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Foundation campaigns

A campaign is a fundraising effort attached to a single fund, with a goal, an optional date window, and either an internal or public audience. This page covers the full lifecycle of a campaign — from draft through close — and how each setting affects what donors and admins see.

Campaign anatomy​

Every campaign has:

  • A name — shown in admin lists and on the public page
  • A slug — URL-safe identifier used in the public donation URL; auto-generated from the name but editable
  • A fund — the bucket donations flow into (every campaign must point at one fund)
  • A goal — optional dollar target; if omitted, the campaign tracks a running total with no progress bar
  • A description — free-form text shown on the public page
  • A hero image URL — optional large image at the top of the public page
  • A suggested amounts list — preset donation buttons on the public page, e.g., $10, $25, $50, $100
  • A status — Draft, Active, Paused, or Closed
  • A visibility — Internal or Public
  • An optional start date and end date

Two read-only fields are also maintained by the system: total raised (sum of completed donations) and donor count (unique donors who have given).

The four statuses​

A campaign moves through four states. Status drives where the campaign appears, whether it accepts donations, and whether it can be edited.

Draft​

Newly created campaigns start in Draft. Drafts appear in the admin Campaigns list under the Draft filter, but the public page returns 404 even if visibility is set to Public — Draft never accepts donations.

Use Draft to stage a campaign: get the copy right, line up the hero image, confirm the goal with stakeholders, then promote to Active when you are ready.

Active​

An Active campaign with Public visibility is reachable at its public URL and accepts donations. If it has Internal visibility, the public URL still returns 404 but the campaign is the default target when a logged-in admin creates a manual donation.

This is the only status where donations flow.

Paused​

Paused is a soft-stop. The campaign no longer accepts donations from the public page (it returns 404 just like Draft and Closed), but the admin record is preserved and the campaign can be flipped back to Active at any time. Use Paused for short pauses — for example, when you discover a typo mid-campaign and want to fix it without taking the page down permanently. (Note: in the current UI the Paused state must be set by editing the status field directly; there is not a dedicated Pause button.)

Closed​

Closed is the terminal state. The public page returns 404, donations are rejected, and the edit form on the campaign detail page is hidden — once Closed, the campaign is read-only.

You reach Closed in one of three ways:

  1. Click Close Campaign on the campaign detail page (Active campaigns only, Foundation Admins only)
  2. The nightly auto-close task runs and the campaign has an end_date in the past
  3. Set the status to Closed manually via the API

Closing a campaign never deletes donations or refunds anything — it only stops new donations from coming in.

Visibility: internal vs public​

Visibility is independent of status. A campaign can be Active + Internal (admins use it internally to attribute manual donations but no public page) or Active + Public (anyone with the URL can donate).

Internal​

Internal campaigns are invisible to the public — the public donation endpoint returns 404 for them regardless of status. They exist for tracking purposes:

  • A board-restricted "Founders Circle" giving program where admins manually log gifts
  • A staff-side ledger for grants you received that you want to attribute to a specific fund
  • A holding pen for a campaign you are not ready to expose yet

Public​

Public campaigns are reachable at their public URL when they are Active. The page renders the name, description, hero image, progress bar (if a goal is set), suggested amounts, and a donate form.

Public URL​

The public donation page lives at a deterministic URL based on the foundation ID and the campaign slug. Format:

https://your-deployment.example.com/foundation/donate/{foundation_id}/{campaign_slug}

The foundation_id is the UUID of your foundation configuration, which you can see in the URL after navigating into the Foundation module. The campaign_slug is whatever you set on the campaign — annual-fund-2026, scholarship-drive, etc. Slugs must be unique within a foundation.

Share this URL by email, on your chapter website, in Instagram bio links, or wherever your donor channel lives. There is no "publish" toggle — the page is live as soon as the campaign is Active + Public.

public campaign donation page rendered in a browser public campaign donation page rendered in a browser

Creating a campaign​

From Foundation → Campaigns, click New Campaign.

  1. Enter a name — for example, "2026 Annual Fund."
  2. Pick a fund from the dropdown. Every campaign must belong to one fund; donations to this campaign roll up into that fund's lifetime total.
  3. Set a goal in dollars. Leave blank for a no-goal campaign that just tracks running totals.
  4. Add a description. This shows on the public page exactly as you write it — line breaks preserved, no rich-text formatting today.
  5. Pick a visibility — Internal for a staging draft, Public when you are ready to share the URL.
  6. Optionally set a start date and end date. The end date is critical if you want auto-close to fire (see below).
  7. Click Create Campaign. The new campaign appears in Draft status.

After creation, the campaign opens on the detail page. To make it live, change the status to Active and confirm visibility is Public.

Editing a campaign​

Open the campaign from the Campaigns list to reach the detail page, which shows the live stats and an Edit Campaign form at the bottom.

Campaign detail page with stat cards and the Edit Campaign form. Campaign detail page with stat cards and the Edit Campaign form.

Editable fields on Active and Draft campaigns:

  • Name
  • Fund
  • Goal
  • Visibility
  • Start date and end date
  • Description

The slug is set at creation and is not editable from the UI — if you need to change it, contact support or recreate the campaign. The total raised, donor count, and status are system-managed and not directly editable from the form (status changes go through Close, auto-close, or direct API).

Closed campaigns are read-only. Once a campaign is Closed, the entire edit form is hidden and you can only view its history.

Auto-close on end date​

Every day at 1:00 AM server time, GreekManage runs an automated task that scans every Active campaign across every foundation. Any campaign with an end_date in the past (strictly less than today's date) is automatically flipped to Closed.

Some implications:

  • If you set an end date of 2026-06-30, the campaign will auto-close in the early hours of 2026-07-01.
  • Auto-close does not send a notification. If you need a final tally email, schedule a bulletin to land just before the end date.
  • A campaign with no end date will never auto-close — it stays Active indefinitely until you close it manually.
  • Auto-close only flips status. It does not refund donations, send receipts, or generate reports.

Closing manually vs auto-closing​

The two paths reach the same terminal state and behave identically afterward. Choose based on whether you have a hard deadline:

  • Manual close — best for short-fuse campaigns ("we hit our goal early, let's wrap"), board-driven sunsets, or any campaign without a fixed end date.
  • Auto-close via end date — best for time-boxed campaigns ("Annual Fund 2026, January 1 through June 30"). Set it and forget it; the system will close it on schedule.

You can also combine the two — set an end date as a safety net, and manually close earlier if needed.

What does not happen on close​

A few common misconceptions:

  • Donors are not notified. The public URL just starts returning 404.
  • Recurring pledges attributed to the campaign continue to bill. Recurring pledges live independently of campaigns; closing a campaign does not cancel its associated pledges. See recurring pledges for how to handle this.
  • Existing donations and receipts are untouched.
  • The campaign remains visible to admins in the Campaigns list under the Closed filter, and the detail page is still reachable for historical reporting.

Tips​

  • Stage in Draft. Get the description, hero image, and suggested amounts right before you flip to Active. Drafts are invisible to donors and to other admins who do not look at the Draft filter.
  • Use Internal for ledger campaigns. If your foundation receives grants or large gifts off-platform, create an Internal campaign per source so the totals show up in your reporting without ever creating a public URL.
  • Always pick a start and end date for time-boxed campaigns. It makes auto-close work and it shows a "days remaining" countdown on the detail page.
  • Don't delete — Close. Closing preserves the historical record. Delete is for campaigns you created by mistake and want gone from the list entirely.

Last verified against v0.62.1 (2026-05-10).