FAQ

This page is the fastest way to get oriented before you dive into the full docs.

Last Updated

May 29, 2026

Common Questions

What is The Pool?

The Pool is an all-or-nothing crowdfunding platform for film, media, and other artist-driven projects. It is designed to feel lightweight for supporters while still giving maintainers real infrastructure for pledges, fulfillment, and ongoing updates.

For the full public framing, read About The Pool.

How does all-or-nothing pledging work?

Supporters make pledges during a campaign window, but cards are only charged if the campaign reaches its goal. If the goal is not met, the campaign closes without collecting funds.

That supporter-facing explanation lives in About The Pool, and the implementation details live in Workflows.

Do supporters need an account?

No. The Pool is intentionally account-light. Supporters manage pledges through secure email magic links instead of usernames and passwords.

If you want the technical version of that flow, go from Project Overview to Workflows and then Pledge Worker.

After a pledge is created, the Worker sends the supporter a scoped token link that lets them view, modify, or cancel that pledge without a traditional account system. The browser never becomes the source of truth for pledge state.

Read About The Pool for the plain-language explanation and Workflows plus Security Guide for the engineering model.

Who is The Pool for?

It is built for creators who want direct campaign support without turning the experience into a conventional account-heavy commerce platform. It is also designed so forks can adapt the system to other branded crowdfunding projects.

The public context is in About The Pool, and the fork-facing customization surface is in Customization Guide.

How is it built?

The Pool combines Jekyll, Cloudflare Workers, Stripe, Podman, and GitHub Pages into a stack that stays relatively simple to reason about while still supporting real pledge flows.

Start with Platform Overview and Project Overview for the system map.

Is it open source?

Yes. The Pool is open source and documented for contributors, maintainers, and forks.

  1. Platform Overview for product scope, stack, and deployment shape.
  2. Project Overview for the system map and architecture boundaries.
  3. Workflows for pledge lifecycle, state, and Worker routes.
  4. Pledge Worker for secrets, KV setup, and API endpoints.
  5. Admin Dashboard when you are editing campaigns, settings, add-ons, reports, analytics, marketing links, media, or users.
  6. Testing Guide before shipping any behavioral change.

Browse By Section

Start with the section that matches the kind of work you are doing:

  • Overview for public-facing context, platform framing, and policy pages.
  • Development for contributor setup, architecture, customization, embeds, localization, and extension work.
  • Operations for Worker setup, local environments, shipping, security, accessibility, SEO, and merge readiness.
  • Reference for release notes, roadmap context, and shared process templates.