Crowdfunding Platform Development for American Fundraisers

  • A single scalable web platform with networking features
  • The entire feature pack supported on iOS and Android 
  • Integration with the most popular payment systems and social networks
Expertise
Web & Enterprise Portals
Social Networking
Media Content Distribution
Mobility
Verticals
Public Sector

Iflexion helped the customer build and launch an innovative crowdfunding platform for individual and commercial projects.

Calendar
6
Months
Gears
11
Person-months

Context

Our customer is a Californian company specializing in crowdfunding and charity activities. After analyzing the market, the customer realized that existing crowdfunding solutions supported commercial projects only, with no opportunity of raising funds for personal needs. 

The customer decided to make personal fundraising a possibility by launching a brand-new crowdfunding website. With only a sketchy idea on their minds, the customer’s representatives approached Iflexion’s team.

Well-versed in web application development and experienced in delivering software for charity organizations, Iflexion got engaged in the project to turn the customer’s idea into a market-ready product.

Solution

Laying the groundwork

Since the customer didn’t yet have any technical specifications for the crowdfunding website development, Iflexion’s team started out with business analysis. Our senior business analyst summarized the customer’s vision of the crowdfunding website and prepared a detailed list of requirements, which were further reviewed by our .NET developers, who contributed with their technical recommendations. 

At this stage, Iflexion’s team also created a functional map of the solution and helped the customer elaborate a suitable monetization mechanism for it.

Bringing fundraisers and investors together

The solution implemented by Iflexion is an online platform enriched with social networking features. It connects people with innovative ideas or urgent needs to investors ready to sponsor them. Users can register and create personal profiles, launch their own fundraising campaigns or look for projects they might be interested in sponsoring.

The platform supports three user groups:

  • Users who raise funds for innovative projects
  • Users who raise funds for personal needs
  • Investors

The platform is designed so that users are free to run both commercial and individual fundraising campaigns at a time. The service also features campaign promotion tools through project descriptions, images, and videos. 

To differentiate themselves from similar crowdfunding solutions and to stimulate users to determine realistic goals, the customer decided to stick to the all-or-nothing monetization principle: Users can only get the donations if they manage to hit their initial goal. If not, the investors get their donations back.

Iflexion’s team also implemented a range of value-adding features:

Featured investors. The most active and generous donors get listed in the Featured Investors section where they can share their stories.

Location-based fundraising. To connect fundraisers and donors from the same area, Iflexion’s web developers integrated the solution with Google Maps. This feature visualizes all active users within a selected area, shows their status (as a fundraiser or an investor), and provides links to their full profiles.

Social media integration. To help fundraisers hit their goals more easily by spreading the word about their campaigns, Iflexion integrated the website with the most popular social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The integration facilitates the registration as users can sign up to the website using their social profiles. At the same time, users can share their campaigns across the social media to attract a larger audience, thus expanding their promotional reach. 

In-platform communication. While at the crowdfunding platform development, Iflexion also implemented advanced communication features to support an open dialog between the website users: 

  • Instant messaging between fundraisers and their investors
  • Commenting available to all users    

Online payment processing. In order to provide the customer with secure online payment processing, Iflexion’s team integrated the website with PayPal. Using their personal profiles, fundraisers can track their progress in real time, while investors can check the history of their payments and reimbursements.

User-friendly content management. We made the website interface as attractive and easy to use as possible. Regardless of their technical proficiency, users can easily add media content, upload files (including videos), leave comments, and reply to them.

Taking it to mobile devices

In order to make it easier for fundraisers to stay in touch with their audience and manage their campaigns on the go, Iflexion’s mobile developers created native iOS and Android applications with all the features identical to the web solution.

Results

Iflexion started the crowdfunding website development with only an abstract idea voiced by the customer and took it to a full-fledged product. Our team was responsible for all the development stages, guiding the customer throughout business analysis, solution architecture, design, and implementation.

While keeping the website logic simple, Iflexion focused on integrating the solution with third-party applications to broaden its capabilities. As a result, the final solution is easy to use and maintain. At the same time, it provides all the necessary content management features for fundraisers and investors, helps users stay connected via social networks, and ensures a fast and transparent payment process. 

Iflexion kept collaborating with the customer through the post-deployment period as well. Our team handled support and maintenance requests and delivered new features. For example, based on user feedback, we extend the communication aspect of the solution with video conferencing. This enabled fundraisers and investors to discuss campaigns one-on-one right in the application.

Originally launched in the United States, the platform soon gained a great following among users. That’s why the customer decided to release the application to the Latin American market, with Iflexion’s team taking care of the necessary localizations.

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