Claim-language kit

Supporter variant — the payment certificate

Governs supporter.entitlement — the certificate a purchasing organisation receives once its Purpose Fee has settled, which attests that payment and the scope it covers.

The lines you may use

Base line — the one line a claim starts from

{organisation} holds a Purpose Source {lane} Entitlement for {period}. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Purpose Source asks the biggest users of the software it registers to give something back, and we pay the Purpose Fee it asks for. The Purpose Source Association's pledge for Purpose Fees: “{pledge}” verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Purpose Source asks the biggest users of the software it registers to give something back, and we pay the Purpose Fee it asks for. Where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

Clause — words added inside a line

Categories on our certificate: {categories}.

Clause — words added inside a line

Purpose Fee: {amount} for {period}.

Clause — words added inside a line

Revenue band, self-certified: {band}.

Gated line — unusable until its gate's fact is on the public record · gate figure-issued-after-disbursed-row: closed

In {period}, {figure} of the Purpose Fees attributed to our Entitlement was transferred to listed recipient organisations, as the Purpose Source Association's statement for our organisation shows. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

• Only after the transfers it describes are published as disbursed rows of the ledger, and only with the figure the Association issues for your organisation. Never a figure you compute yourself, and never before the Association has issued it.

Share templates

long-post

{organisation} now holds a Purpose Source {lane} Entitlement for {period} — the credential that meets the condition the Purpose Source License sets for organisations that are not small under the licence, for the repositories it covers. Purpose Source asks the biggest users of the software it registers to give something back, and we pay the Purpose Fee it asks for. The Purpose Source Association's pledge for Purpose Fees: “{pledge}” verify only at purposesource.org/verify

short-post

{organisation} holds a Purpose Source {lane} Entitlement for {period}. Purpose Source asks the biggest users of the software it registers to give something back, and we pay the Purpose Fee it asks for. Where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

The coverage badge

Purpose Source · {lane} Entitlement · {status}

• The badge is served from the live-status endpoint, so an expired or revoked Entitlement never keeps showing as valid; {status} is valid, expired or revoked. It carries no recipient name, no figure, no heart, no cross and no mark but the Purpose Source name, and it looks the same for every lane and every amount. It is proof of licence coverage and never a mark of social or charitable merit.

If you sell to consumers in the European Union: show the badge only beside information about the software you use and the licence it is under — never beside a claim about your social or environmental merit, and never as a trust or quality mark for your own products. From 2026-09-27, Directive (EU) 2024/825 blacklists displaying a sustainability label, environmental or social, that is not based on a certification scheme; this badge is not one, and it must not be shown as one.

The rules every claim keeps

1. Never call the Purpose Fee a donation, a gift, a contribution, sponsorship or tax-deductible, and never call your organisation a donor. The fee is the price of a licence credential, and the Association's terms, invoices and tax position rest on that.
2. Print no number the Association did not print: no impact figure, outcome, beneficiary count or proportion before a disbursed row of the published ledger, and no “100%” or “80%” except inside the pledge's own words. Nothing is presented as achieved before it is recorded, and a percentage taken out of its sentence says more than the pledge does.
3. Name no recipient organisation, and show no charity's logo, the red cross emblem or the words “Red Cross”; link the published Recipient List instead. Never say your fee supports a project, a maintainer or a contributor. The names and emblems belong to others, some are protected by law, and no project or person ever receives any of the fee.
4. Speak about your own purchase only: never say that your customers' purchases, subscriptions or use support charity. That is a charity promotion about your customers' money, which carries legal duties in several countries that this kit cannot meet for you.
5. Make no green, climate or sustainability claim about your organisation, your products or this purchase. Swiss and European unfair-competition law require such claims to be substantiated to a standard this kit cannot give.
6. Never say that the Entitlement licenses the code, pays for the code or buys the software: it is a credential that meets a condition of the licence. The Association is a registrar and never a party to any project's licence.
7. Say where the money goes only in the pledge's words: quote the Association's pledge exactly as written, or say nothing about the money and link where it goes. Never shorten, paraphrase or translate the pledge yourself. The pledge is stated in one form only.
8. Use the give-something-back line only together with the pledge or the link to where the money goes; the generic “we support charity” framing stays excluded. A giving line with nothing behind it is the vague claim these rules exist to stop.
9. Show the badge as proof of coverage, never as a mark of social or charitable merit. See the note for consumer-facing organisations in the European Union.
10. Offer no verification address other than the one in each line: verify only at purposesource.org/verify. One address is what makes a forged badge or certificate easy to spot.

