Legal

Terms of Use

Effective date: October 12, 2026

1. Accepting these terms

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and Continue Forward, a Michigan nonprofit organization founded by Linda Klein ("we," "us," "our"). They cover your use of continueforward.org and the forms, pages and content on it.

By using the site, you're agreeing to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree with them, that's okay — but please don't use the site. You're always welcome to contact us instead.

2. Who may use the site

• Parents and legal guardians may use the site and submit information about a child or teen in their care.
• Adults 18 and over may use the site and apply for themselves.
• Young people under 18 are welcome to read the site, but should only submit a form together with, or through, a parent or legal guardian. We don't knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13.

3. What we do and don't promise

What we do

We help Michigan families going through hard times find grants, scholarships and programs — tutoring, online certification courses, job training — that fit a young person's situation and goals. We do the searching, the matching and, with your permission, the paperwork. We do this with care and we do it for free.

What we can't promise

• No guaranteed outcome. Grants, scholarships, program admissions and job-training slots are decided by other organizations with their own rules, budgets and deadlines. We cannot guarantee any award, any amount, any admission or any particular result. Stories on our site describe the kind of results that are possible, not a promise of what will happen for you.
• Not professional advice. Everything on this site is general information. It is not legal, financial, tax, medical, mental-health or educational advice, and it isn't a substitute for talking with a qualified professional about your specific situation. This is especially true for questions about divorce, custody, taxes or financial aid rules.
• We're independent. We are a nonprofit, not a government agency and not an agent, affiliate or representative of any scholarship, grant or program provider. Each provider sets its own terms, and we don't control their decisions.
• Information can change. Award amounts, eligibility rules and deadlines change often. We do our best to keep things current, but we can't promise every detail on the site is up to date on the day you read it.
• Fees. Most of our services are provided to families at no charge. In some cases, specialized or extended services may involve a fee or a requested donation. Any such arrangement will be explained to you and agreed with you during onboarding, before the work begins. Nothing on this site obligates Continue Forward to provide any particular service, or obligates you to pay anything you have not agreed to.

4. Your responsibilities

We keep this short, because most of it is common sense:

• Be accurate. Give us truthful, complete information. Applications built on wrong information can be rejected or withdrawn, and that hurts the young person we're trying to help.
• Have permission. Only share information about a young person if you're their parent or legal guardian, or if you are that young adult, 18 or over. When you ask us to submit an application, you're confirming we have your permission to share the information it needs with that provider.
• Be respectful. Don't use the site or our forms to harass anyone, send spam, upload harmful code, impersonate someone else, or try to break into or overload the site.
• Do your part. Many applications need a signature, a document or a deadline met by the family. We'll guide you; we can't do it without you.

5. Donations

Gifts to Continue Forward make our work possible, and we handle them carefully.

• Third-party processing. Donations are processed by a separate donation service under its own terms and privacy policy. We don't see or store your card or bank details.
• Recurring gifts. If you set up a monthly gift, it will repeat until you cancel it. You can cancel at any time through the donation service or by emailing us, and we'll stop it before the next charge whenever we reasonably can.
• Mistakes happen. If you gave the wrong amount, gave twice by accident, or meant to give to someone else, email us within 30 days and we'll refund the gift. [Confirm: 30-day refund-on-request policy for mistaken gifts.]
• How gifts are used. Unless you've agreed something specific with us in writing, gifts go toward our general work: the people and time it takes to find, match and win awards for families. See Financials & governance.
• Tax deductibility. Whether your gift is tax-deductible depends on our tax-exempt status and your own circumstances. Please check with a tax professional. [Confirm: tax-exempt status, e.g. 501(c)(3), and EIN — state here once confirmed.]

6. Our content and yours

Our content

The words, logo, illustrations, design and other content on this site belong to Continue Forward or to the people who licensed them to us. We're a nonprofit and we want our message to travel, so we're generous about it:

• You may link to any page, share our pages on social media, print pages for personal or family use, and quote reasonable portions of our text — just credit "Continue Forward" and, online, link back to us.
• Please don't copy whole pages onto another website, use our logo or name in a way that suggests we endorse something we haven't, or sell our content. If you'd like to do something bigger with it, like reprinting a guide for a school or community group, just ask — the answer is probably yes.

What you send us

Anything you send through our forms stays yours. You give us permission to use it for the purpose you sent it — helping your family, answering your question, or processing your gift — as described in our Privacy Policy. If you ever share a story or quote with us for publication, we'll ask for your separate, explicit permission first, and you can withdraw it later.

7. Links to other sites

Our site links to other organizations, including our partner DivorceAI, the donation page, and scholarship and program providers. We link to sites we think are useful, but we don't control them and aren't responsible for their content, accuracy, practices or terms. A link isn't an endorsement of everything a site does, and their terms and privacy policies apply when you're there.

8. Privacy

How we handle your information — especially sensitive family information and information about minors — is explained in our Privacy Policy. The short version: we collect only what we need, we never sell it, we share it with providers only with your permission, and you can ask us to delete it at any time.

9. Disclaimers and limits on liability

We put real care into this site and our work, but we need to be clear about limits, in plain English:

• The site is provided "as is." We don't promise it will be error-free, uninterrupted or free of things like viruses, though we try hard on all three.
• Decisions are yours. You're responsible for decisions you make based on information from this site. For anything important, please check with a professional.
• Our responsibility is limited. To the extent allowed by Michigan law, Continue Forward and its founder, directors, staff and helpers are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential losses arising from your use of the site or from an award you did or didn't receive — for example, a missed deadline, a denied application or a program that changed its rules. If we are found liable for something connected to this site despite that, our total responsibility is limited to the amount, if any, you paid us to use the site — which is nothing, because the site and our services are free.
• What this doesn't limit. Nothing in these terms limits liability for fraud, for intentional wrongdoing, or for anything Michigan law doesn't allow us to limit. And nothing here affects any consumer rights you have under Michigan law.

10. Michigan law, no arbitration

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

We don't include forced-arbitration clauses, class-action waivers or jury-trial waivers in these terms. If a disagreement ever comes up, we'd like to hear from you first — most things can be sorted out with a phone call. If it can't be, any legal claim connected to this site will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Michigan, and both you and we agree to the jurisdiction of those courts.

[Confirm: county for venue, if counsel wants one named — otherwise "Michigan" is intentionally broad.]

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. When we do, we'll change the effective date at the top of this page. If a change is significant, we'll say so clearly on the page. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms. We'll never add an arbitration clause or shrink your rights without telling you plainly.

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about using the site.

12. Contact us

Questions about these terms, or something on the site you think we should fix? We'd love to hear from you.

This page is written in plain English on purpose. It has been drafted for review by the organization's legal counsel and is not itself legal advice. See also our Privacy Policy and Accessibility statement.