Terms of Service

Effective date: May 1, 2026

FIMBY is currently an early-stage neighbourhood tool. Some features may be incomplete, change, or be unavailable while we test and improve the service.

If you access FIMBY through the Apple App Store or Google Play, the applicable app store terms may also apply. If those terms conflict with these Terms about your relationship with Strathcona Vineyard Church, these Terms govern to the extent permitted by law.

Part one — What we ask of each other

1. Who operates FIMBY

FIMBY is operated by Strathcona Vineyard Church, a federally registered charity in Canada and a British Columbia provincial society, based in Vancouver. FIMBY still follows applicable BC and Canadian privacy, contract, consumer-protection, and anti-spam laws.

FIMBY is a tool for participating neighbourhoods. It helps neighbours share asks, offers, events, Shared Life posts, library items, messages, and support relationships.

2. Who can use FIMBY

FIMBY is for adults 19 or older who live in a participating neighbourhood and can be honest about that. 19+ is a hard eligibility requirement; sign-up requires you to attest that you are 19 or older and able to agree to these Terms. We do not collect a full date of birth by default.

You are responsible for keeping your login secure and for what happens through your account.

3. How we treat each other

FIMBY is for dignity, clarity, and neighbourliness.

Please do:

• be honest about who you are and where you live;
• speak to neighbours with respect;
• keep private information private;
• follow through on commitments when you can;
• tell someone quickly if plans change;
• use reporting and blocking tools when something does not feel right.

Please do not:

• threaten, harass, shame, or target people;
• post hate speech or discriminatory content;
• impersonate another person or organization;
• doxx or share someone else’s private information (such as their address, phone number, family member, employer, or other identifying details) without consent;
• post sexual exploitation material or content that sexualizes minors;
• spam neighbours or post repetitive promotional content;
• post content that infringes someone else’s copyright or other intellectual property rights;
• use FIMBY to find customers, recruit clients, cold-solicit neighbours, campaign politically, or resell things for profit;
• pressure neighbours to pray, receive prayer, attend church, donate, join a program, agree with particular beliefs, or explain their beliefs;
• pressure vulnerable neighbours;
• post anything that puts another person — especially a vulnerable neighbour — at risk.

The full list of these categories — plus how reporting and moderation work in plain language — lives on the standalone Community Standards page.

4. Informal neighbour exchange is okay — but FIMBY is not a marketplace or a licensed service

FIMBY is not meant to stop ordinary neighbourly exchange.

It is okay to split a Costco run, chip in toward gas money for a ride as incidental cost-sharing between neighbours, trade a plant cutting for help fixing a sink, share food at a gathering, or share costs for a group purchase.

It is not okay to use FIMBY mainly to advertise a business, recruit customers, cold-solicit neighbours, or run a resale operation.

FIMBY is also not a platform for:

• recurring paid transport, ride-hailing, or fare-based rides;
• courier, delivery, or logistics service;
• commercial food sales or restaurant-style operations;
• retail or resale operations;
• fundraising activity (FIMBY is not a fundraising platform);
• dating services; or
• other regulated business activity that would make FIMBY look like a marketplace or licensed service platform.

Rides and food sharing on FIMBY happen at the neighbours’ own judgment and risk. FIMBY does not inspect, license, supervise, or certify rides or food shared by neighbours.

If you offer rides, food, event space, or other help through FIMBY, you are responsible for any applicable insurance, licensing, food-safety, or regulatory requirements. Strathcona Vineyard Church does not provide insurance coverage for any activity arranged through FIMBY.

5. FIMBY is a coordination tool, not a vetted care service

FIMBY helps neighbours find each other. It does not background-check neighbours, supervise meetups, inspect items, verify food safety, provide transportation, provide emergency help, or provide medical, legal, financial, counselling, or social-work advice.

FIMBY may use neighbourhood verification steps, but we do not guarantee that every user’s identity, address, organization, or neighbourhood claim has been independently verified.

You are responsible for deciding whether and how to meet, lend, borrow, ride, eat, attend events, or share contact information.

Users are responsible for considering and complying with any applicable laws, licensing requirements, insurance requirements, food-safety rules, building or strata rules, and personal health or safety needs before offering or accepting food, rides, delivery, lending, events, or similar help through FIMBY.

Use ordinary care. Meet in public or familiar places when that feels best. Do not share information you are not comfortable sharing. If something feels wrong, pause and ask for help.

6. Emergency and professional help

FIMBY is not an emergency service. Reports, messages, posts, and support requests may not be reviewed immediately.

If there is an emergency or someone may be in immediate danger, contact 911 or local emergency services.

