PREPARATION

‍Sai Gokula Seva Samsthe (SGSS) has been trying to set up a payment gateway on their website for more than 5 years. Sadly, the charges of external vendors were too high for their limited budget.

Himanshu, who has been doing onsite volunteering during his studies with nonprofits in the education sector was looking for possibilities to support NGOs online during his busy working schedule at the State Bank of India. He came to know about Chezuba through online search.

Himanshu mentions “The filters on Chezuba platform for selecting different projects according to causes and skills required are really helpful. Based on my interest, I have selected an NGO in the education sector. Although I haven’t done similar work before, combining my IT and financial background and learning something new got me really excited so I applied for a payment gateway integration project.”

Within 3 days, Himanshu got matched with SGSS.

‍MATCH‍

After getting connected to Ramya from SGSS, Himanshu came to understand that the payment gateway is for the purpose of receiving donations. To provide the nonprofit the best solution available on the market, Himanshu researched different payment gateways and compared the costs. Understanding the SGSS’s requirements, he finalized on a payment gateway designed especially for NGOs – Danamajo.

Once the vendor was finalized, Himanshu worked on the gateway and completed the work in around 20 days. He was working on this project only during weekends due to his full-time employment on the weekdays.

SGSS’s requirement was only one donate button, but after going through many websites, both the nonprofit and the online volunteer decided to have different donate buttons for different purposes. Himanshu praises the communication with the NGO: “It was a very smooth project. In spite of my regular office work on weekdays, the feeling of responsibility  to help the NGO and the interesting work related to my sector kept me working on this online project during the weekends.” The payment gateway was finally added to the SGSS website and Ramya couldn’t believe how quick and smooth it was to get the work done through an online volunteer.

‍“In spite of my regular office work on weekdays, the feeling of responsibility to help the NGO and the interesting work related to my sector kept me working on this online project during the weekends.”

‍CHALLENGES & SOLUTION

Since the volunteer and nonprofit come from different parts of India, language was a bit of a barrier as the NGO was not very fluent in English. Also, deciding the right vendor from the various vendors for payment gateway needed an extra effort.

Himanshu and Ramya were able to overcome the language barrier through communicating only via email with which both parties were comfortable.

Finding a suitable platform took time and finally finalized on Danamojo which was especially designed for NGOs with lower costs.

‍RESULT

‍Several donate buttons were added on the Sai Gokula Seva Samsthe website. Donors can decide whether they want to donate for facilitating expenses for an elderly person or providing for basic computer training for rural students, etc.

The nonprofit confessed: "We have been postponing the payment gateway for many years but with Chezuba we got it in about 10 days at no cost, and we can see the results already! So far we have received 25,000 INR from foreign sources.”