Often it is not clear to the participant the actual amount they have fundraised to date.  When they (or we) enter an unconfirmed gift, it shows on their fundraising totals.  We only count the "confirmed" donations.  So when we are communicating that they haven't reached their goal or they have hit their minimum requirements, the participants are writing back to us (sometimes even with screenshots) saying they have.  When in fact, they are seeing a total of unconfirmed and confirmed together.

We would also like to use "unconfirmed" gifts as an option for matching gifts that we don't receive immediately.  This way, the participant can see that we are expecting a matching gift to be coming to them from a company, but we may not actually receive it for a month or two (or more).  And then when the payment for the matching gift is actually received in our office, we can go back and "confirm" it on their page and only then would it be added to their fundraising page and totals.