Online donation widget for not-for-profit organisations

Priscilla's picture
Submitted by Priscilla on 18 January 2010 - 11:11am
What's this idea about?
In less than 100 words, what is your idea?: 
A "donate now" widget that not-for-profit organisations can embed on their website. It graphically shows the total target fundraising amount, how much money has been raised online to date, and the number of donors who've already donated to the campaign. It is customisable, so suits the organisation's campaign target and website colours/theme. It also allows supporters of the campaign to embed it on their own website so they can help the organisation fundraise without compromising the organisation's brand.
What is the social need or challenge your idea could address?: 
There are no donation widgets in Australian Dollars that are fully customisable. This leaves not-for-profit organisations -- particularly small ones -- with the following options to accept online donations: (1) PayPal's donation widget which has limited customisation options and forces donors to use PayPal rather than their credit card; or (2) Using services such as Our Community or eGive which -- although offering an online donation form with no requirement for an expensive online merchant ID -- do not offer widgets; or (3) Creating their own online donation form which is linked to a supporter database, which requires expensive infrastructure, an online merchant ID, and developer costs. This idea may be undertaken in cooperation with Our Community, given its infrustructure to accept online donations inexpensively is already in place. Alternatively, a relationship may be established with key financial institutions so that one of the customistion options is to select which bank account donations are directly debited to -- this would save not-for-profit organisations administrative time, and ensure they earn interest on donations from the day the donation is made (rather than receiving the donation once a month, as per the Our Community service).
What’s really new about your idea?: 
Donation widgets are an important tool in online fundraising. They show donors that many other people also believe in a particular campaign or organisation. They also show the donor, via a simple-to-understand graphic, how their donation is helping towards the overall target. As a donor, I am more likely to donate if the donation amount is shown in AU$ rather than in other currencies, which is why it is important that an Australian service is made available. The American market is particularly advanced in this area and research could easily be undertaken into what services are currently available in the marketplace.
Stage of development
What inspired you to come up with your idea in the first place?: 
Frustration that the tool I want does not exist.
From 1-5, what stage of development would you say your idea is in? - Explain further: 
1 - no development has taken place
What can we do for you?
Tell us what we can do for you: 
Develop the widget software, assist in sourcing start-up funding, ideas to help improve the idea.
Select which are the one or two most important things that you need to help the development of your idea: 
Developer - to help you create your software
Funder - to give you some initial cash
If Social Innovation Camp is able to help push your idea forward, do you have the time or desire to take ownership of it?: 
Yes
8 individuals signed up
Alex S
7 anonymous
3.77778
Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (9 votes)

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CharitiesHouse's picture

Re: Online donation widget for not-for-profit organisations

by CharitiesHouse - 4 Feb 2010 - 1:49pm
Hi Priscilla - Have you seen the donation widgets available for free from http://www.chipin.com ? Unlike Pledgie, it looks quite reputable and customisable. While it requires the organisation to setup a PayPal account, please note that PayPal now has a banking licence and allows people to make transactions using any credit card. Your PayPal account allows you to transfer funds easily to your normal bank account. See https://www.paypal-education.com.au/sellersguide/#How_to_add_a_bank_account Cheers! Michael Bouy http://www.charitieshouse.com
whymandesign's picture

Re: Online donation widget for not-for-profit organisations

by whymandesign - 29 Jan 2010 - 1:36am
Great work check Pledgie :) www.FREEtraid.org Donate to charity and receive more than you gave in free gifts as a reward. Everyone gains. We are setting up locations in which to set up social enterprise to facilitate this. Would you like to get involved? www.playgroundgames.org We are finding other people who are interested in producing a philanthropic activity that is based around play and benefits everyone. Are you a, creative, linguist, programmer, producer, broadcaster, entrepneur wanting to take part in an exciting project that does 'good' by entertaining and educating using the power of the web? If so check out Playgroundgames.org and join in by adding to the Wiki. www.ugcunion.org Come to the next event or make your own using creative skills to benefit humanity. UGCunion is collaboration where people like you are using their skills to put on fun events that entertain and empower others using the creative arts. www.traidmark.org Should trade profit everyone? Yes. Traidmark represents a new business structure that was created as a way for profits to be used to fund innovation and progress for the benefit of humanity. This is done by donating Net profit to innovative charitable/research organisations and stating the percentage donated clearly for consumer clarity. www.mustart.org We put on interactive events that include everyone. Why not come to the next event or make your own. Regards Ed Whyman Creative Producer www.whymandesign.com
Priscilla's picture

Re: Online donation widget for not-for-profit organisations

by Priscilla - 3 Feb 2010 - 8:42am
Hi Ed, thanks for your suggestion. I have looked at Pledgie in the past. Unfortunately it isn't very customisable. I think not-for-profits would benefit from customisation along the lines of Twitter's Profile widget (see http://twitter.com/goodies/widget_profile). This widget allows users to change colours, widths, etc to brand the widget to coordinate with the organisation's website which is something you can't do on Pledgie. Also, Pledgie uses PayPal to process donations. While this is an inexpensive option for small organisations starting out, organisations with larger quantities of donations would prefer their donations to be deposited directly into a bank account. Cheers, Priscilla
jcarrigan's picture

Re: Online donation widget for not-for-profit organisations

by jcarrigan - 20 Jan 2010 - 5:14pm
I agree. I think this is a great idea. It's 'ready to go' for the many agencies which already have some presence on the web. The challenge for the really small, community-based agencies I work with will be to get them onto the web and engaged with it as a community development (and fundraising) platform. But this will be a great tool for them when they get to that point...
Alex S's picture

Re: Online donation widget for not-for-profit organisations

by Alex S - 18 Jan 2010 - 5:19pm
This is an excellent suggestion for a widget and for the reasons given. While there lots of great donate widgets around none of them have been designed for Australian use. I know this is something I've been looking for to help with tracking donations - it could even help generate donations.

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