH Good Church Limited (company number 9429053430878 ) ("Good Church", "we", "us") owns and operates goodchurch.co.nz. Good Church provides a software-assisted policy advisory service for New Zealand churches ("the Service"). The Service includes both the software and any related support provided by Good Church staff. By creating an account or using the Service, your organisation ("you") agrees to these Terms. The person accepting these Terms confirms they are authorised to do so on behalf of your organisation. 2. NATURE OF THE SERVICE 2.1 Guidance only. You make the decision. The Service provides guidance based on NZ legislation, sector and subsector frameworks, and your organisation's uploaded documents that contain your decisions. All outputs are for general guidance purposes only, whether they come from the software or from Good Church staff. Good Church is NOT a law firm or accountancy. It is not a substitute for professional legal, HR, employment, or financial counsel. The Service may indicate that a matter requires professional advice or escalation to leadership, but ultimately decision making is the responsibility of your organisation and your users. You must not rely solely on the Service's response, but use it within your decision making context. Software outputs are generated using artificial intelligence. They may be incorrect, incomplete or out of date, and may misread or miss parts of your documents or the law. You are responsible for checking outputs before acting on them. Your organisation makes its own decisions. Good Church does not make decisions for you and does not take on any duty to advise you for any particular matter. Responsibility for every decision, action or omission of your organisation, and its consequences, remains with your organisation, whether or not it follows the Service's guidance. Where the Service escalates a matter as a leadership judgment call, you are responsible for obtaining appropriate specific advice on the matter. 2.2 Your documents create the guidance. Guidance is based on the documents you upload. You are responsible for making sure they are current, accurate, and properly adopted by your organisation through your decision making systems (for example the ones outlined in your rules on the Charities Register). Good Church does not review or verify your documents, and guidance based on out-of-date or inaccurate documents is your organisation's responsibility. 2.3 We notify if questions require using your safety related documents Where a query appears to involve current issues of safety, care, protection or similar sensitive matters, Good Church will notify your organisation's nominated contact, or, where it appears to involve that contact or the contact is unavailable, to your nominated alternate leader. What is shared, and with whom, is set out in clause 5.4. Identifying these queries is not guaranteed: some that should be identified will not be, and some will turn out to be unnecessary. The Service is not a safeguarding, reporting, or emergency response service. The Service is a notification of a high risk policy question only. Your organisation remains solely responsible for recognising and responding to safeguarding concerns, holding the appropriate documentation, in line with your own safeguarding policy and the law, whether or not a query is identified, and for seeking professional advice where needed. When Good Church notifies your organisation, they do so only to bring to your organisation's attention access to high risk policies where personal and immediate harm is possible. They do not assess, investigate, or advise on the concern. Due to GoodChurch data retention policies safeguarding questions should not be treated as the organisation’s record of a disclosure or of action. 2.4 Good Church staff can see questions and answers, if helping you. Good Church staff may view questions and answers, and discuss them with your organisation's authorised people, to operate, support, and improve the Service. For example, to respond to requests regarding quality of service. This is for service purposes only. Good Church does not monitor your organisation's use of the Service on your behalf and has no duty to identify, act on, or tell you about any matter it sees, although it may choose to contact your organisation if it becomes aware of a serious risk to someone's safety. 3. ACCOUNTS & ACCESS 3.1 Your church holds the account, linked to Charities Register Subscriptions are held by the organisation and the organisation account holder must have access to the email address on the Charities website for verification purposes. The organisation account holder is responsible for all use of the Service by individuals given user access to that organisation. The organisation account holder may grant access to staff and volunteers for organisational purposes. The Service is designed for the Christian church in New Zealand. We reserve the right to decline or terminate accounts that do not meet these criteria. 3.2 You manage your users, and don’t share log ins You are responsible for managing access and ensuring only authorised people use your account. Everyone you give access to uses the Service as part of your organisation, whether paid or voluntary. Their questions and answers are your organisation's records and are not private from your organisation. User question history is kept as a record and cannot be edited by users. You are responsible for your users' accounts, including which email addresses they use, making sure each user accepts the Good Church Terms of Use, and removing access when someone leaves. You must not have more than one person using each account. Each person must have their own individual log in and password. If you need more users, you need to increase your subscription plan. 4. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES You confirm that you are entitled to create this account, to upload your organisation's documents, and that your own practices allow you to use a service provider like Good Church. You agree to: - Provide accurate information when setting up your account - Use the Service in good faith and for legitimate church purposes - Not share login credentials or allow unauthorised access - Not upload documents you don't have the right to use, or do not constitute documents appropriate for use in governing and guiding churches - Treat Good Church as decision support only, and not a replacement for human decision making in your organisation, and specifically not theological guidance or pastoral care. This is an oversight and stewardship tool. - Check before acting, and obtain appropriate professional advice where we indicate it or the matter warrants it - Keep your contact details current, especially for safeguarding - Notify us promptly of any security breach or unauthorised use You must not use the Service to assist illegal activity, harass or harm individuals, or circumvent legitimate governance responsibility. 5. YOUR DATA AND PRIVACY 5.1 Each church has its own Church Content Documents you upload, questions your users ask, answers generated, and safeguarding flags ("Church Content") belong to your organisation and form part of its records. Under the Privacy Act 2020, your organisation remains responsible for Church Content. Good Church holds and handles it only on your behalf, as your agent (section 11 of the Act). Good Church is separately responsible for the account and billing information it holds for its own purposes (clause 5.6). Church Content is available only to your organisation's authorised people according to their roles, to Good Church staff as described in clauses 2.5 and 5.4 to our service providers as described in clause 5.5. No other organisation registered with Good Church can access it. If we receive a request from a user or non-user to update, see, or correct your Church Content, we will pass it to the organisation account holder within 5 working days and give you reasonable help. 5.2 We will not sell your information or train third party/offshore AI with it Good Church uses Church Content only to provide, support, and improve the Service, and for no other purpose. We do not sell it. Our AI providers cannot use it to train their own models. Good Church may use questions and answers to create a small language model at some point in the future, if it serves the best interest of the church in NZ and aligns with ethical AI uses. Church Content is kept confidential, and everyone at Good Church with access to it is bound by confidentiality and trained in handling privacy and safeguarding information. Good Church may share Church Content with a person it reasonably believes is authorised by your organisation to receive it, and may rely on that person's statement that they are authorised. 