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The Project:
The problem
DonateNZ was formed to help charities by matching up a wish list
of charities' needs for free products and services with companies
and individuals with surplus products, helpful services or discount
vouchers to donate.
It's like a Trademe specifically for charities where the
products and services traded are free.
The founder, Claire Sawyers, had established the organisation
and commissioned the website which, after a year or so, wasn't well
finished or reliable. She'd been let down. In desperation she came
to Terabyte and we took on the job to start over, design and build
a scalable, reliable system from scratch.
The solution
The working solution was harder and more complex than we
initially expected. However, we had committed to the project and we
never give up. So, we put a lot of extra resource into it and saw
the project through to completion with a new fresh and invigorating
design and a scalable engine behind the website.
At go-live we converted the data from the old website and to the
end users, it was "business as usual" with all their data loaded in
a fresh design and features that worked as they should.
The website supports charities registering on-line, listing
their "wishes" - things they need or would like. Donors
(organisations and individuals) register also, and search the
wishes and choose ones they can fulfil or list surplus products
(furniture, paper, computers, products etc), free services (such as
accounting, consulting, legal etc) or discount vouchers.
The website then allows charities to search and find what
they're wanting and it automatically matches them up to the donor,
like an auction website does when you win an auction.
Other parts of the solution included:
- Automated email notifications.
- An integrated email newsletter generating system.
- Flexible content managed sections supporting content about
DonateNZ, the community, hints and tips, supporters and
donations.
- On-line help to ensure the website was fully self-service.
- An admin system that allowed the administrator to manage users,
donations, wishes and to report on volumes.
The result
DonateNZ were able to fully execute on their business plan,
building a valuable community website that supported New Zealand
charities. Users loved the new website and many aspects of dealing
with donations because much easier to do with the new more
intuitive design.
The website worked reliably, doing what it was supposed to do,
matching charities with donors and supporting smooth efficient
transactions.
We enjoyed the challenge of the project and have donated support
services and provided free website hosting since the project went
live.