• we support charity
• any unquantified social-impact framing
• describing the Purpose Fee as a donation or the organisation as a donor
• a restated, shortened or translated pledge
• any verification address other than the one printed on the certificate

The binding statement

Printed on the certificate itself, so the permitted wording travels with the artifact:

public claims about this certificate are governed by the enclosed claim-language kit

A public claim about a purchase is a regulated claim. From 2026-09-27, Directive (EU) 2024/825 blacklists generic environmental claims and the display of a sustainability label — environmental or social — that is not based on a certification scheme, and it adds social characteristics to what a misleading commercial practice can concern; the United Kingdom competition authority takes the same line on green claims; and Swiss unfair-competition law forbids misleading statements about a business and climate claims it cannot substantiate. The lines above name facts on the certificate and quote the pledge as the Association states it, so they are substantiated, and the badge shows coverage, which the live record proves. “Supports good causes”, a percentage out of its sentence or an emblem implying charitable merit is what those rules exist to stop — which is why the rules are contractual rather than advisory.

Status-only variant — the licence-status certificate

Governs license-status.waiver — the certificate an organisation covered by a waiver receives. It attests a recorded status and no payment, and it carries no amount field at all.

The lines you may use

Base line — the one line a claim starts from

{organisation} is a Purpose Source Licensed Organization — waiver; coverage status: {status}. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

• Coverage-status wording exclusively. A status certificate attests a recorded status and no payment, so this variant permits no amount, no revenue band, no supporter designation, and no supporter or impact phrasing anywhere.
• This version states a pattern for the waiver variant only. The under-threshold and gifted-pass variants of the status class carry their own designations, which the published certificate policy records; neither has been recorded for any organisation at this phase, and a later kit version states their patterns when the surfaces that record them exist.
• {organisation} is the subject exactly as the certificate prints it; the designation is reproduced as the published certificate policy records it; and {status} is the coverage status the verify record carries when the claim is made, copied from that record rather than paraphrased.
• An organisation covered by a waiver funded nothing. A claim implying that it did would be false rather than merely vague, which is why this variant stands apart from the supporter one instead of narrowing it.
• The closing sentence is reproduced exactly as it stands above, in a claim as on the certificate. No other verification address may be offered beside it.
• An organisation covered by a waiver funded nothing, so neither the give-something-back line, nor the pledge line, nor any share template is available to it: coverage-status wording is the whole of what this variant permits.

The coverage badge

Purpose Source · waiver · {status}

The rules every claim keeps

• we support charity
• we give back
• any unquantified social-impact framing
• describing the Purpose Fee as a donation or the organisation as a donor
• any verification address other than the one printed on the certificate
• any supporter or impact phrasing

The binding statement

Printed on the certificate itself, so the permitted wording travels with the artifact:

public claims about this certificate are governed by the enclosed claim-language kit

The same rules bind a status claim, and they are why this variant is the narrower one: an organisation that funded nothing cannot substantiate a claim that it did, so coverage-status wording is the whole of what its certificate permits.

Contributor variant — a contributor's certificate, in volunteer and contributor words

Governs contributor.participation — the certificate that records a person's credit on Purpose Source projects for a period. It carries the volunteer words when the holder's answer in their account, at issuance, was that they volunteer, and the contributor words otherwise, which say nothing about pay. It records that credit and nothing else: no payment, no amount unless the certificate states one, and no rating of the work. Purpose Source does not check the volunteer answer.

The volunteer words

The words on the certificate

The certificate's name, in its head and above the share card's headline

Certificate for volunteering on software that supports charities

The share card's headline

Thank you for volunteering

The words before the holder's name on the full face

With thanks to

The words after the holder's name on the full face

for volunteering on the Purpose Source projects below

The line under them on the full face

in {period}

The one sentence of the status-only face

With thanks to a volunteer on the Purpose Source projects counted below, in {period}.

Printed only when the certificate signs a figure

{amount} of the Purpose Fees passed on to listed charities is attributed to this credit. None of it was paid to the holder.

Printed only when the certificate signs a share above 0, on the full and on the status-only face, never on a share card or a badge

For {period}, the holder's recorded choices left {share} of the amount attributed to this credit to the Association, through All categories. This records a choice, not a transfer of money.

How many projects a picture leaves out

+ {n} more

The label over a single project

1 project

The label over two or more projects

{n} projects

The lines you may use

Base line — the one line a claim starts from

I'm happy to have volunteered in {period} on {projects}: Purpose Source software, which asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back to charities. Where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

My volunteer work on {projects}, Purpose Source software, is recorded for {period} by Purpose Source. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Certificate for volunteering on software that supports charities, Purpose Source, {period}: {projects}. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Volunteer contributor to {projects} (Purpose Source software), {period}. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Purpose Source software asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back to charities, and Purpose Source publishes where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

Gated line — unusable until its gate's fact is on the public record · gate figure-issued-after-disbursed-row: closed

