Useful information for Foodbanks and charities.
Early Acceptance allows eligible charities to respond to scheduled donation offers before the donor posts them. Charities can pre-accept or pre-decline offers in advance, helping them plan collections and avoid missing suitable donations.
Only Primary charities are eligible. Early Acceptance does not link to the waitlist or Foodboard. Donor organisations must enable the feature for the relevant branches; the charity-level Early Accept toggle is no longer required.
📘 Set - up
Early Acceptance is now managed at donor level. Donor organisations must enable the setting for the relevant branches; the charity-level Early Accept toggle is no longer required.
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Log in to the donor account.
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Go to My Organisation > Manage Organisation > Organisation Settings.
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Donor organisations should toggle Early Acceptance ON to enable it for the relevant branches.
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Early Acceptance is managed at donor level; the charity-level Early Accept toggle is no longer required.
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For a foodbank, enabling the setting applies it only to the foodbank’s own branches.
📘 Early accepting
Eligible charities receive Early Accept notifications at 12 noon. A maximum of one email and one push notification is sent per user, even when multiple offers are available. The email lists all eligible offers, and the push notification links directly to the Early Accept page.
On the charity dashboard, available offers appear in the Early Accept Offers area. The collection date is now shown alongside the collection window time on each offer card.
Select offers individually or use Select all, then choose Pre-Accept or Pre-Decline. Offers awaiting a response are marked Awaiting.
After an offer is pre-accepted, its status changes to Pre-accepted. When the donor posts the donation, the offer is automatically accepted and appears on the charity dashboard under To be collected.
If a donation is posted while a charity is viewing the Early Accept page, the charity is informed and the page refreshes automatically so the latest offer state is displayed.
If a donor branch is temporarily closed on the collection day, its offer remains visible with a Branch Closed status. Pre-Accept and Pre-Decline are disabled and helper text explains why. If the closure is removed while the offer remains eligible, the actions become available again.
Charities can release a pre-accepted donation before the donor posts it.
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Release is permanent and requires confirmation. Once released, the donation returns to the normal allocation process, such as the waitlist or Foodboard.
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The same charity cannot claim or Early Accept that donation again, and Release is unavailable after the donation has been posted.
These updates do not change the existing eligibility rules, pre-response workflow, allocation behaviour, or operational reporting. The charity-level Early Accept toggle is removed; Early Acceptance is managed at donor level.