Fundraiser Moderation: Approval & Smart Fundraiser Protection (Admins)
CrowdChange provides two complementary systems to help you manage fundraiser quality and prevent spam on your site:
Fundraiser Approval (manual review)
Smart Fundraiser Protection (automated safeguards)
Together, these tools help you balance control, security, and fundraiser speed.
1. Overview
When a fundraiser is created on your site, it may either:
Go live instantly, or
Be placed in Pending Approval for review
This outcome depends on:
Your Fundraiser Approval setting, and
Whether the fundraiser is flagged by Smart Fundraiser Protection
2. Understanding Fundraiser Approval
Fundraiser Approval is a setting that allows your team to manually review and approve all fundraisers before they go live.
When Approval is Enabled
All new fundraisers are placed in Pending Approval
Fundraisers cannot accept donations until approved
When Approval is Disabled
Fundraisers typically go live instantly
Only flagged fundraisers (see below) require approval
Benefits of Fundraiser Approval
Full control over fundraiser content
Ensures alignment with your organization’s brand and policies
Useful for regulated or high-visibility campaigns
Considerations
Introduces delays before fundraisers can begin
Requires active monitoring by your team
May impact fundraiser momentum and participation
3. What is Smart Fundraiser Protection?
Smart Fundraiser Protection is an automated system that reviews fundraisers at the time of creation to help prevent spam and suspicious activity.
What it does
Automatically evaluates fundraisers using a combination of signals, including:
Content quality (e.g., titles and descriptions)
Account credibility
Email verification status
What happens next
Most fundraisers → go live instantly
Suspicious fundraisers → are flagged and placed in Pending Approval
This ensures that:
Legitimate fundraisers are not delayed
Potentially risky fundraisers are reviewed before going live
4. How These Systems Work Together
Configuration | Outcome |
|---|---|
Approval OFF | Most fundraisers go live instantly; flagged fundraisers require approval |
Approval ON | All fundraisers require approval before going live |
Smart Fundraiser Protection is always active and works in the background.
5. Email Verification & Account Settings
Requiring verified accounts to activate fundraisers
By default, a fundraiser must have a verified email address before it can go live. This helps keep spam and fake accounts off your site. You can control this behavior in Admin → General Settings with the setting:
“Users must have verified accounts to activate fundraisers.”
Enabled (default): A new fundraiser stays inactive until its owner verifies their email. The owner sees a “verify your email” prompt with the option to resend the verification email.
Disabled: New fundraisers can activate immediately without waiting for email verification. A verification email is still sent and the prompt still appears, but it no longer blocks the fundraiser from going live. Ownership reassignments also take effect immediately, without requiring the new owner to verify or accept.
Disabling this setting only affects the email-verification step. Smart Fundraiser Protection’s spam and content safeguards stay active at all times. This option is most useful for organizations that create or reassign fundraisers on behalf of their participants.
Assigning a fundraiser owner (admin-created fundraisers)
When an admin creates a fundraiser, you can set a Fundraiser owner by entering that person’s email (and name, if they’re a new user). The fundraiser owner is set as the banking owner for that fundraiser when user-level banking is used.
6. Why a Fundraiser May Be Inactive
An inactive fundraiser is not visible and cannot accept donations. The platform distinguishes between the common reasons so you can resolve them quickly:
Pending approval — awaiting manual review (see below)
Banking not set up — the fundraiser’s banking details are incomplete
Unverified account — when the verified-accounts setting is enabled, the owner has not yet verified their email
7. Why a Fundraiser May Require Approval
A fundraiser may appear in Pending Approval for several reasons:
Your organization has Fundraiser Approval enabled
The fundraiser was flagged by Smart Fundraiser Protection, due to:
Suspicious or inappropriate content
Low-confidence user information
Lack of verified email
8. How to Approve or Reject a Fundraiser
If a fundraiser requires approval, follow these steps:
Go to the Browse Fundraisers page on your site
Click Show All, then select Pending Approval
Click on the fundraiser you want to review
Click Manage Fundraiser in the top right corner
(Optional) Review and update fundraiser details before approval
Click Approve to make the fundraiser live
To reject a fundraiser:
Click Reject (this will remove the fundraiser from your site)
Note: Once approved, a fundraiser can begin accepting donations immediately.
9. Best Practices
Review pending fundraisers regularly to avoid delays for legitimate users
Consider setting an internal response time (e.g., within 24 hours)
If you prioritize speed, consider keeping Approval OFF and relying on Smart Fundraiser Protection
Use Approval ON for campaigns requiring strict oversight
10. Frequently Asked Questions
Why did one fundraiser go live instantly and another require approval?
This is expected behavior. Fundraisers that meet quality and trust checks go live instantly, while others may be flagged for review.
Can I disable Smart Fundraiser Protection?
The spam and content safeguards (such as blocking inappropriate titles and flagging suspicious content) are platform-level and cannot be turned off. However, you can control the email-verification requirement: the “Users must have verified accounts to activate fundraisers” setting in Admin → General Settings lets you choose whether fundraisers must have a verified email before they go live. Disabling that setting does not turn off spam protection — it only allows fundraisers to activate before email verification.
What does the “verified accounts” setting do?
When enabled (the default), a fundraiser must have a verified email before it can go live. When disabled, fundraisers can activate immediately and ownership reassignments take effect right away — useful if your team creates or reassigns fundraisers on behalf of your participants. The verification email is still sent either way.
What happens if I don’t approve a fundraiser?
The fundraiser will remain in Pending Approval and will not be visible or accept donations.
Can I edit a fundraiser before approving it?
Yes. You can review and update fundraiser details before approving.
What happens when I reject a fundraiser?
Rejecting a fundraiser removes it from your site. This action cannot be undone.
11. Additional Notes
In some cases, fundraisers can only be edited from the site where they were created
For example, if a child site (sub-site) uses custom questions, you may be redirected to that site to make edits
If a fundraiser is mistakenly approved, you can close it using:
How to Reopen or Close a Fundraiser
12. Summary
CrowdChange’s fundraiser moderation system is designed to:
Keep fundraiser creation fast and accessible
Reduce spam and malicious activity
Give your team flexible control when needed
By combining Smart Fundraiser Protection with optional Fundraiser Approval — and the ability to control email-verification requirements — you can tailor the right balance for your organization.