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Any indie hackers creating tools for the nonprofit sector?

After almost 10 years of doing marketing for companies, I decided to focus on nonprofit organizations.

Right now I'm offering only "traditional services", but thinking of creating software tools (probably with no-code or low-code to start, while I learn more programming).

Anyone creating tools for nonprofits?

I would love to know your stories! :)

  1. 2

    It's not exactly tailored to non-profits, but during our Life Cycle we've seen quite a bunch of non-profit integrating PriceWell.

    So far we have helped non-profits create their donation (billing) systems without using code and manage their donations with a Portal that allows tax deductions based on donated amount, recurring donations, Gated Content on certain donation packs, etc.

    Would love to get your thought on this. It's a relatively new user case of PriceWell and we're still learning along the way.

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      That's interesting. I've seen some awful donation pages out there (bad UX and design, huge forms with lots of fields...), but some organizations are very reluctant to change (they have legal or internal requirements or just don't want to change something that works, even if they know it's not ideal). Maybe it would be interesting to show how you compare with tools specific for nonprofits such as https://donorbox.org/ or https://bloomerang.co/. And if you offer easy integration with other tools that they use.

      1. 1

        That's really good insight @Miguelem. I would say that we are closer to donorbox.org , but with a caveat. Both offer the button (pricing page), where you can receive donations via Stripe (they do with other payment gateways too), but we do it without the underlying engineering needed.

        So the NGO can do it without external help from a developer. Also we offer the management portal where both the donor and the NGO can view their donations, deduct taxes, create recurring programs, collect and authenticate emails, among other features. So the experience is much more inclusive than just a donation button, and the pricing is more competitive.

        Regarding integrations, we are already providing integrations with MailChimp, Sendpulse, Webflow and we are working towards integrating CRMs (like Salesforce, Hubspot) and Zapier (which is super important!).
        We have also integrated with Bubble, Notion and Typedream and we are working for creating plug-ins for those apps.

  2. 2

    I am thinking of making a gateway sort of thing to connect companies with NGOs encouraging them to pledge 1% of their revenue to various causes. We can collaborate various NGOs to join us and then we can reach out to various companies. They could donate either through us or directly.

    Something like which they can show on their website that they've pledged to this noble cause.

    Let me know what you think. You can reach out to me on https://twitter.com/iamhammadnasir

    1. 2

      So something like https://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org/, right?
      It's a pretty successful initiative, maybe there is space for a 1% for another cause (not environmental). But they are a nonprofit, not sure there is a business here...

  3. 2

    Occasional website or landing page. They also need services for prints and branding—I’d say those materials are just as important.

    Many focus on events and fundraisers, since they have not had much success with social media. They have followers and likes, but that doesn’t always translate in the needed financial support.

    1. 2

      So similar to me in the past. I helped I few nonprofits that came to me by chance. Then I decided to focus on them.
      Certainly, the priority of many nonprofits is how to convert their audience (social, email, website, events...) into donations or other ways of financial support.

  4. 1

    Hi Miguelem,
    I'm not targeting non-profit per se, but exportator.com was initially meant to grant access to digital tools to people merging countries. It's doing it by helping SaaS offer regional pricing (aka parity pricing) through promo codes.
    For instance: An Indian company couldn't afford a CRM so they used Excel. A CRM company uses exportator to offer 60% off to India visitors. The India visitor turns into a paying customer, and starts using better tools.
    It evolved a bit recently towards promo code management but I'm super bullish on regional pricing as a tool for growth and for good.
    Not sure what you're looking for but I'd love to hear your marketing ideas around this topic.

  5. 1

    What tools are you looking for? just curious.

    1. 1

      Any kind of tool that is created specifically for nonprofits. For example, many of them use "donor relationship management" software (basically a CRM with some specific features) such as Bloomerang, Little Green Light and many others.

  6. 1

    What services do you offer just out of interest

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      Mainly Google Ads (I manage their Google Ad Grants accounts, it's a great program specific for nonprofits that some of the organizations don't even know about yet)

  7. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 1

      Hi bennyhatch

      I had the same request and set up an account with bitdonate.com (it works for any size nonprofit). They capture donations with crypto and convert them to dollars right away, and soon they release the option for the nonprofit to hold crypto.

      1. 1

        This comment was deleted a year ago.

    2. 1

      Interesting. I don't know much about crypto and I don't like what I've read (not environmentally friendly at all, full of scams and hacks, not many great real uses yet...), but I've also heard they are trying to improve that.

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