Friends & Family Pre-Funding, sometimes called Instant Fundraising, is an early fundraising period before your project is officially approved.
As soon as you submit a project for screening, you can start spreading the word to your friends and family to jumpstart funding for your project! In the meantime, our team will review your project and make sure it fits our guidelines. Any donations you receive during Friends and Family Pre-Funding will be applied directly to your project once it’s approved.
How can I share my project?
You can share via email, Facebook, Twitter -- any way you’d like! The easiest way to share your project is to use the share buttons on the left side of your project page.
What happens if my project doesn’t pass screening?
If our team needs a little help from you to get your project in shape, we’ll email you so you can make any required edits. After the edits are made, you’ll submit the project again. Your friends and family will still be able to donate throughout this process, though their donations will only be applied to your project after it has been approved.
How are pre-funding donations I receive applied to my project?
While your project is in the pre-funding stage, donations will not appear on your project. Once your project is approved and available to the public on DonorsChoose, any donations you received during pre-funding will be automatically applied to the project by our system - there is no action needed from you. This process may take up to 10 minutes. You can see all of the pre-funding donations you received on the “donations I’ve received” section of your teacher account.
If your project is eligible for a Double Your Impact funding offer at the time it is approved, your pre-funding donations will also be matched at the time they're applied to your project.
What happens to these donations if my project isn’t funded?
Any pre-funding donations that were applied to your project will go back into your account as credits, which you can use toward another project.
Pre-funding donations that were not applied to your project (this may happen if you received more funding than the cost of your project) will also be deposited into your account as credits, which you can redeem on another project.