Reports inside FIMBY help us respond to app and community safety issues. They are not a substitute for emergency services, medical care, legal advice, counselling, or professional support.

7. Your content

You own the words, photos, and other content you post.

By posting in FIMBY, you give Strathcona Vineyard Church permission to store, display, copy, and process that content inside FIMBY so the service can work. For example, we need permission to show your ask to neighbours, send your message to a conversation, display your library item, or keep a Shared Life post visible until you remove it.

This permission is limited to operating, protecting, and improving FIMBY. It is not a broad marketing license.

When you delete your account, this licence ends, except to the extent we need to retain limited information under the narrow exceptions described at /delete-account.

Shared Life posts may have a separate opt-in toggle that lets FIMBY share that post publicly or on social media. That toggle is off by default.

8. Reporting, blocking, moderation, and the moderation ladder

FIMBY includes report and block tools on the surfaces where they ship at launch:

• Report is available on every Asks-and-Offers feed card and Asks/Offers detail page, every Shared Life feed card and Shared Life detail page, every Library feed card and Library item detail page, every Loaned-item detail page, inside direct-message threads, and inside Need/Offer response threads (kebab menu in the thread header).
• Block is available inside direct-message threads, inside Need/Offer response threads (kebab menu in the thread header), and on neighbour profiles.

We review every report within 24 hours. Reports go to your neighbourhood moderator first, with the FIMBY team as backup.

When something needs a response, we use a moderation ladder:

1. Content removal — we remove the specific post or message.
2. Warning — we tell the person what crossed the line and ask them to stop.
3. Temporary restriction or pause — we limit posting, messaging, or other features for a period of time.
4. Permanent removal — we end the account.

We may also restrict features for new accounts, contact someone involved, or take stronger steps where the situation requires it.

You can ask us to look at a moderation decision again by emailing help@fimby.com, except where doing so would put someone else at risk, reveal a reporter, interfere with an investigation, or create a legal or safety problem.

If we suspend or end your account, we will try to tell you why unless doing so would put someone else at risk, reveal a reporter, interfere with an investigation, or create a legal or safety problem.

We may review, remove, restrict, preserve, or report content where we believe it is necessary, but we do not undertake to monitor all activity on FIMBY.

9. Copyright and intellectual property complaints

If you believe content on FIMBY infringes your copyright or other intellectual property rights, please email help@fimby.com with:

• the URL or in-app location of the content;
• a description of the work you say is being infringed;
• your contact information; and
• a statement that you have a good-faith basis to believe the content is infringing.

We may remove or restrict access to allegedly infringing content while we review the complaint. Repeat infringers and accounts with repeated violations may have features limited or accounts terminated.

This is a notice-and-takedown posture, not a formal DMCA program.

10. Supporters and supportees

Some neighbours may need help using FIMBY. A support relationship lets an approved supporter help a supportee use the app.

A supporter cannot silently consent for a supportee.

If you are helping a neighbour who cannot use the app themselves, they can still consent to these Terms by signing a printable form that you bring to them. Your supporter cannot consent on your behalf — only you can. We may verify consent directly with you where contact details allow it before activating the relationship.

If you cannot understand or consent yourself, FIMBY is not the right fit at this time. FIMBY does not currently support legal representatives, BC Representation Agreements, or other formal substitute-decision arrangements. A future version of FIMBY may add that support. Until then, only people who can understand and agree to these Terms themselves can use FIMBY, even with a supporter’s help.

We recognize this means some neighbours cannot use FIMBY today. We are working toward a future version that can support formal substitute-decision arrangements under BC law, and we welcome input at help@fimby.com.

Part two — The legal bits

11. FIMBY is provided as-is

We work hard to keep FIMBY useful, safe, and available. Still, FIMBY is provided as-is and as-available.

We do not promise that FIMBY will always be available, error-free, secure, or uninterrupted.

The legal version of that: to the maximum extent permitted by law, Strathcona Vineyard Church disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement.

12. No guarantee about neighbours or outcomes

We do not guarantee that neighbours will respond, follow through, return items, attend events, be safe to meet, provide accurate information, or act as expected.

Posts, messages, profiles, listings, requests, offers, comments, and other content are created by neighbours and Community Groups. FIMBY does not verify that every post is accurate, current, safe, lawful, or suitable.

You should not rely on a person’s, organization’s, post’s, event’s, item’s, offer’s, or request’s presence on FIMBY as confirmation that it is safe, suitable, lawful, accurate, available, or appropriate for you.

FIMBY is a tool for connection. It is not a guarantee of any neighbour’s conduct.