For {period}, my Purpose Source certificate attributes {amount} of the Purpose Fees passed on to listed charities to my credit. None of it was paid to me. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

• For the person a contributor certificate names, about that certificate only, and only while it verifies as valid or expired: never once it is revoked or superseded. {projects} is some or all of the projects it credits, by the names the Purpose Source registry lists; {period} is the certificate's period as the certificate writes it.
• The profile, CV and signature lines may each stand on their own, or follow the base line. You may add your certificate's own address, purposesource.org/verify/ followed by its id, just before the closing sentence of any line; offer no other address to check it at, and no shortened link.
• Your choices among the categories, including leaving your part to the Purpose Source Association, are recorded choices. If you mention them, say that you recorded a choice; never that you gave, sent, directed or routed money.
• Your certificate may state the share of the amount attributed to your credit that your recorded choices left to the Association through All categories. It records your choice, never money you gave or routed: if you mention it, quote the certificate's own sentence word for word, just before the closing sentence of the line you use.
• The gated line, like the money line on the certificate itself, is for a figure your certificate states. The Association issues one only after the transfers it covers are published as disbursed rows of its ledger, and only above its published floor; until then no line and no certificate states a figure. Never state a figure you computed, estimated or rounded yourself.
• This variant has no badge of its own. The certificate badge is drawn by Purpose Source from the live record: show it as published, unaltered and linked to your certificate's address.
• If your certificate's public record does not show your name, a reader can match a claim to you only through the signed file, certificate.jws; you may give it to whoever wants to check.
• These are the volunteer words. Your certificate carries them because your answer in your account, when it was issued, was that you volunteer on these projects. Purpose Source does not check that answer: use these words only if nobody paid you for this work. If that changes, change your answer; your next certificate follows it.

Share templates

long-post

I'm happy to have volunteered in {period} on {projects}: Purpose Source software, which asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back to charities. Thank you to everyone I worked with. Purpose Source publishes where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

short-post

Happy to have volunteered in {period} on {projects} (Purpose Source software). verify only at purposesource.org/verify

The contributor words

The words on the certificate

The certificate's name, in its head and above the share card's headline

Certificate for contributing to software that supports charities

The share card's headline

Thank you for contributing

The words before the holder's name on the full face

With thanks to

The words after the holder's name on the full face

for contributing to the Purpose Source projects below

The line under them on the full face

in {period}

The one sentence of the status-only face

With thanks to a contributor to the Purpose Source projects counted below, in {period}.

Printed only when the certificate signs a figure

{amount} of the Purpose Fees passed on to listed charities is attributed to this credit. None of it was paid to the holder.

Printed only when the certificate signs a share above 0, on the full and on the status-only face, never on a share card or a badge

For {period}, the holder's recorded choices left {share} of the amount attributed to this credit to the Association, through All categories. This records a choice, not a transfer of money.

How many projects a picture leaves out

+ {n} more

The label over a single project

1 project

The label over two or more projects

{n} projects

The lines you may use

Base line — the one line a claim starts from

I'm happy to have contributed in {period} to {projects}: Purpose Source software, which asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back to charities. Where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

My work on {projects}, Purpose Source software, is recorded for {period} by Purpose Source. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Certificate for contributing to software that supports charities, Purpose Source, {period}: {projects}. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Contributor to {projects} (Purpose Source software), {period}. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

A line that may be used with the base line

Purpose Source software asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back to charities, and Purpose Source publishes where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

Gated line — unusable until its gate's fact is on the public record · gate figure-issued-after-disbursed-row: closed

For {period}, my Purpose Source certificate attributes {amount} of the Purpose Fees passed on to listed charities to my credit. None of it was paid to me. verify only at purposesource.org/verify

• For the person a contributor certificate names, about that certificate only, and only while it verifies as valid or expired: never once it is revoked or superseded. {projects} is some or all of the projects it credits, by the names the Purpose Source registry lists; {period} is the certificate's period as the certificate writes it.
• The profile, CV and signature lines may each stand on their own, or follow the base line. You may add your certificate's own address, purposesource.org/verify/ followed by its id, just before the closing sentence of any line; offer no other address to check it at, and no shortened link.
• Your choices among the categories, including leaving your part to the Purpose Source Association, are recorded choices. If you mention them, say that you recorded a choice; never that you gave, sent, directed or routed money.
• Your certificate may state the share of the amount attributed to your credit that your recorded choices left to the Association through All categories. It records your choice, never money you gave or routed: if you mention it, quote the certificate's own sentence word for word, just before the closing sentence of the line you use.
• The gated line, like the money line on the certificate itself, is for a figure your certificate states. The Association issues one only after the transfers it covers are published as disbursed rows of its ledger, and only above its published floor; until then no line and no certificate states a figure. Never state a figure you computed, estimated or rounded yourself.
• This variant has no badge of its own. The certificate badge is drawn by Purpose Source from the live record: show it as published, unaltered and linked to your certificate's address.
• If your certificate's public record does not show your name, a reader can match a claim to you only through the signed file, certificate.jws; you may give it to whoever wants to check.
• These are the contributor words. Your certificate carries them because your answer in your account, when it was issued, was Paid or Prefer not to say, or there was no answer yet. They say nothing about pay. Do not use this certificate to call yourself a volunteer on these projects; if you volunteer, say so in your account, and your next certificate, or a replacement of this one, uses the volunteer words.

