Getting started on SmartChange is fast. Before you begin, have your EIN/Tax ID, legal business name, and banking information handy — these will need to match your organizational and banking paperwork exactly.

Create an Account

1. Go to smartchange.app and click Create an Account in the top right corner.
2. Enter your name and email address.
3. Check your email for a verification code and enter it to confirm your account.

That's it — you're in! Your next step is to create a campaign.

A campaign on SmartChange is your entire fundraising operation — it's the home for all your fundraisers, events, donor data, and settings. Anyone can create one: candidates, campaign staff, advocacy organizations, consultants, and agencies managing multiple clients.

Create a Fundraising Campaign

1. Log in at smartchange.app.
2. Click Add Campaign.
3. Enter your campaign name, primary email, phone number, campaign type, and location.
4. Click Continue.

Your campaign is created! The next step is to link your bank account so you can start collecting donations.

Link Your Bank + Verify Your Account

Once you've created a campaign, you'll need to connect a bank account through Stripe before you can access donations. You can complete this step right away or return to it later from your dashboard — but keep in mind, donations will not be accessible until verification is complete.

To get started:

1. Log in, click your campaign from the dashboard, then click Start Verification.
2. You'll be redirected to Stripe. You'll see a message that says "Level Wins partners with Stripe for secure payments." Level Wins is SmartChange's parent company — this is expected.
3. Follow the Stripe prompts to verify your account.

What you'll need:

If you have an EIN:

• Location
• Business type
• Legal business name
• Date of birth (for the business representative)
• Physical street address
• Last four digits of SSN
• Phone number
• Online banking credentials, or routing & account number

If you don't have an EIN:

• Location
• Business type
• Legal business name
• Date of birth
• Physical street address
• Full SSN (and possibly a state-issued ID)
• Phone number
• Online banking credentials, or routing & account number

Choosing your business type

This is an important step — choose carefully:

• Non-profit — Use this if you have an EIN. This covers 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4)s, PACs, trade associations, 527s, unions, and most political campaigns and parties.
• Individual — Use this if you don't have an EIN and are operating as a private individual.
• Company — Use this only if your organization is structured as an LLC.

Choosing your industry

For candidates and PACs (with or without an EIN): type political organization and select it when it appears.
For trade associations or unions: type civic organization and choose the appropriate option.

Setting your payout schedule

We recommend choosing Automatic payouts so your funds move on a set schedule and your payout reports are batched together. If you prefer manual payouts, you'll need to log back in to Stripe each time to initiate a transfer — and manual payouts don't generate batch reports.

Troubleshooting tips

Your account name in SmartChange must exactly match the name on your Stripe account and your organizational paperwork.

If you don't have a website, you can use a properly formatted social media profile URL (Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram). Include the full URL with www. and .com.

If you accidentally selected the wrong business type, you can fix it: log in to stripe.com, click the Settings gear in the upper right, then go to Business Settings → More → Tax Information to update your selection.

Create Your Conduit Form

SmartChange allows you to be part of conduit fundraising. Setting up a page is simple and takes just a few seconds.

1. Log in and click into your active campaign.
2. In the campaign dashboard, click Conduits, then pick Candidates (even if you are an organization).
3. Fill out the required information.
4. Set your privacy mode to Hidden
5. Click Add Candidate.
6. Click Share, then copy the URL, generate a QR code, or use an automated social share button to get it out there.

Hit save & let your conduit fundraiser know you're all set!

Questions? Email us at support@smartchange.app.

Updated on: 24/06/2026