Contribution & Facilitation Addendum

To The NIEA Terms of Service · Effective Date: July 10, 2026

Applies to: every user who claims a capability, posts or responds to a need, opens or accepts a facilitation, or receives payment or recognition through the platform ("Contributors" and "Clients," together "Participants").

This Addendum supplements The NIEA Terms of Service (the "Terms") and Privacy Policy, which are incorporated by reference — including the dispute-resolution, arbitration, and class-action-waiver provisions of Terms §15 and the governing-law provision of §16. If this Addendum conflicts with the Terms on a subject it specifically addresses, this Addendum controls for that subject.

1. The Contribution Economy

The platform surfaces real demand (audited business needs and peer help requests), matches it to Participants' claimed capabilities, and facilitates agreements between the people involved. The National Information Exchange Agency, LLC ("The NIEA") and First Agents Bank (together, "the Platform") provide matching, record-keeping, facilitation, verification, and payment-rail infrastructure. The Platform is not a party to any engagement, employs no Contributor, and directs no work.

2. Capability Claims

• Capabilities are claimed from the platform's shared taxonomy and are self-declared until upgraded by verified completed work. The Platform never represents a self-declared claim as verified.
• Resume-based suggestions are exactly that — suggestions a Participant confirms or ignores. Nothing is claimed automatically.
• A Participant may withdraw a claim at any time; verified history remains part of the permanent contribution record.
• Claims act as standing match criteria: the Platform may notify a Participant when new needs match their claims (see Terms §7 / the Privacy Policy for communications preferences).

3. Facilitations and Agreement

• A facilitation is a negotiation between a Client and a Contributor. Either side proposes terms — amount(s), deadline, and acceptance criteria; the other side accepts, counters, or declines. The Platform never sets or adjusts a price; advisory budget bands are context only.
• Acceptance through the platform is the agreement act. Authenticated platform actions (propose, counter, accept) are recorded with actor and timestamp and have the effect the sealed document ascribes to them; no wet signature is collected. Participants are responsible for actions taken under their accounts (Terms §2.2, §6.2).
• On acceptance, the engagement is rendered into a sealed document, hashed, and signed by the Platform's key (a "Permission Grant"). Both parties can retrieve the document and independently check its integrity at any time.

4. The Two-Track Engagement Fork

• Money present → Statement of Work. An engagement with a USD amount is an enforceable contract between Client and Contributor on the ratified SOW terms; USD is the consideration.
• Money absent → Contribution Record. An EC-only engagement is a deliberately non-contractual community contribution: it creates no enforceable payment obligation and no employment or contractor relationship. It exists so contributions can be seen, verified, and permanently recognized.
• EC is never consideration. Envalumental Coin is a non-convertible unit of recognition and record (Terms §3.5): not currency, not a security, not exchangeable, not payment. Recording EC is a record-keeping act in the Bank of Human History & Interaction (Terms §3.2).

5. USD Payments (extends Terms §10)

• Direct pay. USD moves party-to-party: the charge is processed on the Contributor's own Stripe connected account — the Contributor is the merchant of record — and settles directly to the Contributor. The Platform never holds, collects, escrows, or transmits these funds.
• Authorize-and-capture. The Client's card is authorized (held) when the engagement is accepted and captured only when the Client verifies the completed work. Declining to verify work that meets the agreed acceptance criteria to avoid capture is a violation of these terms.
• Saved-card consent. Card authorizations lapse after roughly seven days. By accepting a USD engagement, the Client consents to the card presented at authorization being saved and charged off-session for the agreed amount when verification completes after the authorization window — and to a replacement authorization if terms are amended.
• Application fee. The Platform charges an application fee on each USD transaction, stated at authorization, deducted by Stripe from the captured amount. There are no other Platform charges on the engagement.
• Contributor payout setup. Receiving USD requires completing Stripe Connect onboarding (identity verification by Stripe). Payout timing, card-network rules, and account holds are between the Contributor and Stripe.
• Independent status; taxes. Contributors act as independent parties and are solely responsible for their own taxes, filings, and business obligations. The Platform provides transaction records but no tax advice or withholding; any required tax forms related to payment processing are handled through Stripe as processor.

6. Peer Needs (Help-Request Tickets)

Help requests posted by individuals may carry taxonomy tags and appear on the unified needs surfaces. Their reward is escrowed from the poster at posting and settles through the ticket's own accept/deliver/verify flow — not through a facilitation. The recognition and conduct rules of this Addendum and Terms §4 apply equally to peer engagements.

7. Verification

Delivery is verified against the agreed acceptance criteria, not general impressions. Verification releases EC recognition, captures USD, marks the underlying need satisfied, and feeds the Contributor's verified history and the audit's ROI record. Verification decisions are the verifying party's; the Platform records them.

8. Disputes Over Engagements

Disagreements about whether acceptance criteria were met follow the Platform's dispute process; the criteria are the reference the dispute is decided against. The Platform provides the records — the sealed document, the acceptance history, the delivery evidence — it does not adjudicate the parties' underlying legal rights. Disputes between a Participant and The NIEA remain governed by Terms §15 (informal resolution, then arbitration). Nothing in this Addendum makes the Platform a party to, or guarantor of, any engagement.

9. Records, Privacy, and Provenance

Audit detail and need descriptions are business-confidential; public surfaces carry only tag-generalized projections. Sealed engagement documents are retained as permanent records with cryptographic anchors; Participants may retrieve their own. Personal information handling is governed by the Privacy Policy. EC entries and verified-work history form the Participant's permanent contribution record (Life Code) and survive account closure as historical record (Terms §11.3), subject to applicable data-protection rights.

10. Changes

The Platform may update this Addendum per Terms §17. Engagements accepted under a prior version remain governed by the version sealed into their documents.