Brief 1: Assessing existing giving websites

What we aim to achieve with this project is a platform that allows people not just to give (be that time/money/energy etc.) but also for those to connect with others alike who share interests. As it currently stands although there are many websites that allow people to donate or fundraise, I feel as though these platforms are very much a simply a means to do exactly just that. But there are more levels to charitable giving than what meets the eye, maybe this involves the social interactions that go along with it or lack thereof with some giving websites.

To get a better understanding of how a lot of existing examples of giving websites worked, we set ourselves the task of finding and analysing a couple of examples.

Wonderful.org

Wonderful.org is a not for profit organisation who survive purely from partners who support their workings. Their two (main) partners are WHYPAY and Twilio. This allows for 100% of the donations that are made through this website to be given to the selected charity. They pride themselves on this as you can see on their homepage, making use of bold, clever type to immediately state their intentions.

On their partner's website, a little mention of Wonderful and what they're about to spread the message further.

Pros:

- Easy to navigate and make donations
- Clear sections for donating/ setting up your own fundraising etc.
- 100% of donations go to chosen charities
- Coherent website design

Cons:

- Not many charities registered on their website (around 130)
- Feels somewhat cold with the overuse of different shades of blue
- No real indicator of how well/ much the website is doing. Only amounts visible are on each individual fundraising page.
- Lack of chance for interaction/ discussion amongst users

Everyclick

Everyclick is a technology and fundraising company. Funds are generated by Everyclick users in a number of ways; searching the web, shopping online with Give as you Live, making online donations and collecting sponsorship.

Live activity tracker

Give as you Live feature

Pros:

- Has a live activity tracker to see what's being donated in real time (always up to date)
- Has a Give as you Live feature, meaning you can give as you shop online
- A wide base of established charities (over 200,000)
- Create fundraising groups which encourage more social interaction amongst like-minded people and hopefully, more donations as a result.
- Free to set up a fundraising page.

Cons:

- Most pages feel quite overwhelming; a lot of information and not enough hierarchy of the info.
- Somewhat dull colour scheme; not very inviting or appealing.
- Lack of chance for interaction/ discussion amongst users.

Taking from this analysis will be the positives that we can hopefully implement into our platform whilst aiming to solve a lot of the negatives of these websites, such as a lack of social interaction amongst users.