Transparency: The Greenwood Accord

Where we are today: Trystle is not currently donating to charity. We are an early-stage company, and all of our advertising revenue is going into building and running the platform. Charitable giving is a goal we intend to reach, not something happening now, and no part of your use of Trystle today results in a donation to any charity.

Trystle is a for-profit company, not a charity or nonprofit, and using Trystle is not a donation and is not tax deductible.

Every day, you give away your most valuable asset for free: your attention. Legacy social media empires rake in billions from your daily scrolling, funneling that wealth to a handful of tech billionaires.

We built Trystle to change that social contract — without sacrificing the entertainment.

Trystle is a social media company engineered to do incredible good. It's a fully-loaded social network designed for you to post, share, and message while giving back effortlessly. Trystle is named after the legendary Trystle Tree — the ancient oak where Robin Hood and his men gathered to live freely, stay connected, protect one another, and share the spoils. Like those folklore rebels, we're here to build a vibrant community that returns some of the power of the attention economy to the people who generate it.

Our 3-Year Roadmap

Building a world-class platform requires real infrastructure. We believe in radical honesty, so we are keeping it real: we estimate roughly 3 years, and possibly longer depending on growth, before our revenue shifts from covering buildout and operating costs to funding the causes we exist for. We may not reach that point at all. These figures are estimates and business goals, not promises.

Once our network breaks even and crosses our sustainability threshold, we intend to begin donating our surplus profits to vetted charities.

"Surplus profit" means net income determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, after taxes, debt service, and a reasonable operating reserve set in good faith to fund continued operation, growth, and contingencies. It is not a hidden cut kept for ourselves. This is the same definition used in our Terms of Service.

Until we hit that milestone, every ad dollar generated during this setup phase goes directly into operational costs, which we report on transparently:

• •Servers built to handle growth and reliable media delivery;
• •Privacy-first infrastructure that keeps your data out of advertisers' hands;
• •Payroll and dedicated content moderation to protect our community.

A choice that helps the mission: By default, our ads are shown based on context, not your personal activity. In your settings, you can turn on personalized ads to boost our charity impact: with your permission, we use your activity on Trystle to choose better ads for you, which tends to generate more revenue for the causes we support. We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with advertisers for their own use. See our Privacy Policy for the detail. It is entirely your choice, available to users 18 and older, and off by default.

You aren't just downloading another app, and you aren't signing up for volunteer work. You're logging into a social media network built so that, if we succeed, your daily attention funds causes that support communities for years to come.

How We'll Keep This Honest

We will publish progress updates against this roadmap at least annually, including where we stand relative to our sustainability threshold. These updates, along with aggregated, anonymized financial data, will be available on this page (see also our Privacy Policy, Section 4). If we change or discontinue this program, we will say so here.

Choosing where the Spoils go: Once we reach our sustainability threshold, giving will work in two layers:

First, you tell us what matters to you. In your settings, you can weight three focus areas — education, environment, and health — using a simple slider. You can weight all three equally, or put your full weight behind the causes that matter most to you. This tells us your preference. It is not an allocation of any particular amount, and no part of your individual use of Trystle generates a donation.

Second, we route the giving. We aggregate every user's preferences into an overall community split across the three categories, and direct Trystle's surplus profit accordingly through a donor-advised fund, a standard charitable-giving structure that handles the administration, compliance, and payment processing on our behalf. Within each category, we recommend one vetted charity to receive that category's funds. The fund's sponsoring organization makes the final grant.

How we vet a charity: Before we recommend a charity in a category, we look for:

• •Active, good-standing 501(c)(3) status. We may also recommend non-U.S. organizations where our donor-advised fund sponsor is able to make the grant under its own international grantmaking procedures;
• •A strong independent financial transparency rating where one is available (e.g., Charity Navigator or Candid/GuideStar);
• •A direct, clear mission fit within its category;
• •Reasonable overhead and administrative costs relative to program spending.

Until Trystle forms an advisory committee, these selections are made by our founder against the criteria above. As Trystle grows, we intend to move this responsibility to an advisory committee or board.

If Trystle is acquired or ceases operations before reaching this milestone: If Trystle is acquired, our intention is for the acquiring entity to continue honoring this pledge, though this is a statement of intent, not a guaranteed or contractually binding term on any future owner. If Trystle winds down, our intention is to make a final contribution to the donor-advised fund before doing so. Amounts already contributed to the fund are irrevocable and cannot be returned to Trystle. Any surplus still held by the company at wind-down remains a company asset and would be applied to our obligations first.

Not Anti-Business

This isn't anti-business. We believe deeply in entrepreneurship — building something, taking a risk, earning a living from your own work. What we don't believe in is a system where profit above everything else is the only thing that matters, where growth is chased no matter what it costs the people generating it. Trystle is proof those two things aren't the same fight.

This page describes our mission, roadmap, and goals in plain language. It is a statement of intent, not a contract, and it does not create any legal right in any user or any charity. Our binding legal commitments to users are set out in our Terms of Service, which this page does not modify, expand, or supersede, and Section 1 of those Terms states our charitable giving intention and its limits. Figures and timelines described here are estimates and may change as our business evolves.