Friend
Social / Conversational
Used on social media, in person, and anywhere the tone is warm. It is the organization's name and its posture.
SECTION 02 · HOW WE TALK
The words, and the rules.
Language is the first thing a family notices about an organization. Ours is written down so it stays consistent whether the person typing is the founder or a volunteer.
Rule One — Person First, Always
"a child with autism," not "an autistic child" — except when a person or family has told us their own preferred term, in which case that term is used instead.
Rule Two — Three Words for the People Served
Participant
Formal / Reporting
Used in grant applications, board minutes, and anywhere a number follows the word. Precise, countable, and neutral.
Community Member
Outreach / Partnership
Used when speaking to schools, clinics, and partner organizations about people we have not met yet. Broad on purpose.
Rule Three — One Phrase Never Moves
"the front row feeling"
Singular. Never reworded. Never pluralized.
The only protected phrase in the organization.
Rule Four — What We Do Not Say
No Pity
No suffering, no struggling, no confined to, no despite. A family at a game is not overcoming anything that afternoon. They are at a game.
No Saviors
We do not give families an experience, bless them, or change their lives. We buy tickets and logistics, and those are the things we describe, because those are the things we actually remove.
No Deficit Framing
Not what a child cannot do. The barrier is cost and logistics, and those are the things we describe, because those are the things we actually remove.
No Borrowed Credit
No team names, marks, or logos, and no phrasing that implies a partnership we do not have. Until an affiliation is real and cleared, we write team-neutral.
Rule Five — Consent Before Every Story
- No family is named, photographed, or described publicly without written permission given in advance.
- Consent is specific — a photo is not the same as a name, which is not the same as a diagnosis.
- Consent can be withdrawn later.
House Style
- Lowercase throughout on social media only.
- Standard capitalization on the website and in every formal document.
- No em-dashes anywhere, in any material, ever.
- Plain language over clever language.
- If a sentence needs a second read, rewrite it.