Ignition Platform Mode
Ignition Platform Mode turns a single-owner Ignition Crowdfunding site into a multi-creator platform. Independent creators sign themselves up, run their own campaigns entirely from the frontend, and submit them for review — while staff keep oversight through an approval queue, and no creator ever needs access to wp-admin.
Ignition Platform Mode is a premium add-on. It requires Ignition Crowdfunding 0.23.0 or later to be installed and active. Once you activate it from the Plugins screen, the campaign creator role and its settings are available immediately.
Direct mode vs. platform mode
Section titled “Direct mode vs. platform mode”Without this add-on, Ignition Crowdfunding runs in direct mode: one organization crowdfunding its own projects, where staff author campaigns themselves. There are no outside creators and nothing to approve.
Activate Platform Mode when you want to open the site to outside creators. It adds everything needed to run campaigns on behalf of other people:
- a dedicated, non-admin campaign creator role,
- self-service registration for new creators,
- a frontend dashboard where each creator manages their own campaigns,
- an approval workflow so nothing goes live until you review it, and
- a wp-admin list of every creator and their activity.
The campaign creator role
Section titled “The campaign creator role”Platform Mode registers a Campaign Creator role. Creators work entirely on the frontend and are kept out of wp-admin — they never see the WordPress admin screens or toolbar. Each creator sees and manages only their own campaigns, updates, uploads, and backer data; one creator can never see or touch another’s. Creators can upload images (only image files are accepted) to illustrate their campaigns.
Self-service registration
Section titled “Self-service registration”With Platform Mode active and Public Campaign Creation switched on, anyone who registers from the frontend becomes a campaign creator and can start a campaign right away. Turn Public Campaign Creation off to keep sign-ups closed — new registrants become backers instead, and only staff author campaigns. When the add-on is not active, registration always creates backers.
Backers who decide to create
Section titled “Backers who decide to create”Someone who signed up to back a campaign, and later wants to run one, does not need to ask you. Their frontend dashboard’s Campaigns section ends with “Got something to fund?” and a Start a Campaign button. Pressing it grants them the creator role alongside what they already have and drops them straight into the campaign wizard — they keep their pledge history and their account.
The offer appears only while Public Campaign Creation is on, and only to someone who has never held creator access before. Revoking a creator’s access therefore sticks: they cannot hand it back to themselves.
The button is withheld until the person has proven the email address is theirs, because a creator can publish and take money:
- A guest — someone whose account was created from an email typed at checkout — is offered Claim Your Account instead.
- A registered account with a verification still outstanding is told to verify the email address first.
Both are the same account either way; only the button changes.
The creator dashboard
Section titled “The creator dashboard”Each creator gets a Campaigns section in their frontend dashboard listing every campaign they have created — drafts included — newest first. Each card shows a thumbnail, a progress bar, and a status badge, with the right action for its state: Edit for a draft, Edit & Resubmit for a rejected campaign, or Manage for one that is live. Campaigns awaiting review show “This campaign is awaiting admin approval,” and rejected ones explain that the reviewer requested changes. A Start a Campaign button sits at the bottom.
The campaign wizard, the per-campaign management view, and the account and pledge screens all come from Ignition Crowdfunding itself — Platform Mode adds the creator’s campaign roster on top of them.
Reviewing and approving submissions
Section titled “Reviewing and approving submissions”When Campaign Moderation is on, creators submit campaigns and updates for review instead of publishing them directly, and you approve or reject each one from wp-admin. See Reviewing submissions for the full workflow.
Closing a campaign
Section titled “Closing a campaign”Ended and Closed are two different milestones. Closing is the terminal state staff set once a campaign is wound up, and it locks the campaign: the campaign form becomes read-only, and a creator who opens it is told “This campaign is closed. No further changes can be made.”
Platform Mode emails the creator when that happens. The message names the campaign, gives the final amount raised, and links to it — and it says only that the campaign is closed and its details are final. Closing a campaign moves no money. If you collect pledges yourself, paying your creators out is a separate step; see Ignition Payouts.
