A fundraiser is an event built around raising money rather than selling seats — flower stands, group gifts, equipment funds, a guest's travel costs, anything anchored to your event. Attendees donate instead of RSVP, and you get a live progress bar toward a goal plus a public donor wall. Everything else — check-in, payments, your hosting hub — works the same as a standard event.
Stripe is required
You can't create a fundraiser until Stripe is connected and identity verification is finished. Pick "Fundraiser" without Stripe connected and you'll see a warning blocking publish until it's done. Two reasons:
- Identity verification. Stripe covers the KYC/AML check and gives you a real chargeback/fraud path — something a stack of Venmo screenshots can't.
- Anonymous donations. Card is the only way to give anonymously (see below), and that only works through Stripe.
Stripe doesn't have to be your only method — you can still offer Venmo, Zelle, or any other method alongside it. It just has to be on.
Creating one
At the top of event creation there's a "What are you creating?" selector — pick Fundraiser instead of Standard event. This swaps RSVP language for donation language across the public page, and if you list the event in Discover it's auto-tagged under the Fundraising category. The rest of the create form is the same as any other event.
A fundraiser ignores the base Price field entirely — money comes either from Donation options (one row per cause or set amount), optional add-ons, or a simple name-your-amount donation, not a flat ticket price.
Donation options and add-ons
On a fundraiser the ticket-tier section becomes Donation options. Add one row per cause (e.g. two separate flower stands) or per set amount (Bronze / Silver / Gold) — donors pick one or several at checkout. Add-ons are extras on top of a donation (merch, perks); don't use them for separate causes. Every option and add-on doubles as a fundraising bucket with three extra controls beyond price:
- What this funds (optional) — a short label (e.g. "Covers venue rental for the night") shown on the donate form, the progress bar, and the donor wall. Leave it blank and the bucket's name is used instead.
- Goal (optional) — a per-bucket target. Set one and a progress bar appears for that bucket. No goal means no bar for it, but it still counts toward your overall total raised.
- Accept custom amount (fill-in) — lets donors name their own amount instead of paying the fixed price, with optional Min/Max bounds.
Options aren't tickets — nobody is buying a seat. Name them after what the money is for, and donors pick and give.
Simple fundraiser (no options)
If you don't need separate causes or amounts, turn on "Let donors choose how much to give" in the price area. This gives you a single name-your-amount Donation amount field with an optional Min, Max, and Goal — no tiers required. The moment you add a donation option or add-on, this choice gets replaced by those buckets instead.
Stop accepting at goal (hard cap)
Any bucket with a goal set gets a "Stop accepting at goal" toggle:
- Off (default) — keeps accepting past the goal. Overfunding is fine.
- On — the bucket closes once verified donations hit the goal, and it shows a "Goal reached · closed" badge.
This is per-bucket, so you can cap one donation option while leaving others open.
What donors see
A headline "$X raised" total, plus — for every bucket that has a goal — a two-segment progress bar: emerald for verified donations, grey for ones still pending review or Stripe confirmation. The bar itself is capped at the goal, but the headline percentage can go over 100% once a bucket is overfunded.
Below that sits a Donors wall listing every verified donation: name, amount, an optional message (up to 280 characters), and a relative timestamp. It's visible to signed-in attendees under the same "Show attendees" visibility rule you already use for the guest list.
Anonymous donations are card-only. If a donor pays by Stripe they can check a box to keep their name and amount off the public wall and out of your view. Manual methods (Venmo, cash, etc.) can't be anonymous — you need a visible name to match the payment to the donation.
Moderating donor messages
You and your co-hosts can Hide any donor message you'd rather not have public — the donation itself still counts toward the total, only the message drops off the public wall. Hidden messages still show to you, greyed out, with an Unhide button if you change your mind.
Donation receipts
Donors get an itemized receipt (donation amount + processing fee + total) by email and on their /my-rsvps page, framed as a donation rather than a QR ticket — there's no ticket to scan for a pure donation.
Important: these are payment receipts, not charitable tax receipts. They explicitly state the contribution is not tax-deductible and doesn't qualify as a 501(c)(3) charitable donation. Offkai is a platform, not a registered charity — don't imply otherwise to your donors.
Related
- Donating to a fundraiser — what the donor sees on the other side of this flow.
- Ticket tiers & promo codes — the same tier/add-on building blocks, for standard (non-fundraiser) events.