Declaring Campaign Results

When a campaign ends, the platform knows how much was collected — but announcing the outcome to backers is a deliberate decision staff make, not something that happens automatically the moment the end date passes. Ignition Crowdfunding separates ending a campaign, declaring its result, and closing it into distinct steps so you stay in control of when backers are notified.

The three milestones

Milestone	What it means	Who does it
Ended	The campaign has stopped accepting pledges (its end date passed, or staff ended it).	Automatic or staff
Result declared	Staff have reviewed the ended campaign and published its outcome, sending the outcome emails to backers.	Staff
Closed	Staff have judged the campaign wound up. Closing locks every campaign field and is the terminal state.	Staff

These often happen at different times — a campaign can sit ended-and-undeclared while you review it, and declared-but-not-yet-closed while you finish fulfillment or settle up with the creator. Declaring a result does not close the campaign, and it does not change the campaign’s status — the campaign stays Ended.

Closing is a record of your judgement, not a money movement: it does not pay a creator and does not disburse anything. Paying a creator out is a separate act — done outside the plugin, or recorded with the Ignition Payouts add-on — and it can happen before or after you close.

You don’t have to declare a result before closing. On an ended campaign with no recorded outcome, the campaign’s detail page offers Close beside Declare Result. Closing this way records no outcome and sends backers no outcome email. The confirmation box says so before you commit, and the status history records Closed without a recorded outcome. See Managing Campaigns.

Outcome Pending

Ended campaigns that have not had their result declared appear in an Outcome Pending view on the wp-admin Ignition → Campaigns list, with a badge on the menu drawing your attention to campaigns awaiting action. Use it as your queue: each campaign there is one you still need to declare.

Declaring a result

On an Ended campaign, choose Declare Result from the campaign’s row actions. The plugin computes the outcome itself from the money collected against the goal — you don’t choose the verdict:

Funding model	Outcome
Fixed (all-or-nothing)	Successful if the collected amount met the goal, otherwise Failed.
Flexible (keep what’s raised)	Funded — flexible campaigns keep their funds regardless of the goal.

Declaring the result:

• Sends the outcome email to every backer — Campaign Succeeded or Campaign Failed.
• Records the outcome on the campaign so it shows on the public page and feeds reporting.
• Can only be done once. Declaring again has no effect and does not re-send the emails.

Because the outcome is computed from the authoritative collected figure, it cannot be set by hand or forged through the public API.

Announcing a reached goal

A campaign that reaches its goal while still Active can have that milestone announced with the Announce Goal Reached action. This sends the goal-reached notification to backers once, and is likewise a deliberate staff action rather than an automatic one. It is separate from declaring the final result — a campaign can announce its goal mid-flight and have its result declared later when it ends.

Why this is manual

Declaring a result sends email to every backer on the campaign, so the plugin leaves the timing to you rather than firing the moment the clock runs out. It also lets you reconcile late offline payments before the outcome — and the backer emails — go out.

Related

• Campaign Lifecycle — The full campaign state machine and where Declare and Close sit.
• Managing Campaigns — The wp-admin Campaigns list and its row actions.
• Email Notifications — The outcome and goal emails that these actions send.
• Campaign Page — Progress bar — Pledged vs Collected, the figure the verdict is computed from.