Support
Thank you for supporting Just Chicken In. This page shares how we plan to use funds and how you can help beyond donations.
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Quick linksSupport the project
Transparent use of fundsDonate
- One-time or recurring monthly donations are accepted through our secure donation page.
- Funds go directly toward subsidizing organization access for groups that serve vulnerable populations.
- Donations are distributed to organizations using a transparent priority algorithm.
How we think about funding
- We fund practical work that improves safety and trust.
- We keep the roadmap modular so progress is possible at any level.
- We publish updates so supporters can see what changed and why.
- Impact reports are published on our home page.
Volunteer support
We are grateful for volunteer support from the community. If you have interest in helping, please reach out and tell us what skillsets you have and what kind of contribution feels realistic for you.
Email: hello@justchickenin.org
Technical and product
- Flutter and mobile development
- Backend and systems engineering
- QA testing and accessibility review
- Security review and secure design
- Reliability and incident review
- Documentation and technical writing
Design, care, and community
- UI and UX design
- Usability research
- Community organizing and partnerships
- Fundraising and outreach
- Graphic design and content writing
- Animal welfare and rescue experience
Where funds will go
Each milestone below includes a purpose and scope.
App polish and refinement COMPLETED!
Purpose: Make the app feel calm, friendly, and professional so people trust it and use it consistently.
Scope includes:
- Visual consistency pass: spacing, typography, buttons, icons, layout
- Onboarding clarity and copy refinement
- Loading, error, and empty states that explain what is happening
- Accessibility basics: tap targets, contrast checks, readable sizing
- Cross device QA and small bug fixes that impact user confidence
Usability and reliability testing COMPLETED!
Purpose: Validate that the app stays understandable and reliable for real people, including in stressful or low bandwidth moments.
Scope includes:
- Test plan and scripts, then 6 to 10 usability sessions
- Identify friction points and confusing language
- Accessibility and clarity review of key flows
- Reliability review of missed check in and alert edge cases
- Written findings with a prioritized fix list
Organization portal and directory COMPLETED!
Purpose: Enable organizations to participate in community care through a secure portal and be discoverable as support options.
Scope includes:
- Organization signup intake and basic profile management
- Admin review and approval workflow
- Public directory page with simple search or filtering
- Access control and permission boundaries
- Copy review to ensure clarity and consent alignment
Security hardening COMPLETED!
Purpose: Reduce real security risk by validating data flow, permissions, and alert surfaces with a thorough internal review.
Scope delivered:
- Threat modeling and review of sensitive workflows
- Real session tokens across both portals (replacing a legacy scheme)
- Two-factor authentication rolled out on all admin and organization accounts
- Modern password protection with per-user salting
- Automated defenses against brute force and abuse
- Auth and permission checks reviewed across all endpoints and roles
- Auditable log of every alert sent by the service
An independent third-party audit is a separate future goal; see below.
Reliability hardening COMPLETED!
Purpose: Improve confidence that alerts fire when they should and failure states are visible rather than silent.
Scope delivered:
- Continuous uptime monitoring across both workers
- Dead-man's-switch alerting on the safety-critical escalation cron
- Retry and self-healing logic when app and server fall out of sync
- Logging improvements so every alert-delivery attempt is diagnosable
- Fail-safe defaults so edge cases do not block legitimate users
- Pre-launch load test completed with 100% success
Failure mode and disaster review COMPLETED!
Purpose: Identify the most important ways the system could fail and reduce harm by addressing those risks early.
Scope delivered:
- Review of missed-check-in logic and escalation assumptions
- Edge cases: phone dead, SMS delays, notification permission issues
- Auto-wipe recovery flow so users do not land in a broken state
- Account-recovery path for app-to-server sync drift
- Wiped-seat indicator so organizations know to send a new invite
Policy expansion (internal) COMPLETED!
Purpose: Make our written policies match the system's real behavior, for both end users and the organizations we serve.
Scope delivered:
- Privacy policy expanded with CCPA and GDPR disclosures, retention schedule, and sub-processor list
- Terms of use expanded with governing law, eligibility, and subscription handling
- SMS consent policy refreshed with toll-free registration detail
- New law enforcement request policy covering subpoena posture and at-risk users
- New data processing addendum for organizations using the portal
Formal attorney review is the next step; see below.
Remaining goals (not yet funded):
Formal attorney review
Purpose: Have a privacy and safety-tech attorney review the expanded policies to confirm compliance and close any remaining gaps before wider public launch.
Scope includes:
- Independent review of terms of use, privacy policy, SMS policy, DPA, and law-enforcement policy
- CCPA and GDPR compliance confirmation
- Attorney-specific input on subpoena posture for domestic-violence users
- Recommended revisions based on safety-tech best practices
Nonprofit status (501(c)(3))
Purpose: Convert Just Chicken In into a recognized U.S. nonprofit so donations become tax-deductible, grant eligibility opens up, and partnerships with organizations like domestic-violence shelters, elder-care providers, and disability-services agencies can be formalized.
Scope includes:
- Articles of incorporation and bylaws drafted with appropriate nonprofit language
- Formation of an initial board of directors
- IRS Form 1023 (or 1023-EZ) filing for federal tax-exempt status
- State charitable-solicitation registrations where required
- Bookkeeping setup so donations are tracked for annual reporting
Why it matters: many of the organizations we most want to serve — shelters, community-safety groups, nonprofits themselves — can only partner with another nonprofit. 501(c)(3) status unlocks the most meaningful side of this project.
Independent third-party security audit
Purpose: Validate the internal security hardening above with an outside audit. Useful before scaling past a few thousand users and for building trust with larger partner organizations.
Scope includes:
- Independent threat model and pen-test of both portals
- Review of sub-processor integrations (SMS, email, payments, hosting)
- Findings report with severity ranking and recommendations
- Follow-up fix pass based on findings
Labor donated so far: $30,850 across 7 completed milestones.
Remaining roadmap: $11,000