Product Update — Approvals!
By popular demand, we are excited to announce our newest feature — Approvals!
The Approvals feature allows districts and education foundations to confidently invite all teachers, coaches, and district faculty to start raising money the modern way without worry. When enabled, the Approvals feature requires each campaign to be approved by an administrator or principal before it can go live and process payments.
So how do approvals work? Let’s watch a quick demo:
As you can see, approvals are fully integrated into the campaign creation process. When approvals are turned “ON,” campaign creators must submit their campaign for review before they go live.
States of a Campaign:
Now that campaigns require an approval, they must also be able to sit in various other stages. The following describes each stage:
- Draft: When a campaign is first saved, it is merely a draft. These are not visible to anyone except for the creator and any added collaborators. You can continue to edit drafts as long as you’d like, and no one will see them until you submit them for approval. Drafts cannot accept donations or be shared or viewed publicly.
- Pending: A campaign that has been submitted for approval is classified as pending. These campaigns are visible to only the creator, any collaborators, the requested approver, and administrators. Pending campaigns cannot accept donations or be shared or viewed publicly.
- Approved: A campaign that has received that sweet confirmation from an approver will be classified as approved. These campaigns are still not publicly visible, and cannot accept donations or be shared or viewed until they are activated.
- Active: Once a campaign goes live it is active and becomes visible to everyone. Only active campaigns can accept donations. Active campaigns remain active and publicly visible until they are deactivated.
- Closed: When a campaign is completed it can be closed and removed from public access. A closed campaign can no longer receive donations.
Why approvals?
Approvals are not just a way to ensure school fundraisers follow district guidelines. The SuccessFund approval process also acts as a digital means for informing principals and administrators about each campaign so that they can provide support. As a best practice, all fundraising activities should be approved by a principal or administrator anyway, and the SuccessFund approval process enables teachers, coaches, and other district faculty to proceed with confidence that their campaigns are supported by the school and district leadership.
How long does an approval take?
Approvals typically happen quickly because with each request the principal or other designated administrator receives a personalized email asking for their sign off. In some cases an approval will be authorized automatically based on specific criteria, or after a specified waiting period. If by chance an approval request hasn’t received a response, it never hurts to send a little nudge through email or text.
What does the approval feature unlock?
Approvals is an empowering feature because it removes the risk of shadow fundraising abuse. Now, every teacher and coach can be empowered to proactively collect donations through mobile payments like Venmo on their own. Previously, written submissions and signatures were required to begin collecting donations, but with SuccessFund Approvals, all fundraising activities can be submitted, approved, and recorded through SuccessFund immediately.
But, do we have to require approvals?
No. The approval feature is enabled by the SuccessFund Administrator at the District or Education Foundation level. For smaller groups, approvals are not a necessary step, and can be disabled. For larger districts, requiring approvals allows districts to invite everyone to begin using the platform right away.
We are excited for this improvement and what it enables! We are so impressed with all the creative ways that SuccessFund is being used to collect mobile donations and online payments. We’ve found that when users are empowered to be proactive and use their own creativity to solve their funding needs, everyone tends to approve.
