Terms of Service

1. Agreement to These Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you — either as an individual or on behalf of the church or organization you represent (“Church,” “you,” or “your”) — and SecondChair (“SecondChair,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), the operator of the platform at thesecondchair.church (the “Service”).

By creating an account, accessing, or using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, you must not use the Service.

If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of a church or organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. Definitions

Throughout these Terms, the following definitions apply:

• “Account” — the unique account created for your Church to access the Service.
• “Admin” — the designated staff member who manages Account settings, users, and billing on your Church’s behalf.
• “Authorized Users” — staff, volunteers, or department heads your Admin has invited to use the Service under your Account.
• “Church Data” — all data, records, and content you submit to the Service, including attendance figures, OKR targets, department information, and user profile data.
• “Aggregated Data” — Church Data that has been anonymized, combined with data from other Accounts, and stripped of any information that could individually identify your Church.
• “AI Features” — any artificial intelligence or machine learning functionality in the Service, including automated insights, benchmarks, and advisory recommendations.
• “Subscription” — the paid plan selected by your Admin governing your level of access to the Service.

3. Account Registration & Ownership

3.1 Account Creation

To use the Service, your Church must register for an Account by providing accurate, current, and complete information. You agree to keep your Account information up to date and to notify us promptly of any changes.

3.2 Admin Responsibility

Each Account designates one Admin. The Admin is solely responsible for:

• All activity that occurs under the Account, including actions taken by Authorized Users.
• Inviting, managing, and removing Authorized Users.
• Maintaining the confidentiality of all Account credentials.
• Ensuring Authorized Users comply with these Terms.

3.3 Account Security

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your Account credentials. You must notify us immediately at support@thesecondchair.church if you suspect unauthorized access. We are not liable for losses resulting from unauthorized use of your Account where you failed to maintain reasonable credential security.

3.4 One Account Per Church

Each church or organization may maintain one Account. Creating multiple Accounts to circumvent usage limits or pricing tiers is prohibited.

4. Description of Service

SecondChair is a ministry management platform that enables churches to:

• Log and track attendance across custom categories (e.g., members, visitors, volunteers, youth).
• Set and monitor OKR-style ministry targets, organized by department (e.g., Youth, Worship, Outreach).
• Generate attendance and performance reports for staff and church leadership.
• Compare ministry metrics against anonymized benchmarks from peer churches (where included in your plan).
• Access AI-generated insights and advisory recommendations based on your data and aggregate platform trends.

We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any feature at any time. We will provide reasonable notice before removing core features and will not be liable for any modification, suspension, or discontinuation of the Service.

5. Subscription & Payment Terms

5.1 Subscription Plans

Access to the Service requires an active Subscription. Available plans and pricing are described at thesecondchair.church/pricing. We reserve the right to change plan pricing and features with at least 30 days’ written notice to existing subscribers.

5.2 Billing & Renewal

Subscriptions are billed on a recurring monthly basis and automatically renew at the end of each billing period unless you cancel before the renewal date. Payment is processed by Stripe. By providing a payment method, you authorize us to charge it on a recurring basis until you cancel.

5.3 Free Trial

We may offer a free trial at our discretion. At the end of the trial, your Subscription will begin automatically and you will be charged unless you cancel before the trial expires. We will notify you before the trial ends.

5.4 Refunds

Subscription fees are non-refundable except where required by applicable law. If you cancel, you will retain access through the end of your current billing period with no pro-rated refund.

5.5 Failed Payments

If a payment fails, we will notify you and may retry the charge. If we are unable to collect payment, we may suspend or terminate your Account until payment is resolved.

5.6 Taxes

You are responsible for any applicable taxes on your Subscription, including GST, HST, QST, or PST where applicable. We will collect and remit taxes where required by applicable Canadian federal or provincial law.

6. Data Privacy & Security

6.1 Ownership of Church Data

You retain full ownership of your Church Data. We do not claim any intellectual property rights in your Church Data. We will not sell, rent, or share your Church Data with third parties except as expressly described in these Terms or our Privacy Policy.

