Terms of Service, Donor Disclosures & Privacy Governance

1. Legal Entity & Fiduciary Relationship

SparkScholar is an assumed name (d/b/a) of the P. Davis Jones Scholarship Initiative, a Texas nonprofit corporation recognized as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (EIN 41-3848494) and structured as a qualified Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) under 26 U.S.C. § 25F. Software engineering, partner portal hosting, and compliance automation are supported by P Davis Jones LLC.

2. Irrevocable Charitable Gifts & Strict Anti-Earmarking Rule

• Exclusive SGO Control: All contributions to the P. Davis Jones Scholarship Initiative d/b/a SparkScholar are irrevocable charitable gifts subject to the exclusive legal control of the SGO Board of Directors and Scholarship Committee.
• Prohibition on Student Earmarking (26 U.S.C. § 25F(d)(1)(E)): No donor may earmark, direct, or condition a contribution for the benefit of any specific, named student or dependent. Any attempted restriction for a named child is void and will be rejected or refunded prior to receipt issuance.
• Partner School Sub-Ledgers: Donors may indicate a preference for a partner school's general scholarship sub-ledger, subject always to the multi-school distribution rule (§ 25F(d)(1)(A)) and independent financial-need vetting (≤ 300% AMGI under § 25F(c)(2)).
• Statutory 90/10 Allocation: At least 90% of every qualified contribution is deposited directly into the Restricted Scholarship Trust (••9166) for K-12 scholarships; up to 10% is allocated to the Statutory Administrative Reserve (••0918) under § 25F(d)(1)(B). Partner schools and CPA firms pay $0 in software setup or licensing fees.

3. Informational & Tax Advisory Disclaimer

Materials, interactive calculators, and compliance summaries on SparkScholar are provided for educational and institutional planning purposes. While the P. Davis Jones Scholarship Initiative issues official IRS § 25F cryptographic Unique Donation Numbers (UDNs) for Form 8525 substantiation, neither SparkScholar nor P Davis Jones LLC acts as your personal attorney or CPA of record. Donors should consult their qualified tax advisor regarding individual federal and state tax credit eligibility under 26 U.S.C. § 25F.

4. Privacy Governance, Zero-SSN Policy & First-Party Telemetry

• Zero Donor SSN Collection: Pursuant to Treasury Regulation TD 10057, SparkScholar never requests, collects, or stores donor Social Security Numbers. Substantiation is completed via a 25-character alphanumeric Unique Donation Number (UDN).
• Encrypted Household Income Vetting: When families apply for a scholarship wallet, Form 1040 AGI verification documents are encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256) and are never shared with third-party marketers or non-fiduciary parties.
• Website Analytics & Briefing Telemetry: We use Google Analytics 4 and first-party session telemetry (including scroll-depth, section dwell time, and interactive studio usage on attributed partner package links) to verify delivery of custom institutional briefings and improve portal usability. Sensitive input fields are masked by default.

5. Governing Law & Fiduciary Contact Desk

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and applicable federal provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, with venue in Travis County, Texas.

Contact Desk: P. Davis Jones Scholarship Initiative d/b/a SparkScholar • Austin, Texas • Email: davis@sparkscholar.org or davis@pdavisjones.com • Phone: (512) 643-7776 • Schedule: sparkscholar.org/schedule.