Most school groups already run the car wash, the restaurant night, the cookie dough sale. A private request is something you add when one specific thing needs paying for and the calendar has run out.
Mrs. Alvarez's fourth-grade class has a science museum trip in May. The bus and entry come to $980, and the school covers the chaperones but not the transport. A third of the families can't send the money in, and the office won't book a bus that isn't paid for. The PTA already did the fall fundraiser; the spring one is in April and the deposit is due April 15.
She doesn't need a new fundraising program. She needs $980 by the fifteenth.
A restaurant night brings in the families who show up on a Tuesday. A product sale reaches the ones who want the cookie dough. A request reaches the people who would have given anyway if someone had just asked them directly — the grandparents two states away, the family that can't make Tuesday, the former teacher who still gets the newsletter.
It also behaves differently from both:
| What the group keeps | 100% of every contribution. The 6.9% fee is added at checkout and paid by the contributor, not taken out of what you receive. |
| When it arrives | Standard payouts reach the bank in 2-3 business days. |
| Who sees it | Only the people you send the link to, unless you choose to make it public. Nothing is listed or searchable by default. |
That last one matters more for a school than most places. A public campaign naming a class and the families who couldn't pay stays searchable long after the trip.
Nothing to create a request. Nothing to send it. The only fee is the 6.9% a contributor pays on top of their own contribution — so a $100 contribution costs the giver $106.90 and your group receives $100.00.
It's built for one specific thing with a number on it. A bus, a set of uniforms, a deposit with a date. The clearer the thing, the easier it is for someone to say yes to.
It works through your own list. Email addresses and phone numbers for your families — that's the one thing you need, and most groups already have it.
Contributions start at $100. That's the scale this is built for: a grandparent covering a child's seat on the bus, two families splitting the entry fees. Ten people, and a $980 trip is paid for.
Keep running them. They do something a request doesn't — they put people in a room together.
A request is what you reach for when one of these is already scheduled and something still needs paying for before it happens.
