Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

SanctuaryIQ (the "Service") is owned and operated by MKN Web Solutions, LLC ("we," "us," "our"). The Service is software that churches and religious organizations ("Church," "you," "your") use to manage members and households, giving and pledges, fund accounting, giving statements, events and check-in, and congregation communications, and that a Church's members ("Members") use through the member portal to give, view their own giving history and statements, sign up for events, and read messages from their Church. By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy below. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Terms of Service

1. The Service & What We Are Not

SanctuaryIQ provides web and mobile software for church administration: member and household records, online, recurring and manual giving, pledges, true fund accounting (accounts payable, budgets, bank reconciliation, year-end close, statements of activity and functional expenses), donor giving statements, events, volunteer sign-ups and QR check-in, life-event records, and email communications to the congregation.

We are not a church, denomination, financial institution, money transmitter, payment processor, fund custodian, accountant, auditor, tax preparer, or law firm. We do not receive, hold, or disburse donated funds; we do not file returns or issue tax opinions; and we do not approve or process any gift, refund, or payout. Those actions, and responsibility for them, belong to the Church and its payment processor.

2. Accounts, Roles & Eligibility

You must be at least 18 and authorized to act for your Church to create a Church account. The Church's owner and administrators are responsible for the roles they assign (owner, admin, treasurer, staff, member), for the accuracy of the information staff enter, for all activity under their accounts, and for keeping login credentials secure. Members are responsible for their own account credentials and for the information they enter about their own household.

3. Acceptable Use

You agree not to: use the Service for any unlawful purpose; enter or process personal or financial information you are not authorized to hold; misuse another person's data; send communications through the Service that violate anti-spam law or the recipient's expressed wishes; attempt to breach, scrape, overload, or reverse-engineer the Service; or resell or white-label the Service without our written agreement. We may suspend access that threatens the security or integrity of the Service or other customers.

4. Giving, Payments & Stripe Connect

Online giving is processed by Stripe through a Stripe account that the Church connects and owns. Card and bank (ACH) details are entered on Stripe-hosted pages and stored by Stripe; SanctuaryIQ never stores full card or bank numbers and never takes custody of donated funds. Recurring gifts are charged by the Church's Stripe account on the schedule the Member chose and can be paused or cancelled by the Member at any time from the member portal. Refunds, disputes, chargebacks, payout timing, processing fees and any "cover the fee" contributions are between the Church, the Member and Stripe under Stripe's terms. Gifts recorded manually (cash, check) are entered and verified by the Church.

No platform fee on gifts. SanctuaryIQ does not charge or deduct any fee, percentage or "application fee" from gifts. Every gift, less only Stripe's own processing fee, settles to the Church's Stripe account. The Church pays for the Service through its subscription (Section 6), never through donors. Should that ever change, we will say so plainly on the giving page and in these Terms before it takes effect.

The Church's representations. By connecting a Stripe account and enabling online giving, the Church represents and warrants that: (a) it is a church, religious organization or other bona fide nonprofit organization lawfully permitted to solicit and receive charitable contributions where it operates; (b) it is the organization named on the connected Stripe account and has completed Stripe's verification; (c) it will use gifts for the purposes described to its donors and will not use the Service to solicit gifts on behalf of any other person or organization; (d) it is solely responsible for issuing receipts and acknowledgments, for determining whether any gift is tax-deductible, and for complying with the charitable-solicitation, tax and reporting laws that apply to it; and (e) it will provide donors with accurate information about how funds are used. SanctuaryIQ does not verify tax-exempt status and relies on these representations. We may suspend or disable online giving for any organization we reasonably believe does not meet them.

5. Statements, Accounting & Tax Matters

Giving statements, receipts, fund balances, budgets, reconciliations, year-end closes and reports (including the Statement of Activities, Statement of Functional Expenses and 1099 summaries) are generated from the records the Church enters and the payments its processor reports. They are tools to assist the Church's bookkeeping, not accounting, legal or tax advice, and not a determination that any gift is tax-deductible or that any filing is complete or correct. The Church is solely responsible for reviewing statements before sending them, for the deductibility flags it sets on funds, for its charts of accounts and closes, and for its own filings. Members should rely on the statement their Church issues and consult their own tax advisor.

6. Trial & Subscription

New Churches begin on a free trial with no card on file; the trial length and current plan are shown on the Church's Subscription page. After the trial, continued use of the staff and administration features requires an active subscription, billed month to month through Stripe. A Church may cancel at any time from its Subscription page; access continues through the paid period. A short grace period follows a lapsed trial or a failed payment before staff access pauses. The member portal, online giving and QR check-in are never paused — a lapsed Church subscription does not stop its congregation from giving, reading messages or checking in. Plans are purchased and managed by the Church's owner or administrator from a desktop browser; they are not sold inside the mobile app.

7. Your Data

The Church retains ownership of the records it enters (members, households, gifts, pledges, accounting, events, communications, documents). Members retain ownership of the information they enter about themselves and their household. You grant us a limited license to host, process, display and transmit that data solely to operate the Service for you. The Church can export its records, and either the Church or a Member may request deletion of their data subject to the Church's and our legal retention obligations (see the Privacy Policy). Any user can permanently delete their own sign-in account from My Account → Delete Account: the request is confirmed by email, shows exactly what will happen to each Church the user belongs to, and takes effect immediately. A Church whose only member deletes their account is deleted with all of its records; a Church with other members keeps running.

