Engineering a multi-stakeholder digital fundraising platform.
A connected fundraising ecosystem designed to turn individual causes, corporate participation and community engagement into structured digital campaigns.
- Client
- United Sisters Foundation (USF)
- Engagement
- Custom Web Platform and Application Development
- Project period
- 2019 (based on the purchase order dated 16 August 2019)
Services: Web Application Development, Fundraising Workflows, Payment Gateway Integration, User-Generated Content Moderation, Reporting, Notifications and Engagement Systems
Overview
United Sisters Foundation needed more than a conventional nonprofit website. Its requirements called for a digital platform where individuals, corporations and NGOs could participate in fundraising, create their own fundraising identities, promote causes, collect donations and track their progress.
India Informatics was engaged to provide the web hosting and support the development of a platform combining a public-facing website with a specialised fundraising application.
The proposed ecosystem brought together campaign creation, donor interactions, fundraising dashboards, leaderboards, payment processing, referral-based participation and content screening. Each participant type had different requirements, while administrators needed oversight of campaigns, user activity, content and fundraising performance.
The challenge was to bring these distinct workflows together into a coherent platform that could support both public engagement and controlled fundraising operations.
The challenge
Five requirements shaped the platform.
Supporting multiple participant types
The platform needed to accommodate individual fundraisers, corporate fundraisers, NGOs, donors and administrators. Individuals needed personal fundraising pages and progress tracking. Corporations needed organisational profiles and employee-contribution reporting. NGOs needed registration and fundraising visibility. Donors needed straightforward ways to discover campaigns, contribute and share stories. Designing these workflows within a common platform required a flexible application structure rather than a single generic user account model.
Turning fundraising into a structured campaign journey
The requirements went beyond accepting donations. Individual fundraisers were to create personal pages, select causes, upload photographs and videos, define fundraising targets, and share campaign links through social networks, SMS and email. The application also specified fundraising milestones, title upgrades based on amounts raised, leaderboards and rankings, a gamification layer intended to encourage participation and recognise fundraising achievements.
Building a moderation and governance layer
The specification included administrator approval or rejection of fundraiser pages, reporting mechanisms for visitors, configurable flag thresholds, and the ability to disable or delete fundraising pages. It also called for image screening using Google Cloud Vision technology and text screening using a deep-learning-based approach, so user-generated content needed a review and moderation workflow before publication.
Integrating payments and financial reporting
Donation processing had to be incorporated into the campaign experience, with payment gateway integration and payment reports included in the scope. The platform also required donation histories, donor reports, fundraiser reports and fundraising totals, plus tracking of employee contributions and optional employer matching for corporate fundraising.
Coordinating engagement across the platform
The specification included configurable email and SMS notifications, appeals to registered donors, newsletter subscriptions, social sharing, referrals and brand-ambassador tracking. Different events and triggers generated communications or updated participant progress.
Our approach
Public-facing website
The website specification included a configurable home page, rotating banners, organisational information, causes, key initiatives, upcoming events, news, donation options, contact information, a picture and video gallery, and newsletter subscriptions.
The objective was to connect the foundation’s mission and programmes with clear participation paths, including donating, registering as a fundraiser and supporting fundraising challenges.
Personal and organisational fundraising pages
Individual fundraisers were to create personalised pages featuring their story, profile information, selected causes, fundraising targets and progress. Corporate pages included company information, CSR activities, causes and employee-contribution dashboards. NGOs had their own registration and profile requirements.
Sharing was specified across email, Facebook, SMS and other supported channels, helping participants distribute their pages through their existing networks.
Campaign management and gamification
An administrator interface for creating fundraising challenges with titles, stories, causes and campaign dates. Fundraisers progress through fundraising titles based on their achievements, while leaderboards recognise individuals, corporations, NGOs and brand ambassadors.
Milestone-based progress displays and congratulatory rankings, based on total funds raised, make fundraising progress visible and encourage continued participation.
Content moderation and administrative controls
Page moderation before publication, visitor reporting, flag thresholds and administrator controls to disable or remove fundraising pages. Automated screening was specified for images and text, with reporting of flagged content at page level.
This layer was an important part of the design because the platform would host content submitted by a diverse and potentially large community of participants.
Donation processing and reporting
Payment gateway integration was specified for donation pages, alongside payment reports and administrative fundraising reports. The reporting requirements covered total funds raised, donor activity and fundraiser performance, with employee-contribution reporting and optional matching for corporate fundraising.
Notifications and referral tracking
Configurable email and SMS notifications supported event-driven communication. Brand ambassadors had unique identifiers, referral-based points and an ambassador leaderboard, connecting referrals and fundraising participation to measurable engagement within the application.
Technical complexity
The project stands out for the interaction between several distinct application concerns:
- Multi-role workflows: different account types required different registration, profile, fundraising and reporting capabilities.
- User-generated campaigns: personalised fundraising pages introduced content submission, publication and moderation requirements.
- Payment integration: donation processing had to connect with campaign and reporting workflows.
- Gamification: fundraising targets, titles, rankings and leaderboards required consistent progress calculations.
- Content screening: the specification included both image and text moderation mechanisms.
- Multi-channel engagement: notifications, social sharing, email, SMS and referrals formed part of the wider participation model.
- Administrative governance: campaign approvals, flagged content, reporting and account oversight needed to coexist with public participation.
The challenge was not any single feature in isolation. It was the need to coordinate these capabilities within one fundraising platform.
Business value of the proposed platform
Broader fundraising participation
Individuals, corporations and NGOs could participate through dedicated fundraising experiences.
More visible fundraising progress
Campaign targets, progress displays and leaderboards were intended to make fundraising activity easier to understand and share.
Centralised campaign oversight
Administrative moderation and reporting capabilities provided a defined governance model for user-generated fundraising pages.
Connected donation workflows
Payment gateway integration and fundraising reports were intended to connect contributions with campaign and participant records.
Structured engagement
Notifications, referrals, brand-ambassador tracking and fundraising milestones provided mechanisms for maintaining participant involvement.
These are intended benefits derived from the documented requirements; verified production metrics or measured outcomes were not available in the surviving records.
Why this project matters
Digital fundraising involves more than publishing donation links. It requires coordination between campaign creators, donors, organisations, payment processing, content governance and ongoing engagement.
The United Sisters Foundation project demonstrates the type of complex, workflow-driven application problem that India Informatics undertakes: translating a broad organisational vision into a structured software platform with multiple participant journeys and interconnected operational requirements.
Our focus is on engineering systems where business rules, user experience, data management and integrations must work together, not simply building pages that look good.
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