Share templates

long-post

I'm happy to have contributed in {period} to {projects}: Purpose Source software, which asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back to charities. Thank you to everyone I worked with. Purpose Source publishes where the money goes: purposesource.org/trust/money · verify only at purposesource.org/verify

short-post

Happy to have contributed in {period} to {projects} (Purpose Source software). verify only at purposesource.org/verify

This variant has no badge of its own.

The rules every claim keeps

1. Never say or suggest that you, a project or any contributor was paid from Purpose Fees, or that your credit earned you money. The statutes bar it (Art. 3 para. 1 item 2 and Art. 5 para. 2): contributors are never paid from Purpose Fees for a contribution.
2. Speak of your choices among the categories only as recorded choices: never say that you gave, sent, directed or routed money, that a charity got money because of you, or that your choice was a donation or a gift. Under the statutes (Art. 8 para. 4) a contributor's choice is advisory: it is recorded, published in aggregate and never binds the Association, which allocates under its published rule.
3. Never compare yourself with other contributors or say where you stand among them. Purpose Source publishes no ranking of people and keeps each person's measure of credit private, so a comparison could not be checked and would invite gaming the credit.
4. When you cite this certificate, claim only what it and its lines state: no claim that your own work does good or helps people, no other social-impact claim, and no green, climate or sustainability claim. A claim made with this certificate borrows its trust, and the certificate proves credit and nothing more. Where you use it to market your work or services, Directive (EU) 2024/825 bans generic environmental claims and counts social characteristics among what a misleading claim can concern, and Swiss unfair-competition law forbids misleading statements.
5. Never present the certificate as an endorsement, approval, rating or licence of you or your code by Purpose Source. It records credit computed from a project's history; Purpose Source made no check of the quality of the work.
6. Offer no place to check the certificate other than purposesource.org/verify and your certificate's own address under it. One address is what makes a forged certificate or badge easy to spot.
7. Say where Purpose Fees go only by linking purposesource.org/trust/money or by quoting the Association's pledge exactly as written: never shorten, paraphrase or translate it. The pledge is stated in one form only, with its capped costs beside it (statutes Art. 5 para. 5); a share of the fees taken out of its sentence says more than the pledge does.
8. Say that Purpose Source software asks the larger companies that rely on it to give something back only together with the link to where the money goes, purposesource.org/trust/money, as the lines do; never say that you or your work supports charities. The give-back can be checked only against the published money record, and the certificate records your work, not a gift of yours. A charity claim about a person cannot be checked against that record, so it is the vague claim these rules exist to stop, as kit-1 keeps it out of an organisation's claims too.
9. Use the words of your own certificate: the volunteer words only with a certificate that prints them, and never call yourself a volunteer on these projects with a certificate that does not. The volunteer words rest on the holder's own answer in their account, given before the certificate was issued, which Purpose Source does not check; a certificate issued without that answer uses the contributor words, and a claim may say no more than the certificate it cites.

• saying that you, a project or a contributor was paid any part of the Purpose Fees
• saying that you gave, sent, directed or routed money to a charity or a category
• calling the Purpose Fee or your recorded choices a donation or a gift
• comparing yourself with other contributors by points, position or share
• calling yourself or your code certified, verified, approved or endorsed by Purpose Source
• saying that you or your work supports charities
• calling yourself a volunteer on these projects with a certificate that does not say so
• any unquantified social-impact framing
• any green, climate or sustainability claim
• a restated, shortened or translated pledge
• any verification address other than the one printed on the certificate

The binding statement

Printed on the certificate itself, so the permitted wording travels with the artifact:

public claims about this certificate are governed by the enclosed claim-language kit

A person who cites a certificate borrows its trust, so these rules keep a claim to what the certificate records. Contributors are never paid from Purpose Fees, and their choices among the categories are advisory (statutes Art. 5 para. 2 and Art. 8 para. 4), so no line says that a holder earned, gave or directed money. The volunteer words are the holder's own statement, so they may be used only with a certificate that prints them. Where a holder uses the certificate to market their own work, Directive (EU) 2024/825 and Swiss unfair-competition law apply to the claim as they do to an organisation's.