GlobalGiving Developer Code of Conduct

Our goal in releasing our API is for you to find creative ways to engage new donors in a GlobalGiving experience, all in the name of helping Project Leaders around the world obtain more funding for their important work. We want you to be creative and have fun dreaming up new apps with our API. That said, we need everyone in our developer community to play by the same rules.

Here they are:

1. Abide by the developer Terms of Service

Before you develop an application on the GlobalGiving API you must read and agree to the Terms of Service. The Terms of Service protects you, GlobalGiving, our donors, and our Project Leaders. You must understand and abide by these terms.

2. Respect our donors and Project Leaders

Donors have public profiles on GlobalGiving and Project Leaders have provided a great deal of information about themselves and their projects. Please respect the dignity of both, and create experiences that help us toward our mission. Disrespect of donors and Project Leaders will not be tolerated. This also means no placements of links or promotional content in connection with topics that GlobalGiving in its sole discretion considers to fall in any of the following categories:

  1. sexually explicit materials
  2. violence
  3. firearms or weapons
  4. illegal goods, services or activities
  5. gambling or betting
  6. discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age
  7. libel or defamation
  8. content aimed at children
  9. content that is otherwise misleading, obscene, or hate-oriented

3. Maintain the integrity of the data

To the best of your ability, please reflect data from the API accurately. For example, don't make an application that uses GlobalGiving photos or information to help promote your own cause, even if you think your cause is related to the one on GlobalGiving. Representing a project in your application should be done for the sole purpose of promoting that project for funding or communicating to others the story of that Project Leader and project as it appears on GlobalGiving.

Additionally, please make sure you understand the data structure of responses, represent fields properly, and draw conclusions or aggregate statistics from the data accurately. We understand you might make mistakes, but it is your responsibility to fix mistakes if we or others find them.

4. Keep donor information secure

All data sent to and received by the GlobalGiving API will be encrypted over SSL. When collecting or sending sensitive donor information, including items like name, email address, physical address, and credit card information, you must use secure encrypted means to do so, such as SSL.

5. Do not use the API for commercial use

GlobalGiving is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and, by law, we cannot allow our resources to be used for commercial purposes. Commercial entities can use the API to charitable ends in line with GlobalGiving's mission, but if you have any doubts that what you are doing is within our Terms of Service, please contact us.

6. Be your own brand

Users should understand that your products are yours alone and not owned or operated by GlobalGiving. You can use the GlobalGiving logo or color scheme for purposes of associating the content with GlobalGiving, but your application should have its own brand name (e.g. "mobile giving" would be preferable to "GlobalGiving Mobile" for a mobile-phone-based application)

7. Treat the API servers as a community asset

Our API servers are shared by everyone in the GlobalGiving developer community. In order to conserve resources, we ask that you request only data that you need and keep calls to a minimum. The more often you make calls to the API, the less resources available for other developers and the higher GlobalGiving's operating expenses become. It is best to refresh cached data only when it expires or you hit a cache miss (e.g., you come across an image URL template that is previously unknown to you). Bring any issues you have with your application being slow to the Developer's Forum and we'll help you there.

8. Link images back to GlobalGiving whenever possible

When writing applications that use GlobalGiving images, please hyperlink those images back to GlobalGiving - either to a full-size image hosted by GlobalGiving or to a project's photo gallery, as appropriate. If you have a great idea for linking the image to something else in your application, that's okay, we'd just like for you eventually to provide a link to the associated data on GlobalGiving somewhere in the application flow in order to communicate copyright of the data back to GlobalGiving.

9. Use api_key in your requests

When making API calls or linking back to GlobalGiving, make sure you use your API key in your request.

WARNING: Javascript is currently disabled or is not available in your browser. GlobalGiving makes extensive use of Javascript and will not function properly with Javascript disabled. Please enable Javascript and refresh this page.