Ownership & Trust
What You Own, in Plain Terms
When a Socio Connect build is finished, your organisation owns the source code, the member data, the hosting accounts, the app store listings and the right to change any of it without asking us. There is no license, no seat count and no platform fee.
What You Own
The source code, in a repository your organisation controls.
The member database, exportable in full at any time, in a standard format.
The hosting and infrastructure accounts, in your organisation’s name.
The Apple and Google developer accounts, and the app listings under your name.
The design files and brand assets.
The documentation, written for a developer who has never met us.
The right to hire anyone else to work on it. Including instead of us.
How We Handle Your Data
During a build we need access to the systems we are building: the code repository, the hosting and database accounts, and whatever services the platform has to talk to. We ask for the access the work requires and no more, and we ask for it in your accounts rather than ours, so you can see what we have and remove it yourself.
We work in your environment wherever the work allows it. Production member data is not copied into development or staging environments. Development runs on seeded or anonymised data, so the real records stay in the one place they belong.
Handover is the point where all of this is settled: the accounts are in your name, the documentation is written for a developer who has never met us, and any access we still hold is there because you have asked us to keep it.
If your organisation needs a data processing agreement, a named sub-processor list, or specific controls written into the contract, raise it on the strategy call and we will put it in writing before the build starts.
If You Serve Children or Vulnerable People
The safest record is the one the platform never holds. We design platforms so sensitive records do not have to live on the community layer at all: the community platform can hold volunteers, staff, chapters and supporters without ever holding a child’s record, a case file or a clinical note. Where those records exist in a system built for them, we integrate at the boundary rather than copying them across.
Role-based access and audit logging are how we build by default, not an upgrade tier. Who can see what, and a record of who saw it, belong in the architecture from the first week.
In discovery we map the data flows with you and write down what the platform will and will not hold. That document exists before anything is built, so your safeguarding lead can read it and say no to something while it is still a sentence rather than a system.
What Happens If Socio Connect Disappears
It is a fair question and you should ask it of any agency.
You own the code and the infrastructure from the day it is delivered. If I went away tomorrow, your platform keeps running and any competent development team can pick it up. That is not a promise, it is a property of how we hand things over. It is the whole reason I build this way.
After Launch
After launch the platform is yours to run. Ongoing support is optional, and the plans exist because most organisations want a technical partner on hand rather than because the platform needs us to keep working.
- Steward, $4,800/year. Security patches and dependency updates, a monthly platform health check, hosting monitoring, a few hours of minor updates each month, and email support.
- Guardian, $9,600/year. Everything in Steward, plus more update hours, a quarterly performance review, analytics reporting, integration monitoring and priority support.
- Partner, $18,000/year. Everything in Guardian, plus development time each month for new work, a dedicated channel, regular strategy calls and first call on build capacity.
Leaving a plan does not change what you own. The accounts stay in your name and the platform keeps running. See the full plan details.
Ask us the hard questions first
Bring your safeguarding lead, your IT person, or your board’s most sceptical member to the call. These are the right questions to ask before anyone talks about scope.
Apply for a Strategy Call