Site Stuff Not exciting, but we have to include it!
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
What is PSU Pledge? How does this all work?
What is THON?
What information of mine do you see?
Why hasn't my tweet count/latest tweet increased? I've tweeted!
Put most simply, PSU Pledge is a Twitter-driven donations engine benefitting the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.
It is the result of the efforts of a few recent graduates of Penn State University, each of whom were involved in THON in one capacity or another. In its most basic form, a user signs in for the first time, pledges a small amount of money per tweet made between now and THON 2013, and PSU Pledge keeps track of this total. Donations in fulfillment of the pledge are made periodically throughout the year.
Via THON.org:
The mission of the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon is to conquer pediatric cancer by providing outstanding emotional and financial support to the children, families, researchers, and staff of the Four Diamonds Fund.
The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon is a year-long fundraising and awareness campaign for the fight against pediatric cancer. This effort engages more than 15,000 students across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in hopes of finding a cure.
The year culminates with a 46 hour no-sitting, no-sleeping dance marathon known as THON Weekend. This event is held at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center each year in the month February. In 2012, THON raised a record-breaking $10.68 million and was able to donate 96% of funds raised directly to the Four Diamonds Fund.
Since 1977, THON has raised more than $89 million benefiting the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. th The Four Diamonds Fund picks up where insurance leaves off, enabling families to solely focus on care for their child. Assistance from the Four Diamonds Fund ensures counselors, social workers, music therapists and other specialists are available to provide comprehensive care in a family-focused atmosphere. Thanks to THON, the Four Diamonds and the Penn State Hershey Medical Center recruits world-class talent to continue innovative research benefiting children worldwide.
For a more detailed view of the information we receive, you should take a look at our Privacy Policy. That said, put simply, PSU Pledge does not ever handle any of your payment information - THON still handles that, and none of your Twitter login information - Twitter still handles that. We use THON's in-place donations processing to accommodate donations in fulfillment of pledges, and Twitter's open OAuth-based authentication system to provide for user verification and sign-in.
We know it's exciting to be tweeting FTK and you want to see your totals right away. Unfortunately, with the way Twitter's authentication works, and in the interest of keeping the site speedy, we can only update your pledge and tweet totals when you log out and log in again. Don't worry, we're still counting all of your tweets!
Terms of Use How to be a good PSU Pledger
Being a good PSU Pledger is simple. Let us break it down for you.
- Only pledge what you actually intend to donate. This is huge. We've got a verification method, but you're on your honor.
- While we have leaderboards and friends lists, this is not a contest. There is no prize for the most money raised. It's a fun way to raise money FTK.
- Activity on the site should remain FTK at all times. If you wouldn't do it at THON, please don't do it on our site.
- Intrusion attempts on the site will be detected and promptly dealt with.
- Any bugs or site problems should be promptly reported to the creator - Garrett Miller (garrettmiller@gmail.com)
- That's it! Happy tweeting, and THON ON!
Privacy Policy What do we do with your information?
Our Privacy Policy explains:
- What information we collect and why we collect it.
- How we use that information and how we don't.
- Other important information
We've tried to keep it as simple as possible, but if you're not familiar with any of the terminology or have some questions, please email the site administrator here.
Information we collect
We collect information to provide the best service to all of our users but the information we collect is pretty simple. We store your Twitter handle (registered at Twitter.com) and the number of tweets you make after signing up. We also remember the amount you pledge at sign-up. That's it. You do not even log-in with us; that's entirely handled by Twitter. So when you see the log-in page - you're actually securely signing into Twitter.com.
We CAN NOT and DO NOT collect any of the following:
- Your Twitter password
- Any other password you have
- Credit card information or any payment information
We also DO NOT:
- Store your tweets
- Tweet from your account without you telling us to
- Follow/unfollow people for you
- Change your Twitter user information
- Directly access your account in anyway
- Process payments (make sure to go to THON.org for that)
How we use information we collect
We use the information we collect in order to keep a total of how much money you agreed to donate to THON. We can't make you donate; we'll leave that to your conscience (and remembering the kids who benefit from your generosity). We also generate a scoreboard of who has the most money pledged (figured out by number of tweets X pledge per tweet).
At no time will we sell, exchange, distribute, or in any way share this information with third parties for compensation. Your tweet count is safe with us!
Changes
It's possible that our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and give you a little reminder on your profile.
Payments
All payments are handled by THON's in-place donations processing system. Please make your donations on their site.
Opt-out
You have the option to opt-out of your participation in PSUPledge at any time. There are a couple ways to do this:
- You can deauthorize PSUPledge through your Twitter account by going to Settings in your profile, then Apps.
- Visit your Settings page on PSU Pledge from your profile. There you will see an option to delete your account. Please note that this process is non-reversible.
Again, if you have any questions, please contact us. We hope you enjoy your experience with PSUPledge and feel confident that your information is secure with us.