PerchLight’s Good-First Pledge
The oath our founder has taken, and the statement of how PerchLight helps, what harm it could cause, and how we prevent or repair it. Signed October 6, 2026. Renewed every year. Every version stays published.
The Good-First Oath
As a steward of this business, I affirm that its first priority will always be to improve the human condition. Profit, although a noble and worthwhile pursuit, will be held explicitly secondary and subservient to this primary goal.
I promise:
- I will put the good of humanity before the pursuit of profit, and never treat harm to others as merely trivial or as an acceptable cost of financial gain.
- I will state plainly how this enterprise improves the human condition, what harm it may cause, and how I will prevent or repair that harm, and I will hold this enterprise to what I have stated.
- I will seek to avoid harm whenever possible and take proactive steps to do so.
- I will respect, protect, and renew limited resources.
- I will carefully consider industry standards, and I will adhere to them or explain publicly why my standards differ.
- I will always act with honesty and integrity, and represent our purpose, our performance, our missteps, and our risks truthfully.
- I will not profit by deceiving or exploiting the people we serve.
- I will seek profit only by lawful and honorable means.
- I will not use my resources or influence, or those of this business, to weaken the standards it has promised to keep.
- Insofar as my business allows, I will seek to improve the human condition by providing increased:
- basic needs, such as food, clean water, and shelter
- affordability
- access to goods, services, and resources
- personal dignity and self-determination
- financial independence, livable wages, and honorable labor
- education and skills
- family connections and community
- truthful and accurate information
- protection, privacy, and safety
- recovery from illness, poverty, trauma, or war
- freedom from addiction
- freedom from tyranny
- health in all its forms
- justice and equality under the law
- peaceful living conditions
- beauty, creativity, recreation, and joy
- hope for the future
- comfort and stability in old age.
- I will answer for this enterprise’s effect on the people it touches: its workers, its customers, its community, its world, and those who cannot speak for themselves.
- I will not outsource harm through others.
- Where possible, I will choose to partner with others who also seek to do good first.
- When goods conflict, I will choose the path that does the least harm to those with the least power.
- If this enterprise passes to new hands, I will require its new stewards to take this oath.
- I accept that this oath binds me in deed and not only in word: that I may be held to the plan I have made and the good I have promised.
This I pledge freely, and upon my honor.
Nathan Roberts
Nathan Roberts, Founder
PerchLight (Crackling Fire Enterprises LLC) · Signed October 6, 2026 · Next renewal October 2027
PerchLight’s Human-Condition Statement
How PerchLight improves the human condition
PerchLight lets a person in need ask for the specific thing they need, at a specific store, and lets a neighbor pay for exactly that. It serves these goods from the Good-First Oath:
- Basic needs. Food, clothing, and household and work essentials.
- Personal dignity and self-determination. The person in need chooses the item and the store. No one has to explain their life to get help.
- Access to goods and resources. Help arrives as the thing itself, not a voucher for something else.
- Affordability. Our card & verification fee is sized so each gift pays its own way and little more.
- Truthful and accurate information. Sponsors know exactly what their gift was for, and every gift is to be verified by receipt.
- Family connections and community. Neighbors helping neighbors, often through the local charities that already know them.
What potential harms PerchLight could cause, and how we will proactively prevent or repair them
1. Exposing people at a hard moment. Asking for help in public can embarrass or endanger someone.
- Browsing shows a requester’s pseudonym and a general area, never a real name or address. Requesters can stop being listed at any time.
- We never give sponsors a requester’s contact details, or vice versa (although they can choose to do so).
2. Holding sensitive information. We hold information about people in hard circumstances.
- We collect as little as possible, show it to as few people as possible, and keep it as short a time as possible.
- Receipt and screenshot images are read for the facts we need and then deleted, except where a human review or a fraud case requires keeping them.
- We never store card numbers.
- We will never sell anyone’s sensitive personal information.
- Sponsors who choose to follow a partner charity share their name and email with that charity by default, so it can thank them and stay in touch. They are told this when they follow and can turn sharing off at any time. Otherwise we do not share personal information, except as required by law. Anything else we share is aggregated and anonymized so no one can be identified.
- If sensitive personal information is ever exposed, we will tell the people affected promptly.
3. Gifts being misused, or false requests. Misuse breaks the trust that makes giving possible.
- Each gift is a single-use card limited to the chosen item’s store and amount, and each gift is to be verified by receipt.
- New accounts, and accounts with past problems, have lower limits until they build a track record.
- We work with partner charities that know the people they refer, and we review suspicious activity. Repeated abuse leads to removal.
4. Spam.
- Our emails are opt-in and voluntary, apart from a few required transactional messages, which are identified up front. Anyone can stop them at any time.
5. Misunderstanding about taxes. Sponsors may assume their gift is tax-deductible.
- We say plainly that a gift is tax-deductible only when it is given as a donation to a Partner Charity that is accepting donations (look for the star on its badge). Every other gift through PerchLight is not.
- A tip to PerchLight is never tax-deductible.
Industry standards
As we are the first business to employ Good-First principles, there is no current set of industry standards for giving platforms. Until one is created, this statement is our own standard, published so anyone can hold us accountable. Where outside standards apply, we follow them: card data is handled by our card issuer and is never stored by us, and our emails follow U.S. commercial-email law.
Review
We review this statement each year when the oath is renewed, and whenever we make a change that affects the people we serve. Every version stays published.
Adopted for PerchLight by Nathan Roberts, Founder
October 6, 2026
Hold us to it
If you believe PerchLight has fallen short of this pledge, tell us. We will answer.