6.2 Data Storage & Isolation

Your Church Data is stored in a multi-tenant cloud environment using Supabase (PostgreSQL with Row-Level Security). Our architecture ensures your data is logically isolated from all other church accounts — each Account can only access its own records.

6.3 Security Measures

We implement commercially reasonable technical and organizational safeguards to protect your Church Data, including:

• Row-Level Security (RLS) enforced at the database level to prevent cross-tenant data access.
• Encrypted connections (TLS/HTTPS) for all data in transit.
• Access controls limiting which SecondChair personnel can access production systems.

No system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security and are not liable for unauthorized access resulting from circumstances outside our reasonable control.

6.4 Data Retention

We retain your Church Data for as long as your Account is active. Following termination, we retain your data for 30 days to allow for account recovery. After that period, your data is deleted from active systems. Backups may persist for an additional 30 days before permanent deletion.

6.5 Purpose Limitation

We process your Church Data solely to provide and improve the Service as described in these Terms and our Privacy Policy. We do not use your Church Data to serve targeted advertising to you or your users.

7. Anonymized Aggregate Data & Benchmarking

This section explains how we use data across all churches on the platform to produce benchmarking insights and ministry research. We have designed this program to protect every church’s identity. Please read it carefully.

7.1 License to Use Anonymized Data

By using the Service, you grant SecondChair a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to use your Church Data in anonymized, aggregated form (“Aggregated Data”) for the following purposes:

• Producing ministry benchmarks and research insights.
• Developing best-practice reports and educational content for the broader church community.
• Improving the Service, including AI features, algorithms, and recommendations.
• Publishing marketing and promotional materials using aggregate statistics (e.g., “churches on SecondChair report X% growth in volunteer retention”).
• Publishing research reports on church health, attendance trends, and ministry effectiveness.

7.2 Our Anonymization Standard

Before using any Church Data for the purposes in Section 7.1, we will:

• Remove or replace all identifying information, including church names, locations, and unique identifiers.
• Aggregate data across a minimum of 10 churches before publishing any figures, to prevent reverse-identification of any individual church.
• Apply statistical techniques designed to ensure that no single church’s data can be inferred from published outputs.

No Aggregated Data published by SecondChair will identify your Church individually or by reasonable inference.

7.3 What We Will Never Do

We make the following firm commitments:

• We will never sell your Church Data to third parties.
• We will never share your individual Church Data with other churches, organizations, or advertisers.
• We will never use your Church Data outside the scope of these Terms without your explicit prior written consent.
• We will never publish benchmarking data in a manner that could reasonably allow your Church to be identified.

7.4 Opt-Out of Published Benchmarking

If you do not wish your data to be included in Aggregated Data used for published benchmarks or marketing materials, you may opt out at any time by contacting support@thesecondchair.church. Note that even if you opt out of published benchmarking, we may continue using your anonymized data to improve internal Service algorithms and personalized recommendations.

8. AI-Generated Content & Insights

8.1 Nature of AI Outputs

The Service includes AI-generated insights, benchmarking comparisons, and advisory recommendations. These are produced by automated systems and are provided for informational and planning purposes only. They do not constitute professional ministry, pastoral, financial, legal, or operational advice.

8.2 No Guarantee of Accuracy

AI-generated content may contain errors, inaccuracies, or outputs not appropriate for your specific church context. You should critically review all AI outputs before acting on them. We make no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness of any AI-generated content for your particular situation.

8.3 Human Oversight Required

You are solely responsible for all decisions made using AI-generated insights from the Service. We recommend that ministry leaders exercise independent judgment and not rely solely on automated recommendations for significant decisions.

8.4 AI Training

We may use Aggregated Data (as described in Section 7) to train, fine-tune, or improve our AI models. We will not use your identifiable Church Data to train AI models that are shared with or accessible to other churches.

8b. Third-Party Integrations

8b.1 Your Authorization Responsibility

SecondChair allows you to connect third-party platforms (such as Planning Center) to import attendance data. By connecting a third-party service, you represent and warrant that:

• You are authorized to access and export data from that service on behalf of your Church.
• Your use of the third-party service’s API complies with that service’s own terms of use.
• The credentials you provide belong to your Church’s account and have not been obtained improperly.

