This week we profile BackaBuddy, a website that helps raise money for charity by making you a Charity Champion.
With this online fundraising site, you can also register your charity to receive donations or donate to any charity of your choice (as long as they are registered with Backabuddy) as an individual.
If you are starting a charity organisation, register with BackaBuddy, and they will link a direct payment portal to your website so that you are able to receive donations online in any currency. You can also increase your database of donors through the Charity Champions, a wide range of individuals based both locally and internationally.
BackaBuddy’s Charity Champions care about the difficulties of the less fortunate; they have friends and family who like to help or make occasional or regular donations to charities. They often know the challenges that come with raising funds and may want to commemorate a special event or honour the memory of someone important in their life. BackaBuddy affords them a great platform to do this.
The site and service has made it easy and convenient for South Africans from around the world to help those in need, however far away they may be. It also links charities to fund-raising events such as marathon running and cycle competitions, about which they might not have otherwise known.
There are many fun ways to make a difference in someone’s life. You can participate in charity events such as the Comrades Marathon, which took place last Sunday, May 31, or the Freedom Challenge, a motorbike race happening on June 12. No donation is too big or too small, so play your part and make a difference.
Anyone can become a Charity Champion and donate to a charity of their choice, day or night. BackaBuddy helps thousands of people in this way through its user-friendly, efficient and effective site.
The management system for BackaBuddy was custom-built by Flow, with Reatile Tshikalange doing much of the web development and Lorraine Gumede and Ryan Levenson working on the graphic design. We now support it on an ongoing basis, but it is mostly run by the staff of the Backabuddy business itself. Daily work includes content management and accounting to manage hundreds of incoming donations per week.
Flow Communications integrated the site with the iVeri Payment Gateway for credit card transactions and also provided a back-office management system to accept Electronic Funds Transfers (EFTs).
To date, Backabuddy has raised R4 868 344.69 for 328 charities, with the help of 731 Charity Champions.