Yimby – A community crowdfunding platform from JustGiving
I have been working with a number of crowdfunding platforms through the Innovation in Giving fund (a fund backed by Cabinet Office that aims to increase giving of time and money across the UK). We get a really privileged insight into how products are developed and have learned alot about crowdfunding and other forms of giving as ar result. I have been working with JustGiving as they developed and tested their beta project and launched as community crowdfunding plaform Yimby.
I know that a huge amount of care and research has gone into developing the product and so asked Jonathan Waddingham, who led development of the project, to give us some insights into the product management story behind the platform. Jonathan Waddingham is the Social & Labs product manager at JustGiving. He tweets about cheese, charities and puns at @jon_bedford
Yimby – Community Crowdfunding from JustGiving
In October 2012, thanks to funding from Nesta’s Innovation in Giving fund, we started to build a new product that would take our experience in charity fundraising and apply it to community crowdfunding. For many years, our users have asked us if they could use our fundraising technology and raise money for good causes that weren’t necessarily registered charities. Thanks to our new community crowdfunding tool – which we’re calling Yimby – we can now help them.
Yimby works by allowing people to create a project page with a specific goal, and then run a 30 day campaign to try and hit their target. If they hit or surpass their target, we transfer the money to them and encourage them to feedback to supporters on how they spent their money. If they don’t hit their target, supporters are not charged.