SecondChair is not responsible for any violations of a third-party service’s terms that result from your use of our integration features. We recommend reviewing the terms of any third-party service before connecting it.

8b.2 Credential Storage

API credentials you provide to enable integrations (such as a Planning Center Application ID and Secret) are stored securely and used solely to fetch data on your behalf. You may disconnect any integration and delete your stored credentials at any time from the Integrations settings page.

9. Acceptable Use Policy

9.1 Permitted Use

The Service is provided solely for your Church’s internal ministry management purposes: tracking attendance, setting ministry goals, generating internal reports, and accessing AI-generated insights for your church and its ministries.

9.2 Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to use the Service to:

• Violate any applicable local, provincial, federal, or international law or regulation.
• Upload or transmit any content that is harmful, abusive, defamatory, obscene, or infringes a third party’s rights.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to other Accounts or SecondChair’s systems.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code from any part of the Service.
• Use the Service to develop a competing product or service.
• Scrape, harvest, or collect data from the Service through automated means without our written permission.
• Resell or sublicense the Service without our written permission.
• Introduce malware, viruses, or other harmful code into the Service.
• Store, process, or transmit Protected Health Information (PHI) or other highly sensitive personal data not contemplated by these Terms.

9.3 Enforcement

Violation of this policy may result in immediate suspension or termination of your Account. We reserve the right to investigate suspected violations and to cooperate with law enforcement as required by law.

10. Intellectual Property

10.1 SecondChair IP

SecondChair and its licensors own all right, title, and interest in the Service, including all software, design, text, graphics, logos, and AI models (collectively, “SecondChair IP”). These Terms do not grant you any rights in SecondChair IP other than the limited license to use the Service as described herein.

10.2 Your Church Data

As stated in Section 6.1, you retain ownership of your Church Data. You grant us a limited license to host, process, and transmit your Church Data solely as necessary to provide the Service and as expressly described in these Terms.

10.3 Feedback

If you provide suggestions, ideas, or feedback about the Service (“Feedback”), you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use that Feedback for any purpose, without compensation to you.

11. Account Suspension & Termination

11.1 Cancellation by You

You may cancel your Account at any time through your account settings or by contacting support@thesecondchair.church. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period with no pro-rated refund for unused days.

11.2 Termination by Us

We may suspend or terminate your Account immediately, without notice, if:

• You materially breach these Terms and fail to remedy the breach within 10 days of our written notice.
• You engage in conduct that poses a security risk to the Service or other users.
• Continuing to provide the Service to you would expose us to legal liability.
• You fail to pay amounts owed and do not remedy the failure within 10 days of written notice.

We may also terminate any Account for any reason upon 30 days’ written notice.

11.3 Effect of Termination

Upon termination of your Account:

• Your access to the Service will cease (or continue through the end of your billing period for voluntary cancellation).
• We will retain your Church Data for 30 days, during which you may request a data export.
• After 30 days, your Church Data will be deleted from our active systems.
• Sections 7, 10, 12, 13, and 14 of these Terms survive termination.

11.4 Data Export

You may request an export of your Church Data at any time — including within 30 days of termination — by contacting support@thesecondchair.church. We will provide your data in CSV or JSON format within 10 business days, at no charge.

12. Disclaimer of Warranties

13. Limitation of Liability

14. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless SecondChair and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to:

• Your use of the Service in violation of these Terms.
• Your Church Data, including any claim that it infringes a third party’s intellectual property or privacy rights.
• Your violation of any applicable law or regulation.

15. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada, and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Nova Scotia, and both parties consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

16. General Provisions

16.1 Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you by email or prominent in-app notice at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

16.2 Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy (thesecondchair.church/privacy), constitute the entire agreement between you and SecondChair regarding the Service, and supersede all prior agreements and understandings.

16.3 Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.

16.4 Waiver

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not constitute a waiver of that right or provision.

16.5 Assignment

You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets, with notice to you.

16.6 Force Majeure

We will not be liable for any failure or delay caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, acts of government, cyberattacks, internet disruptions, or power failures.

16.7 Relationship of Parties

These Terms do not create a partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, or employment relationship between you and SecondChair.

17. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about these Terms, please reach out: