e-Commerce development

Thanks to all who gave me help - it worked!

I was called at 6.15pm today and offered the job. I now need the weekend to think about it - do I really want it, and do I want to leave the county council??

I think I now what I'll decide.

Cheers guys
Chris

Chris

You're in luck. Two reports have been published in the past month or so on online fundraising which might give you a useful and fairly up to date view of sector developments.

nfpSynergy have published "Passion, persistence and partnership: the secrets of earning more online":

http://www.nfpsynergy.net/freereports/freereportsandarticles/

and Charities Aid Foundation has published "New Media fundraising: 21st Century innovations":

http://www.cafonline.org/Default.aspx?page=15365&WT.mc_id=407

Both can be downloaded at no charge.

A few thoughts to help you:

* e-commerce covers a wide array of activities by charities, from direct fundraising, to trading, and support admin (e.g. direct debit upgrades etc). It might help if the charity is clear what elements of e-commerce it would like you to address.

* if it is primarily fundraising, then I'd suggest dividing your presentation into the key areas of

a) getting the fundamentals of your charity's website right e.g. paths to giving, legal issues etc

b) email communications - outbound and inbound

c) opportunities of third-party tools e.g. justgiving.com, bmycharity.com, everyclick.com, easyfundraising.org.uk, the biggive.co.uk etc.

d) opportunities of Web 2.0 and social networking, mainly on other sites e.g. Facebook, MySpace, but also in terms of how the tools can be applied to your site e.g. blogs, RSS feeds, tagging, user generated content etc.

That should keep you busy for 10 minutes ;). Good luck!

Howard

Hi Chris,
best of luck!
I think you could find this post interesting:

Internet to Connect with Major Donors
http://mediaofficina.com/nicola_callegaro/2008/05/06/internet-to-connect...

Nicola

thank you both for your encouragement, and for the info above.

i only have a 10 min presentation, so they won't get a whole lot from me.

i am also planning on talking about the exposure and marketing more than the actual methods of taking money from people. i think they already have plans for that part - using one of the websites that creates a 'shop' for online stores, and gathers referral fees for a charity maybe?

what i do know more about is the social networking side of things, and esp facebook. i have made them a 'group' for the hospice on facebook, which i will sign over to them if not successful. should gain me some kudos at least!

still not sure if i 'want' this job enough, but i do want to support the charity (3 days before jo died last year we used my story, my blog etc to promote a walk friends did, and raised over £11k).

i am going google crazy at the moment getting the presentation ready!

thanks

chris

Hi Chris.
No idea about e-commerce.
Just wanted to wish you luck with the interview and presentation.

There are a few factors you'll have to consider, which I'll try and outline below:

1) Software. Will you be using an existing software package to run the E-Commerce for the Charity, or do you intend on writing the software yourself? What features does your intended platform have compared to others in its field? Is there a subscription, or one-off fee for a license? What payment methods does it support? If you will be writing it yourself, again outline intended features. Be sure to include admin features, with export functionality (either to CSV or XLS).

2) Payment methods. If the charity does not mind payments going through a third-party site, then you have a multitude of choices to go with. WorldPay are willing to waiver setup / recurring costs for charity accounts. If the charity require payments to be handled directly solely through their own website, then either a merchant account with a bank and online process will be required, or an extended account with WorldPay (Select Invisible account).

3) Goods, Donations or both? Does the charity intend to sell goods on the site to raise funds, accept donations, or both? If they are looking to sell goods, where are they going to source them from? What kind of back-stock can be anticipated to be required (based on visitor statistics)?

Those are just a few points that I could come up with relating to E-commerce for charities. Making E-commerce successful always of course depends on the site, cause and approach. Getting it up and running is only half the battle; the rest is all about exposure, and targeted marketing.

Hope these points are of some help. Good luck with the meeting :)

James H