See Campaign Lifecycle for where Closed sits among the other statuses, and Email Notifications for turning the message on or off.
Managing creators
Section titled “Managing creators”Platform Mode adds a Creators list under Ignition → Creators in wp-admin, where you can review every creator alongside their campaign and pledge activity. See The Creators list.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”Platform Mode’s settings live under Ignition → Settings → Add-ons → Platform Mode (you can also reach them from the Settings link on the Ignition Platform Mode row of the Plugins screen). There are three:
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Who Receives Pledges | Whether backers’ money comes to you or goes straight to each campaign’s creator. Defaults to the platform. Only administrators see and change this one. See below. |
| Public Campaign Creation | Whether visitors can register as campaign creators from the frontend. On by default. When off, new registrants become backers only. |
| Campaign Moderation | Whether campaigns and updates need approval before they go live (Require approval before campaigns go live). On by default. When off, creators publish directly. |
Administrators and operators can both change Public Campaign Creation and Campaign Moderation. Who Receives Pledges is for administrators only: operators do not see it, and saving the page as an operator leaves it as it was.
Who receives pledges
Section titled “Who receives pledges”This is the money question, and it has two answers:
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| The platform (default) | You collect every pledge and pay your creators out yourself, on whatever terms you agree with them. |
| Each creator | Pledges go straight to the campaign’s creator. Nothing passes through your account. |
It applies to every payment method at once, not one at a time. That is the point of it being here rather than on each method’s screen: “who gets the money” is a fact about how your platform works, and a site where PayPal pays creators but offline payments come to you is a site nobody can reason about.
Each method’s settings screen then follows the choice rather than asking again:
- Offline drops its single site-wide payment-instructions field when creators collect — one set of bank details written by you would send every backer’s money to the wrong account. Each creator writes their own instead. See Offline payments.
- PayPal shows only the credentials the choice needs: Merchant keys when you collect, Platform keys and your Account ID when creators do.
- Platform Fees warns you if you have a commission configured while pledges come to you — a commission is taken out of a pledge as it is split to a creator, so with nothing being split there is nothing to take a cut of.
Money you are holding
Section titled “Money you are holding”When you collect, an offline payment is recorded as money you are holding on the creator’s behalf — written at the moment you confirm the payment arrived, and not rewritten afterwards. Changing who receives pledges therefore applies to payments recorded from then on and leaves what you have already collected alone.
That record is what the Ignition Payouts add-on reads to work out what each creator is owed. Ignition Payouts requires Platform Mode 0.4.0 or later.
What switching would turn off
Section titled “What switching would turn off”Changing who receives pledges can switch other settings off, so the screen says which ones before you commit. Underneath the setting sits a note headed Choosing “Each creator” will turn these off: — or Choosing “The platform” will turn these off:, whichever choice you have not made. It lists each affected setting by the name its own screen gives it, with a short reason.
It ends with the part that matters most: your settings are kept and start working again if you switch back. Nothing is erased by switching, so trying the other answer and changing your mind costs you nothing.
The entries come from your other add-ons, and each names only something that is working on your site right now:
- Contributions names the backer options that would stop working. Add a Tip and Cover the Platform Fee both need pledges to go to each creator, so central collection ends them.
- Platform Fees names your commission, when one is configured and collecting today, for the reason above: with nothing being split, there is nothing to take a cut of.
A setting you have already switched off is not listed, and neither is one that is not working for some other reason. If nothing on your site would be affected, no note appears at all.
Related
Section titled “Related”- Reviewing submissions — the campaign and update approval workflow.
- The Creators list — the wp-admin roster of creators and their activity.
- Offline payments — letting creators collect and confirm their own offline pledges.
- Ignition Payouts — paying creators the money you are holding for them. Requires Platform Mode 0.4.0 or later.
- Administration → Add-ons — managing add-ons and reaching their settings.
- Campaign Lifecycle — the campaign statuses, including the review states this add-on adds.
- Ignition Platform Mode developer reference — the hooks this add-on exposes.