Questions a careful person asks.

A for-profit company runs it, and it is not a cause.

Tree of Hope is a paid, private service from Tribe Giving LLC, a for-profit company. It is not a charity and is not affiliated with any hospital, foundation or charity. Money a business pays is never handed to the family; what the family receives is the year of people, and anything a business sends itself, like the flowers.

What the money pays for: the year of organising, the software the family uses, and the people at the company who keep every tree running. The friends who show up are never paid, and the family is never paid.

Nothing you pay is passed on to anyone. It is the price of a service from one company, and your receipt says so. The company is for-profit, and we say that above the door on every page.

No. We do not take money for the family, pass money to the family, or tell you how to. If you want to help them with money, do that yourself, in person. What we sell is the year of people. That is the thing you cannot easily do alone, and it is the only thing we do.

Once a tree is given, no. A seat is a twelve-month promise, and the promise is the point. Before a tree is given, if it does not open on its date, a seat is never charged. A root is for Tree credits in its ZIP: its payment stands, and an unused credit rolls on there for the next family. If money is the reason you are asking, read the next answer.

A switch you can turn on yourself, from your seat, at any time. Nobody asks why. On a monthly seat the next charge stops until you switch it back on. Your seat stays open while paused and your leaves stay on the tree. Nobody inside is told.

Tree of Hope is a service of Tribe Giving LLC. vive. is the house it lives in. Suresh Punjabi designed Tree of Hope and is a shareholder of Tribe Giving LLC; he holds no operating role. The company’s officers are named on every receipt, invoice and letter, and at the foot of this page. [to confirm with the accountant before 1 December]

No. Kim is software. Kim starts the tree, writes to the connectors, keeps the calendar, writes the week note, and signs those messages with its own name so you always know which words are Kim’s. Nothing Kim writes is medical advice. When a person at the company writes to you, that person signs their own name.

Kim is software. Kim keeps the calendar and writes the week note. Kim is not a person, is not a nurse, and never gives medical advice. When a message is from Kim, it says Kim. When it is from a person, it says their name.

The family sees the circle: who is in it, who is coming, what is needed this week. The circle sees the asks, the calendar and each other’s names as they chose to be shown. Nobody sees a payment, an amount, or which seats are held. A business that paid is named on the outside of the tree, where anyone can read it, and nowhere inside. We never ask for a diagnosis or a medical fact, and there is no journal or vault in the service yet; when there is, it will open to the family alone.

The family sees who is in the circle and who shows up. They never see a payment, an amount, or which seats are held. A business that paid is named on the outside of the tree and nowhere inside.

If you wrote to us or we wrote to you and you answered: We keep your name and this address only, so that we can honour your answer, and nothing else.

If you took a seat or rooted the gift: your name, this address, and the record of what you paid, for as long as the law asks us to keep a payment record. Nothing else. What the circle says inside a tree belongs to the family and is not ours to keep.

What we keep, on one screen. The privacy notice, in full.

If someone you know is facing a hard year, start their tree here. Kim prepares it, marked “Started by Kim”, and keeps it private until you share it. You share it into the groups that already know the family; everyone has five days to take a seat; on the fifth day the tree is given. You hold one of the five held seats, and you name the other four. Everyone in the circle takes a seat; the family and the five held seats pay nothing.

Start a tree

The tree waits. It is given to the family on the fifth day and sits on standby until anyone in the family opens it, that week or months later. The circle is already there, and the seats already paid; nothing about that changes. If the family never opens it, each seat still runs its twelve months for the circle, with the week note and the calendar, and nobody inside is told anything about why. There is no refund for a tree that was given and not opened: the gift is the circle, and the circle showed up.

A family in your community facing a hard year, whatever the reason: a serious illness, a long recovery, a hard diagnosis of any kind. It is always tied to a real community in a real place. We never ask what it is, and we never write it down. A tree opens on “a family in this community facing a hard year” and nothing more.

No, and it is not against one either. A room can be a school, a club, a team, a workplace, a street, or a church, a mosque, a synagogue or a temple. The tree uses the room’s own words for itself and nobody else’s. Kim is the same software in every room.

The tree closes when its twelve months have run. The family receives a record of what grew: the visits, the meals, the people. The circle keeps what it wrote. The roots receive their report. If the family and the room want another year, a new tree opens on a date, with new seats and new roots, and nothing carries over without being chosen again.

A business chooses itself: it reads this site, or a letter from a named person at the company written from its public listing, and decides to root a year where it is. A root is one local business's annual commitment for Tree credits in its own ZIP, not one specific Tree. One business per category, per ZIP, per year. So you are the florist for your ZIP, and no one else is.

We turn away any business that could profit from the family’s illness: no personal injury or malpractice lawyers, no funeral businesses, no insurers, no hospitals, no pharma. That is the whole rule, and it is not about the people who run them.

The Root mark means this business paid, in advance, for a year of Tree credits in its ZIP, before any of it had happened. With it: its name on the outside of the Trees in its ZIP for its year, and a report in December of what grew. That is all, and we say so in writing before it pays.

Nothing in money, ever. The room lends its name and its door. It is not paid, does not pay, and is never on an invoice.