All About Pledges

The per-goal pledge model is the bread and butter of Prideraiser fundraising. Let's talk about it.

Pledges per goal

Our fundraising model is based on fans making a pledge per goal scored by your team during the campaign. For example, if your team scores 5 goals during the campaign, a fan's $5-per-goal pledge means they'll be directed to donate $25 at its conclusion. This pledge model is effective at raising significant money for beneficiary organizations, and fans consistently report that celebrating goals with a good deed attached feels even better.

Editing Pledges

Pledges can be changed at any time during the campaign, even right before a donation is completed. Fans receive an edit link along with their pledge confirmation message. Fans may also edit current pledges through their Prideraiser profile by logging in using the email address associated with their pledge (even if they have not created an account before). If you get a question from a fan, direct them to one of those two places.

Pledge Admin

The Prideraiser Admin interface lists a history of pledges for all of your Prideraiser campaigns in a big table. This data can be sorted and filtered, and there's a bar at the top that you can use to search for pledges by name or email. From time to time, you may need to use this interface to provide support to a fan. Notably, the "Pledge URL" field at the bottom contains a link that they can use to edit the value of their pledge, and "Source" shows any analytics information. If you need to delete a pledge, please contact a Prideraiser volunteer on Slack and we will help.

Selecting Random Pledges

From time to time, a SG may want to select a random pledge as an example for some publication, to thank the fan, or for a random drawing for a prize. The Prideraiser admin interface can facilitate this operation by performing the following steps:

1. Use whatever filters and sorting necessary to list the eligible pledges (e.g., from the current campaign only)
2. Select checkboxes next to the pledges you wish to use* as the population to select randomly from or the "select all" checkbox** at the top
3. Choose the "Select random pledge" option from the dropdown action menu at the top and click the "Go" button
4. The browser will redirect to a random pledge form from the population of pledges you selected in step 2, with a banner at the top
5. A message will be posted to the SG channel on Prideraiser Slack

!!Notice!!: Check the applicable laws in your state before using Prideraiser data for any contest or sweepstakes. (We don't want to get in trouble, and we don't want you to get in trouble.)

*You may want to exclude certain pledges from the population on purpose, like your campaign admins, to avoid accusations of unfairness

**Pay attention to the "Select all" link that appears at the top for lists that include more than 100 pledges

Exporting Pledge Data

Are you trying to select a random pledge? We have a feature to do exactly that and prefer you use it!

Several admins have requested contact lists/pledge data to reach out to donors with some special notice about their Prideraiser campaign. By popular demand, this data can now be exported in CSV format from the Prideraiser admin interface by performing the following steps:

1. Select a single campaign from the filters in the Pledges admin menu (on the right of the page when using a desktop browser, at the bottom when using a mobile browser)
2. Select checkboxes next to the pledges you wish to use as the population to select randomly from or the "select all" checkbox* at the top
3. Choose the "Export pledge data" option from the dropdown action menu at the top and click the "Go" button

!!Notice!!: Pledge-related data may only be used to contact someone about Prideraiser. Other uses may violate the Prideraiser terms of service (and make our volunteers very upset with you). Please keep Prideraiser export files under tight control and delete them as soon as they are no longer needed.

In the future, we may add the option for fans who pledge to opt-in to releasing their emails to you for other purposes, like being added to a mailing list for your supporters group, but that is NOT currently supported.

*Pay attention to the "Select all" link that appears at the top for lists that include more than 100 pledges

Slack #pledges Channel

As a local Prideraiser organizer, you will see live alerts as pledges are made on the #pledges channel and SG channel on the Prideraiser Slack workspace. Each alert includes the analytics source, if any, and a big friendly "View in Admin" button to view the pledge details in the Prideraiser Admin interface.  There's also a "Compose Tweet" button to open Twitter with some simple copy that you can post immediately or edit first.

Suspicious/Large Pledges

Occasionally, a fan may not understand the Prideraiser per-goal pledge model and think they are making a single, flat donation. Such a scenario can often, but not always, be identified when a fan makes a pledge of some unusually high value, usually more than $25/goal. It is best for your campaign, your selected charity, Prideraiser itself (including all of our other campaigns), and especially the fan that this be remedied as soon as possible. Receiving a surprise "bill" for several hundred dollars may give that fan a poor impression of Prideraiser and of your SG. When such a pledge is made, a To-Do task is created for campaign admins in the Prideraiser Dashboard and you should check the details in the admin. Unless it is from team ownership, a sponsor, or some other well-to-do individual, it may be a mistake.

We recommend local campaign organizers reach out to fans who make suspicious/large pledges. You should: thank them for their support, educate them on the per-goal pledge model, and remind them that there is a link in the pledge confirmation message they received from Prideraiser that can be used to edit their pledge at any time until the campaign is complete. Or they can go to https://prideraiser.org/profile and log in with the same email address they pledged with and edit it there.

Organizers, do you have examples of messages you have sent to fans in this scenario? Share them with us, and we will publish them alongside this guidance.

Contacting Donors

Prideraiser will handle contacting fans that pledged to your campaign with instructions on completing their donation. Our default contact schedule is based on our experience and best practices from the fundraising sphere. If you have a special request or need a special accomodation, please reach out to a Prideraiser volunteer on Prideraiser Slack.

Note: For any non-June Prideraiser campaign, please reach out to a Prideraiser volunteer on Prideraiser Slack to set up a donor contact schedule.