Between Friends Club Case Study

Fundraising Campaign Management Web Application

In August 2007, the Between Friends Club (BFC) of Calgary approached us looking to upgrade and improve their existing web presence. A charitable organization which provides year round recreational and social programs for people with disabilities, the Between Friends Club was looking to have a fun, friendly website developed that would also help streamline their fundraising needs. Specifically, the Between Friends Club runs a major yearly fundraising event, called "Skate-(or walk)-a-Kid-to-Camp" where participants and volunteers skate laps around the Olympic oval in Calgary, AB to raise money to send kids with disadvantages to their summer camp. They envisaged a web-application that would make the receiving and tracking of fundraising money very simple for participants.

During the first meeting with the Between Friends management, we came up with a list of features that would make things easier for the staff, clients, volunteers and donors. From this list and the budget the not for profit agency had for the current fiscal year, we put together a package that delivered the most important features in the most efficient and economical way possible. It was explained that software is constantly evolving and that although not all features could be included, the current system would be built to accommodate those discussed during the initial brainstorming session.

Upon completion of phase one, we delivered a beautiful, easy to use website with a robust fundraising component that allowed fundraisers to create a profile, join or create a team, accept donations online (although not in real time), view their donors, total team and personal fundraising amounts and communicate with team members. Additionally, fundraisers had the option of creating a personal fundraising page which could be customized. Friends and family could then be directed to this page via a friendly email automatically sent through the solicit feature.

As phase one was coming to a close, it was brought to my attention that our current way of processing credit cards (in house) was going to prove time consuming and difficult. We agreed to a phase 2a which included real time credit card processing through Moneris, as well as real time tax receipt generation upon donation. This feature would save the Between Friends staff a great deal of time; as well, administrators would have the ability to view all donations processed by the web application, and even view a copy of the tax receipt for record keeping purposes.

As websites do change from time to time, the issue of modifying the site content was brought up. Since major changes were not being made to the site, a content management system would be extremely cost ineffective. So, minor training was offered to help Between Friends Club staff make the changes themselves. This would save them money in the long run and allow the freedom to make changes as they please.

Currently, we remain in close contact with the Between Friends Club, ensuring things are running smoothly. We hope to have a long and fruitful relationship helping them with their technical needs for many years to come.

Technologies Used:

• ASP.NET 2.0 (C#)
• SQL Server 2005
• XHTML
• CSS

Project Screenshots

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