The Practiceathon Fundraising Extension
The Practiceathon fundraising extension lets supporters back students with immediate donations or per minute pledges. Donations go directly to your school's Stripe account — Octavia sits in between only to record the tra
The Two Fundraising Options
When fundraising is enabled, supporters visiting a student's public page can choose how to support them:
Donate now — the supporter enters an amount and pays immediately via Stripe-hosted checkout. The donation is confirmed as soon as payment succeeds, the student's fundraising total updates, and a receipt is emailed to the donor.
Pledge — the supporter commits to donating a set rate per practice minute — for example, $1 per minute, with an optional cap of $50. No payment is taken at pledge time. The actual amount is calculated at the end of the campaign based on the student's final practice total, and donors are contacted afterwards to complete payment.
Supporters can also donate multiple times. Each Donate Now payment is a separate transaction. Pledges are unique per donor per student — a supporter can only have one active pledge for a given student in a given campaign.
How Donate Now Works
When a supporter clicks Donate now on a student's page, they enter an amount and are redirected to a secure Stripe-hosted checkout page. They complete payment there as a guest — no Octavia account needed.
Once the payment succeeds:
- the donation is confirmed and recorded in Octavia
- the student's fundraising total updates immediately
- a receipt is generated and emailed to the donor automatically
From the supporter's perspective this is a standard online payment — similar to any other Stripe checkout. From your perspective it's zero-touch once the campaign is set up.
Where the Money Goes
Practiceathon donations go directly to your school's connected Stripe account. Octavia handles the transaction record and keeps totals in sync, but your school is the merchant of record — the funds settle into your school's bank account on Stripe's normal payout schedule, not into Octavia.
This means:
- supporters are paying your school, not Octavia
- payout timing is set by Stripe (typically a few business days)
- your school handles refunds through your own Stripe account
- your school is responsible for distributing the funds in the way they were published to donors
Donation Receipts
Donors receive a receipt automatically after a successful payment. The receipt is generated as a PDF, attached to an email, and sent to the donor's email address. It includes the student's name, campaign name, amount paid, and a receipt reference.
The receipt is also available via a public link (included in the email) that the donor can share or return to at any time. No login is required to view a receipt.
The Fundraising Dashboard
The Fundraising tab in the Practiceathon detail view gives you a real-time view of all fundraising activity across the campaign. For each enrolled student you can see:
- all donations made (donor name, amount, date)
- all pledges committed (donor name, rate, cap, pledge collection status)
- running totals per student and across the campaign
The tab also shows campaign-level summary figures: total Donate Now income, total pledge settlements received, and the amount still outstanding from uncollected pledges.
Refunds
If a donation needs to be refunded, handle this in your school's Stripe account. After the refund is processed in Stripe, Octavia detects the refund via webhook and removes that donation from the campaign's active totals automatically. You don't need to do anything in Octavia after initiating the refund in Stripe.
Before You Enable Fundraising
In the Practiceathon settings, enabling fundraising also reveals two additional fields: the fundraising goal (optional) and the donations accepted until date. Set the donations accepted date to a few weeks after your campaign end date to leave time for pledge collection.
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