#DONATE offers donations to charities via Twitter
Howard Lake | 16 April 2015 | News
New social payment platform #DONATE enables Twitter users to make an instant and secure donation to charity through Twitter. The UK’s 15 million Twitter users can now donate simply by sending a tweet.
Donations can be made using registered hashtags in two separate and simple actions. All transactions happen within PayPal and not Twitter.
#DONATE has been set up by GOOD Agency and social wallet technology provider #PAY.
How to receive donations via #DONATE
All UK charities can take advantage of the service by registering with #DONATE and GOOD Agency. Web registrations open shortly, but meanwhile interested charities can Charities will be able to sign up on the GOOD Agency website this week. In the meantime, charities can get involved by contacting GOOD Agency directly on he***@go********.uk.
Early trials of the system were undertaken by The Rainforest Foundation.
Charities who sign up to use #DONATE can set up campaigns by creating registered hashtags. So for example, if an animal charity wanted to create a campaign to build new kennels, they could create a hashtag along the lines of #newkennelappeal. This hashtag would be registered with #DONATE so that when a Twitter user tweeted that hashtag, at the animal charity in question, they donate money to the appeal.
How does it work?
A charity tweets to their followers:
@Charity1 #UniqueHashtag2 to donate £103
Where 1 is your Twitter handle, 2 your campaign’s unique hashtag and 3 your pre-determined donation amount.
When their followers tweet or retweet that message using the charity’s Twitter handle and the registered hashtag, they will receive an automated retweet to confirm request:
@Follower1 please retweet this message to confirm your donation
Where 1 is your followers’ Twitter handle.
When their followers have retweeted your message the donation is complete and they will get an automated mention(which you can determine):
@Follower, Thank you for your donation!
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How does the registration process work for donors?
Donors do not need to register. If a donor sees a tweet they want to respond to or retweet in order to donate money to a campaign, the only necessary step will be to link their Twitter profile with their PayPal profile. Having done this once, they can give seamlessly to other campaigns via Twitter again and again.
How much?
There is a fee of 5% on each donation which is received by #PAY to handle the transaction.
Social donations via other networks?
The organisations are also working on developing the technology for other social media platforms, including Facebook.
Nicole Parkinson, Head of Social and Content at GOOD Agency said:
“It has been our mission to find a way for charities to make the most of their online communities. #DONATE finally unites social and charitable behaviours into a seamless experience to create a new leap forward for fundraising in the UK”.
James Meers Chief Executive, #PAY added that the tool was developed after “events like the ALS Ice Bucket challenge and #NoMakeUpSelfie made the disconnect between social media and the actual act of giving all too clear”.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.