Setting up FundDriveGo in one afternoon
The setup itself takes minutes. The waiting — for Stripe, then for a compliance review — is what actually determines your timeline. Here's the real sequence, so you're not stuck idle for either one.
There are really only two things that take real time when setting up FundDriveGo, and neither of them is filling out a form. The first is Stripe verifying your school's bank account. The second is FundDriveGo's own compliance review, which runs independently of Stripe's. Everything else — creating your account, building your first campaign, adding your roster — takes minutes and can happen in parallel with both of those, if you sequence it right.
Step 1: create your account (no password, ever)
Registration asks for your organization's name and your email — nothing else. There's no password to invent or forget: every sign-in works by emailing you a one-time link. That link also confirms your email is real, which is the first thing both Stripe and FundDriveGo's own review will check for later.
Step 2: start Stripe Connect — this is the step to do first
From the dashboard's Stripe Connect page, one button hands you off to Stripe's own hosted verification flow. This is the step to start immediately, before you've even built a campaign, because it's the one with a real waiting period — Stripe needs your organization's basic business details and a real bank account, and identity verification can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of business days depending on how quickly your bank confirms things on their end.
| What Stripe actually needs from you | |
|---|---|
| Organization details | Legal name, address, and what kind of group you are (school, PTA, booster club, district) |
| Bank account | Where payouts will land — this has to be a real, verifiable account, not a placeholder |
| A person to vouch for it | Whoever's authorized to represent the organization financially |
Step 3: FundDriveGo's own review runs at the same time
Separately from Stripe, every new organization also goes through a routine FundDriveGo compliance check before its first campaign can go live — confirming this is a real school-affiliated group, not a business Stripe restricts. This isn't sequential with Stripe's review; it runs in parallel, and most organizations clear both within a few business days of registering.
Step 4: don't wait idle — build the campaign now
This is the part people miss: you don't need either approval to finish before you start building. Create your campaign, write the story, set the goal and end date, upload a cover photo, and add your roster while Stripe and compliance work in the background. The publish button simply won't do anything until both are done — but everything else about the campaign can be entirely finished and waiting the moment they are.
- Have ready before you start: your bank account and routing number, a specific dollar goal tied to a real cost ("$2,000 for 20 jerseys" beats a round guess), and a cover photo.
- Start Stripe Connect the same day you register — it's the long pole, so starting it first is the single biggest thing you control over your own timeline.
- Build the campaign in draft while you wait. A campaign that's fully built and just waiting on approval publishes the moment it clears; one you haven't started yet adds days on top of the review time.
The form takes ten minutes. The bank does not care that you're in a hurry.
Every treasurer who's ever set up a payment account