8. Service Availability & Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that any output (including statements, balances, reports, reminders, or delivered emails) is accurate or fit for a given legal, tax or financial purpose. Payment, email and other third-party data is provided by those providers and may be delayed, incomplete or wrong.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, MKN Web Solutions, LLC will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost contributions, lost data, missed or duplicate charges, tax penalties, or claims by donors or regulators, arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Service will not exceed the amount the Church paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the claim (or $100 if it paid nothing).

10. Indemnification

The Church agrees to indemnify and hold harmless MKN Web Solutions, LLC from claims, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from the Church's collection and handling of member and donor information, its gifts, refunds, statements, filings and communications, its use of the Service, or its violation of these Terms or applicable law.

11. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for violation of these Terms, non-payment, or to protect the Service. We will provide a reasonable opportunity to export Church data except where prohibited or where your conduct requires immediate action.

12. Changes

We may update these Terms or the Service. Material changes will be reflected by updating the effective date above and, where appropriate, by notice within the Service. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

Privacy Policy

Who is responsible for what

Each Church decides what information it collects about its members and how it uses it; the Church is the controller of that data and SanctuaryIQ processes it on the Church's behalf. Questions about how a particular Church uses your information, and requests to correct or delete it, should go to that Church first. MKN Web Solutions, LLC is responsible for the platform itself — accounts, security, and the information described below.

What we collect

Account data: names, email addresses, phone numbers, roles, and the Church you belong to.

Household & member records entered by the Church or by Members about their own household: relationships, addresses, envelope numbers, birthdays, and the names and birthdates of children (no accounts are created for children; see "Children" below).

Giving data: gifts, pledges, recurring schedules, fund allocations, refunds and the statements generated from them. Because gifts to a religious organization can reveal religious affiliation, we treat giving data as sensitive and limit its use to operating the Service for the Church. Payment credentials are held by Stripe, not by us; we store only Stripe identifiers and card/bank brand and last four digits for display.

Life events, attendance & participation: baptisms, weddings, graduations and deaths the Church records; event sign-ups; and check-in records, including guest names entered at the door.

Communications data: which congregation emails were addressed to you, whether they were delivered, opened (a tracking image) or clicked (tracked links), and your read status in the member portal.

Church operating data entered by staff: vendors, bills, payments, bank accounts (name and last four digits), budgets and journal entries.

Device & usage data: browser/user-agent, IP address, timestamps and audit logs of significant actions, used to operate, secure and support the Service.

How we use it

We use this information to provide and operate the Service for the Church and its Members: record and receipt gifts, generate statements and reports, run events and check-in, deliver the Church's communications and reminders, secure accounts, maintain audit trails, and provide support. We do not sell personal or giving information, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.

Service providers

We use a small set of providers to deliver features, sharing only what each needs:

• Stripe — payment processing for online and recurring gifts (through the Church's connected account) and for the Church's own subscription.
• Email delivery (Amazon Web Services) — transactional email (receipts, statements, reminders, invitations), the Church's congregation emails, and our own product announcements.
• Cloud hosting and storage (Amazon Web Services) — to run the Service and store uploaded files.

These providers process data under their own terms and privacy policies.

Emails you receive

From your Church: your Church may email its congregation through the Service (announcements, pledge reminders, event and volunteer reminders, birthday and anniversary greetings). Every such email carries an unsubscribe link that stops that Church's bulk email to you; you will still receive receipts, giving statements and account notices you need. From us: if you administer a Church we may occasionally email you about product updates and offers. Every such email includes a one-click unsubscribe link and our postal address, and opt-outs are honored promptly and permanently.

Cookies

We use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in and to operate the Service (including a short-lived cookie that remembers a guest check-in on a shared phone). We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Retention & security

We retain data for as long as the Church's account is active and as needed to provide the Service, and afterward as required for legal, tax or audit purposes — giving and accounting records in particular are kept for the periods tax law expects the Church to keep them. Records of deceased members are retained by the Church for its history but are excluded from all outbound email and charges. When a Member deletes their account, their sign-in, email address, phone number, password, sessions, recurring gifts and message history are erased; the Church keeps its contribution records, meaning the Member's name on gifts already recorded, because churches are required to keep records of who gave what for their statements, audits and tax filings. Corrections to those records are made by the Church. We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect data, including encryption in transit and role-based access within each Church. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Your choices

Members can review and update their own household information, pause or cancel recurring gifts, manage saved payment methods, and unsubscribe from their Church's bulk email from the member portal. Churches can export their records. To request deletion of your personal data, contact your Church, or contact us below and we will coordinate with the Church that holds your records.

Children

Children under 13 do not have accounts and the Service is not directed to them. Churches and parents or guardians may record a child's name and birthdate within a household so the family can be checked in together and remembered on birthdays; that information is entered by an adult, is visible only to that household and the Church's staff, and is never used for marketing. A parent or guardian may ask the Church to remove it at any time.

Contact

MKN Web Solutions, LLC · support@mkn.us