5.3 We will share information if it prevents harm You nominate one safeguarding contact and one alternate leader (who need not be a user of the Service) and keep both current. While the software will email a generic notification, based on answering a question that requires use of uploaded safety related information, Good Church staff have a greater mandate to work with your organisation to prevent harm. The question, the answer, and the name and role of the user who asked may be made available to your safeguarding contact and/or your alternate leader. Additional information may be shared by Good Church staff to your organisation, or any independent third party investigator acting on behalf of your organisation, so that Good Church staff can support any actions taken to prevent harm and provide safety. 5.4 We will share information with our tech service providers To produce an answer, the question and the relevant excerpts from your documents are sent to our AI providers. We also use service providers for development, hosting, email, and payments. Some are located outside New Zealand, including in the United States or Australia. They act only for Good Church, may use Church Content only to provide their services to us, and are held to legal obligations. Our current providers include but are not limited to Harkness AI, Netlify, Superbase, OpenRouter, and Stripe. 5.5 We endeavour to keep information secure We protect Church Content with encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access, multi-factor authentication for administrative access, regular security updates, and daily backups. On reasonable notice, and no more than once a year, we will answer your organisation's (or its denomination's or insurer's) security questionnaire. We acknowledge that AI agents with internet access can access any software, globally, with no known preventative action by GoodChurch or the New Zealand government. If a security breach affects your Church Content or your users, we will tell you without undue delay, ideally within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and with enough detail for you to assess your own legal obligations e.g. the Privacy Act. 5.6 How long we keep things: To run the Service and our business, we hold your organisation's account and billing details, the contact details of the people you nominate (such as your account holder, safeguarding contact and alternate leader), support correspondence and operational logs. We handle these under the Privacy Act 2020 and keep billing records for 7 years for tax purposes. Information Retention minimum Questions and answers, including safeguarding flags 24 months Information Retention minimum Billing 7 years Uploaded documents While you subscribe. You can delete any document at any time. You can export the text held at any time. Church Content when you leave Exported to you on request, if received within 14 days, deleted within 30 days. Backups amended within a further 35 days. 6. LEGISLATION MONITORING Where the Service includes monitoring of NZ legislation and regulatory updates: - We do not guarantee all relevant changes will be identified. This fills gaps for organisations that do not track changes in legislation at all, but if your organisation has built networks and relationships that provide more real time and accurate information on legislation change, particularly during the early development, we recommend that you continue to use that, and not rely on Good Church. - Summaries are generated but may not capture all nuances - You should verify legislative information independently before acting - A human review process is in place for this feature, reviewed by a Principal Advisor with 20 years experience and reviewed for suitability by charitable tier. 7. LIABILITY 7.1 Limitation of liability To the maximum extent permitted by NZ law: a) We are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on the Service, including employment disputes, safeguarding failures, any failure to identify or pass on a sensitive query, any error or omission in an output or in guidance from Good Church, regulatory non-compliance, reputational damage, financial loss, or data loss. b) Our total liability to you in any 12-month period under or in connection with these Terms will not exceed the subscription fees you paid in that period. c) We are not liable for indirect, consequential, special, or punitive losses. 7.2 Indemnity You agree to indemnify and hold Good Church harmless from any claims, losses, or expenses arising from: - Your breach of these Terms - Misuse of the Service, including overreliance on AI products and services - Your failure to obtain professional advice if recommended - Decisions your organisation makes, or actions it takes or does not take, whether or not in reliance on the Service 7.3 Consumer law Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under the appropriate laws, such as the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or Fair Trading Act 1986. 8. SUBSCRIPTION & BILLING 8.1 Annual subscriptions, with no refund of unused portions. Pricing is outlined here Good Church Pricing - Annual Plans for NZ Churches and may be updated with 60 days' notice to existing subscribers. Separate pricing may be agreed in writing at sign-up with the approval of at least two Directors of Good Church. Payment is billed annually. You authorise us to charge your nominated payment method at the start of each subscription period. You may cancel at any time. No refunds for unused portions of a subscription period. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. If payment fails, we allow a 14-day grace period before suspending access. Your Church Content is kept during suspension. If payment is still outstanding 60 days after suspension, we may pursue termination. 9. SERVICE AVAILABILITY We aim for high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We will give reasonable notice of planned maintenance. We are not liable for loss caused by downtime. 10. TERMINATION 10.1 You can cancel anytime. You can cancel at any time via account settings or by contacting us. When terminated, access ceases immediately. Your Church Content may be exported to you on request, and then deleted, as set out in clause 5.6. 10.2 We will only cancel with good reason. We may suspend or terminate if you breach these Terms, fail to pay, use the Service in ways that conflict with our purpose or create legal risk, or consistently use it to circumvent external legal obligations. We will give 14 days' written notice before termination except where immediate action is necessary. 11. CHANGES TO THESE TERMS We may update these Terms from time to time. We will give 30 days' written notice of material changes. Continued use after that period constitutes acceptance. 12. GOVERNING LAW These Terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts. 13. CONTACT Good Church Limited | Clare Pattison, Director (and Privacy Officer) clare.pattison@goodchurch.co.nz | goodchurch.co.nz