What isn’t for sale.
Every operator’s compliance team eventually asks what our independence means in practice. So does every parent and athletic director. Here is the answer, published before anyone has to ask. Credibility a partner can direct is worth nothing to that partner, and nothing to the coaches and families who decide whether to let us in.
Eight things no amount of funding buys
These are not aspirations or current practice subject to review. They will be terms in every funding agreement at every recognition level, and they will not vary by cheque size.
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No connection to any ambassador, school, club or session
No funder may be connected to any ambassador, school, club or session. All partner money goes into one pool, so no partner is credited on any program. Funder names, logos and marks never appear in sessions, materials or communications for under-18 athletes, schools or clubs. Not on a slide, not on a handout, not on a shirt.
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No board seats
Partners do not sit on the board of directors, do not nominate directors, and do not vote on anything. Founding and Supporting Partners may sit on a non-voting Partner Council that meets twice a year, receives briefings, and gives advice on operations that the board is free to ignore. It has no authority over curriculum, research, ambassadors or sessions.
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No editorial approval
No partner reviews, approves or comments on curriculum content, session materials, family resources, or anything published under the Foundation’s name before it goes out. There is no sign-off step, because there is no sign-off right.
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No pre-publication review of research
Partners receive research findings and evaluation results when they are published, at the same moment as everyone else. There is no advance notice and no review. A partner may not comment on, delay or seek changes to them. Findings publish as the evaluator wrote them, including findings unflattering to the industry that funds us, and including findings unflattering to us.
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No influence over who gets served
Partners do not choose which schools, clubs, teams or athletes receive sessions, and do not receive preferential delivery in places where they compete hardest. Sessions follow need and invitations from schools and clubs. Nothing else.
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No athlete supplied as marketing talent
University athlete ambassadors work under the Foundation’s name. They have no contact with funders, never appear in any operator’s advertising or marketing, are never licensed for likeness, and are never presented as endorsing a brand. What a partner may say, only in its corporate, ESG, responsible-gambling and regulator-facing materials, is one plain sentence: “[Partner] is a Founding Partner of AWARE Community Foundation, an independent Alberta non-profit,” naming its own recognition level. Never in advertising or marketing. That is true, and it is all a partner may say.
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No athlete data, in any form
What a young person says in a session, about their own betting, a teammate’s, or a message they received, never reaches a partner. Not identified, not as an illustrative case study, not in any form. Partners see the same results we publish to everyone. They never receive people.
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No lock-out of the safety work itself
No partner gets exclusivity over who else may fund us. Any licensed operator, partner or not, may send staff to our ‘Trained by AWARE’ seminar, and every team we serve receives the same session regardless of who funds us. We will not let one operator use a public-safety program to disadvantage another.
What partnership genuinely does buy
The list above is long, so it is worth being equally clear that partners get real things. They are simply things that survive close reading, and all of them sit in adult settings.
- Recognition as a Founding, Supporting or Community Partner in our audited annual report and on this website. Never in youth settings.
- Use of the ‘AWARE Founding Partner’, ‘Supporting Partner’ or ‘Community Partner’ mark as a plain funding acknowledgment. It may appear only in your corporate, community-investment/ESG, responsible-gambling and regulator-facing materials and on your corporate responsible-gambling pages. Never in advertising or marketing (including responsible-gambling advertising), never on in-app promotional surfaces, and never with any reference to young people, teams, schools, athletes or ambassadors. Each use follows our mark-usage standard, which will be published before any partner agreement is signed.
- Pooled funding: your money joins one pool that pays for every session. No program, session, ambassador, school or club carries your name.
- An annual outcomes briefing: the same results we publish to everyone, plus how the pooled fund was spent and your share of it.
- For Founding and Supporting Partners, a non-voting seat on the Partner Council, advising on operations only.
- Full financial transparency: independently audited accounts, published in full from our first full year.
- The ‘Trained by AWARE’ staff seminar, offered separately at $10,000 per cohort to any licensed operator, partner or not.
One condition comes with every recognition level: carrying AWARE’s own help messages to your adult customers, “Never harass a player over a bet” and “Talking to your kids about sports betting? AWARE’s free family guide.” They go on your responsible-gambling and help screens only, never on promotional surfaces or beside odds or offers, with no partner name or mark added. AWARE writes the content; your compliance team clears the placement.
What happens if a partner crosses it
It ends the agreement
Misrepresenting the relationship is a terminating breach, not a matter for negotiation. That includes implying editorial control, connecting your brand to an ambassador, school, club or session, using the mark anywhere near under-18 athletes, using the mark in any advertising or marketing, or claiming a recognition level not held. Funds already applied to delivered sessions are not refunded.
We say so publicly
A terminated partnership and the reason for it appear in the next annual report and on this website. A quiet exit would protect the partner at the cost of the only thing every other partner is paying for.
You can hold us to it
If you believe we have breached our own terms, such as a partner given influence it should not have, a finding softened, an ambassador used in marketing, or a funder named in a youth session, write to info@awarecf.com with “Independence concern” in the subject. Every concern is logged. Until independent directors are seated, concerns go to the two non-founding directors; after that, an independent director leads and the founder steps out. Substantiated breaches are reported in the annual report the same way a partner’s would be. How concerns are handled →