13. Service interruptions and circumstances outside our control

FIMBY may be interrupted, delayed, or unavailable due to circumstances outside our reasonable control, including infrastructure outages, natural disasters, public health emergencies, or actions by third-party service providers. We are not liable for losses arising from such interruptions.

14. Limitation of liability

FIMBY is a free, charity-operated tool. Strathcona Vineyard Church does not charge you to use FIMBY and does not earn revenue from your use of it. You use FIMBY at your own risk.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Strathcona Vineyard Church and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, and volunteers are not liable to you for:

• indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages;
• loss of profits, revenue, opportunity, goodwill, or data;
• damages caused by another neighbour’s posts, conduct, accuracy, identity, or follow-through;
• damages caused by your decisions about whether to meet, lend, borrow, ride, eat, attend, or share contact information with another neighbour;
• damages caused by third-party services that FIMBY relies on (for example, Salesforce, Vercel, Upstash, Expo, Apple, Google, or PayPal);
• damages caused by FIMBY being unavailable, interrupted, delayed, or affected by a security incident.

Nothing in these Terms limits any liability that cannot be limited under British Columbia or Canadian law. That includes liability for: fraud or willful misconduct; gross negligence by Strathcona Vineyard Church; death or personal injury caused by Strathcona Vineyard Church’s negligence; and any non-waivable rights you have under BC privacy, consumer-protection, or human-rights legislation. Those rights still apply.

Where the law allows our liability to be limited, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising from your use of FIMBY is limited to $100 CAD. FIMBY is free to use and operates as a charity-supported tool, and this nominal cap reflects that.

If your local law does not allow some of the limits in this section, those limits do not apply to you, but the rest of this section still does.

15. Your responsibility for your own content and conduct

You are responsible for the content you post and the actions you take in FIMBY. That includes posts, messages, lending listings, event details, profile content, and how you treat other neighbours.

If something you post or do in FIMBY breaks these Terms, the law, or another person’s rights, we may remove the content, restrict or end your access to FIMBY, or take other steps consistent with these Terms and our Community Standards. We will tell you why where we can, subject to the limits in section 8.

You acknowledge that you, not Strathcona Vineyard Church, are responsible for the legal consequences of your own content and conduct. We do not ask individual neighbours to defend Strathcona Vineyard Church or pay our legal costs if a third party brings a claim about your content. We rely on the law, the report and block tools, and the moderation ladder described in section 8 to handle problems that arise.

Community Group representatives. A Community Group representative accepts the Community Group Agreement on behalf of an organization. If a third party brings a legal claim against Strathcona Vineyard Church arising from content posted by, or on behalf of, a Community Group, the organization (not the individual representative as a private neighbour) is responsible for that content under the Community Group Agreement and applicable law. Community Group representatives are still individually accountable for their own personal conduct on FIMBY, just like any other neighbour.

16. Ending your account

You can delete your account. The deletion process is explained at /delete-account.

We may suspend or end your access if you break these Terms, misuse FIMBY, create safety concerns, or create legal or security risk for FIMBY or neighbours.

17. Changes to these Terms

If we make a material change to these Terms, we will give notice through FIMBY and/or email before the change takes effect, where practical. Where law, safety, or security requires a faster change, we may give shorter notice and explain the reason after the fact.

If the change requires fresh acceptance, FIMBY may ask you to review and agree before continuing.

Minor clarifications may be noted on the page without a separate notice.

18. Severability

If any part of these Terms is found to be unenforceable by a court or tribunal, that part is severed and the rest of these Terms continue in full force.

19. Waiver

If we do not enforce a provision of these Terms on a particular occasion, that does not mean we waive our right to enforce it later.

20. Assignment

Strathcona Vineyard Church may assign these Terms to a successor organization in connection with a transfer of FIMBY, provided the successor agrees to honour them. You may not assign your account or these Terms to anyone else.

21. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the laws of Canada that apply there.

If something goes wrong between us and we cannot resolve it directly, disputes will be handled in the courts of British Columbia, or another BC dispute forum that has jurisdiction depending on the type and size of the claim.

22. Contact

Email: help@fimby.com
Mail: Strathcona Vineyard Church, Box 88195 – 88 W Pender St #1173, Vancouver, BC V6B 6N6

For Community Groups

If you are joining FIMBY on behalf of an organization — a church, community centre, shelter, non-profit, or neighbourhood group — the full Community Group Agreement lives on its own page so it’s easier for your board, director, or admin to review and approve. It sits on top of these Terms, which also apply to anyone using FIMBY personally.