What is UTC?
UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the world's shared reference clock — one global time that everyone's local time is measured against. Two things make it useful:
It's the same everywhere at once. 18:00 UTC is the same moment whether you're in New York, London, or Tokyo.
It never shifts for daylight saving. No "spring forward," no "fall back" — UTC in summer is the same as UTC in winter.
We use it so that every backer, creator, and target is working from the exact same clock, no matter where they are in the world.
Reading a UTC time in your own time zone
Your local time is simply UTC shifted by a set number of hours. A few common examples — note the offset changes by an hour between winter and summer in places that observe daylight saving (UTC itself never moves, which is why the offset changes, not the UTC time):
New York (Eastern): UTC −5 in winter, −4 in summer
Chicago (Central): UTC −6 / −5
Denver (Mountain): UTC −7 / −6
Los Angeles (Pacific): UTC −8 / −7
London: UTC +0 / +1
The fastest way to convert: type "UTC to my time" into Google, or use any free time-zone converter.
When does a campaign end?
A campaign runs for the length its creator chose, and its countdown ends at the date and time shown on the campaign page — in UTC. Cajole then finalizes ended campaigns once a day, in a single pass at 06:00 UTC. So shortly after a campaign's end time passes, it's wrapped up and everyone involved is notified in that daily pass.
The simplest habit: note a campaign's end time, remember it's in UTC, and convert it to your local time using the trick above — that way you'll always know exactly how long is left to back it.