Nonprofits: volunteer and grant agreements

What nonprofits get signed

• Volunteer agreements: the role, what the organization and the volunteer expect of each other, a code of conduct, confidentiality, and permission to use photos (see photo and model releases).
• Grant agreements: the amount, the purpose, the reporting dates and the conditions, whether you give the grant or receive it.
• Memorandums of understanding and partnership agreements with other organizations.
• Sponsorship agreements with businesses: what the sponsor pays and how it is recognized.
• Acknowledgments from board members and staff, such as a conflict of interest policy (see policy acknowledgments).

With Attest, each one is a PDF of up to 8 MB that you upload, with up to 20 signers.

Volunteers: one agreement each, signed on their phone

Volunteers give their time; signing shouldn't cost them anything else. With Attest, a volunteer opens their emailed link, sets up a passkey (a cryptographic key only the signer controls, unlocked with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello or the device PIN) and signs in the browser, on a phone or a computer. They create no account, set no password and never pay, on any plan. The first time a volunteer signs with Attest, you release the encrypted agreement to them from Attest's email, approving with your passkey.

Send each volunteer their own agreement: each document is encrypted only to its own parties, so each volunteer sees only their own. For a volunteer who is a minor, the parent or guardian signs, with their own email address and passkey, and the volunteer is named in the agreement. Before an event, set Expires (optional) to the day before, and Attest reminds whoever hasn't signed, every 3 days by default or every day if you choose.

Grant agreements, from either side

When you receive a grant, the funder decides how the agreement is signed. If it comes through Attest, signing is free. If it arrives as a PDF, click Sign a document yourself, place your signature, sign with your passkey and send back the signed copy, which the funder can check for free with the verifier attached inside; this uses one of your documents. If the funder runs its own portal, follow its process. Federal grant applications, for example, go through Grants.gov, where "Only users with the Standard Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) role who are added as a Workspace Participant may submit an application."

When you make grants, send the grant agreement to the grantee's signers, such as its executive director and board chair. Check Add me as a signer (sign in-app, no email), pick In order under Signing order, and next to I sign choose Last to countersign after them. You get no email for your turn: once the grantee's signers have signed, the agreement moves to Action needed, with a Sign button on its row. Each grant agreement is its own document with its own fingerprint and anchor, so your grant file is a set of signed, dated records.

Proof for funders, auditors and your board

A funder or an auditor may ask years later what was agreed and when. Attest's signed copy answers on its own:

• Which conditions. Each signer's passkey signs a statement that names the grant agreement's fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash, a short code calculated from the file's contents) and everything that signer entered, so the amount, the purpose and the reporting dates in the signed version can't be swapped for others.
• Which signatories. Each signature is made by a passkey registered to the signer's email address, so the executive director's and the board chair's approvals are each on record.
• When. The signing time is part of what each passkey signs, and the completed agreement is anchored on Horizen, a public blockchain, which dates it independently of your files.
• Unchanged. Change one byte of the document, of any signer's entries or of the signed pages, and verification fails.

Every party downloads the same sealed PDF, with the evidence, the original document and a standalone verifier attached inside. Anyone can check it for free at attest.datahubz.com/verify, with no account, and the open-source verifier inside the PDF runs in any browser, even if Attest is gone, checking each signer's passkey signature, the original document, the pages you see and Attest's anchored record on Horizen.

When a board, a partner or another funder only needs to know that an agreement is in place, a signer can use Share proof to create a zero-knowledge proof, a proof that a statement is true which reveals nothing beyond the statement: here, that they, or they and a named co-signer such as the funder's signatory, signed an agreement, and the date it was completed. The recipient sees the email addresses, the completion date, and that the proof is valid and where its record is anchored, never the document and its terms, its title or any other signer.

Protect the people in your documents

Volunteer and grant files name people and organizations that trust you with their details. Attest encrypts every document in your browser before upload, and only its parties can open it, in their own browsers; Attest stores it only as ciphertext it can't read. Attest does see the information around a document, such as its title, file name and the signers' emails and names, so use plain titles like "Volunteer agreement 31". Choose Private under Verification, so that only the parties see the certificate, which otherwise shows anyone with its link the title and each signer's name and signing time, among other details.

Plans for small and larger teams

• A few documents: your first 2 are free, in total.
• Up to 20 a month: the Signing plan, $5 a month, and you can cancel any time.
• More, and more tools: Pro, $49 a month, includes 10,000 records a month, with each document you send counting as one. It also opens Attest's other tools, such as Verified Forms, anonymous answers from a known group, one per member: in a volunteer survey, each answer proves it came from someone on your list without revealing who, and a second answer from the same person is refused.
• Several staff who send documents: an organization plan covers every member who joins, and each member gets the better of their own plan and the organization's. Organization plans are arranged with DataHubz.

Volunteers, grantees, partners and sponsors never pay to sign, on any plan.

How to send a volunteer agreement

1. Open Documents in the menu (it reads Agreements on accounts that use every Attest tool) and click New agreement.
2. Give it a plain Title, click Attach the document to be signed and choose the PDF.
3. Under Signers, type the volunteer's email address, or the parent's or guardian's for a minor, and check Add me as a signer (sign in-app, no email) if your organization countersigns.
4. Under Verification, choose Private, and set Expires (optional) if the agreement must be signed by a date.
5. Click Next: place the fields, place a signature field and a date signed field for each signer, and click Create and send.
6. When a volunteer who is new to Attest has set up their key, Attest emails you. Click Unlock it for … in that email (or open the agreement in Attest), confirm, and approve with your passkey: your browser releases it to them, never Attest.
7. If you added yourself, the agreement shows under Action needed when it's your turn (you get no email for it): click Sign on its row and approve with your passkey.
8. When everyone has signed, click View the signed copy, then Download signed copy.