Public vs. private registration: What's the difference?

Learn how to choose the peer-to-peer fundraising registration option that best meets your needs.

When using MemberHub peer-to-peer fundraising features in your experience, you'll have the option to choose between public and private registration for your participants and teams. 

Each option provides a unique experience for your participants and teams. Use this article to make an informed decision to fit your fundraising objectives when choosing public or private registration. 

Public registration

With the public registration option, anyone can register as a participant or team from your fundraising page. The workflow for participants to sign up when public registration is enabled will be as follows:

1. During setup, you'll create one or more registration options. For example, you might include the option to sign up as a single participant, register a team, or both. 
2. When someone visits your participant center page, they’ll choose a registration option to sign up as a participant or to register a team.

It’s that simple! Public registration is the best choice when you don't want to limit any audiences from signing up for your fundraiser. In other words, if you want anyone to be able to participate in your experience, choose public registration.

Private registration

Private registration limits participation to only the individuals and/or teams that you specifically add to your experience. With private registration, it will not be possible for someone to visit your participant center and sign up (as we have shown above). Keep in mind that this does not impose a limitation on who can donate to your experience; it only limits who can create their own personal fundraising page (team, individual, or both) based on the parties you have approved.

The private registration option is best for limiting participation to only a specific group of people, such as a list of students, employees, or other group. 

For this reason, private registration is commonly used for school fundraisers and employee giving experiences. For example, with a school fundraiser, you can upload a list of students and classes. Enabling private fundraising will ensure only the students and classes you’ve added will be listed as participants or teams on your fundraising page. 

Click here to learn how to add participants.

Good to know

• You can always add or import participants and teams manually, regardless of whether you have chosen public or private registration for your experience. 
• You can add and import participants or teams both before and after your experience is published. 
• Including an email address for the participants will allow them to create an account and edit their personal fundraising page. Anytime a donation is credited to them, they will receive an email notification.

Other articles you may find helpful:

Can participants and teams customize their fundraising page?