Brand, and describing the work

An affiliate is independently incorporated and operates under a covenant with the international organization covering the name, the brand and how the work is described. Most volunteers writing auction copy have never seen it, which is how the recurring errors happen.

Partner families are homeowners

The single most important sentence on this page. A partner family applies, is selected against published criteria, contributes sweat equity hours, and buys the house with a mortgage they pay.

So the copy is not:

• "families we give homes to"
• "free houses for those in need"
• "recipients" or "beneficiaries"
• "handouts", or anything framed as charity to a passive party

It is: partner families, homeowners, homebuyers, families who partner with the affiliate to build and buy. The distinction is not a preference — it is the model the organization exists to demonstrate, and getting it wrong in a public auction undercuts the argument every affiliate makes to its own community.

It is also noticed first by partner families themselves, who read your materials.

Sweat equity, described accurately

Sweat equity is hours contributed toward the purchase, by the family and often by others on their behalf. It is a term of the arrangement rather than a gesture of gratitude, and copy describing it as families "giving back" or "earning" a gift misdescribes both.

Names, logo and merchandise

• Use the affiliate's own name form as the covenant specifies it
• Do not modify the logo, recolour it, or set it inside another mark
• Check before producing merchandise, print or signage carrying the brand
• Be clear on materials that the local affiliate is the receiving organization

That last point is practical as well as contractual. Local businesses and donors regularly assume they are giving to the international organization, and telling them the money stays with the local affiliate usually helps the ask.

Photographs and stories

Anything involving a partner family — a photograph, a name, a story, their house — needs their specific agreement for that use, and agreement given for a dedication or a newsletter is not agreement for a public auction page indexed by search engines.

Where you do not have that agreement, photograph the house, the build, the volunteers and the materials. An affiliate has more usable imagery than almost any organization and none of it requires a family to be in the frame.

Give the writers a one-page sheet

Not the covenant — a page. The correct name form, the words to use for partner families, the words not to use, who to ask about the logo, and one line on photographs. Hand it to every volunteer writing item descriptions.

Auction copy is written under time pressure by people who did not attend an orientation. A one-page sheet is the only realistic control, and it prevents almost every error on this page.

General information, not guidance from Habitat for Humanity International. Affiliate obligations and brand standards change — check your own covenant and your affiliate support contact before acting on anything here.