A fee or gift is not an automatic approval. The post-vetting gift is evidence for the program's specified EB-1 or EB-2 basis, but the applicant must still be eligible for lawful permanent residence, admissible, and covered by an available visa number.
Confirm the official approval conditions before paying
Hypothetical example: the owner has a college diploma, twenty years building the warehousing company and no U.S. entity. Those career facts may matter to an ordinary EB-1C or employer-sponsored EB-2 alternative, but the Gold Card framework does not require her independently to build such a conventional case.
Executive Order 14351 directs the agencies to treat the Gold Card gift as evidence for the specified EB-1 or EB-2 basis. She must still be eligible for lawful permanent residence, admissible, and have a visa available, and the processing fee is nonrefundable. Before paying it, she should read the current official page, disclose every fact requested in the application, and investigate any criminal, immigration, medical or other issue that could affect admissibility.
The program terms must be re-verified before the fee and again before the post-vetting gift moves.