The concept of Crowdfunding in Nigeria is not strange and is it somewhat integral to us. From time to time, you will see young children growing up with either a card or paper given to them in school or church to fund raise for a cause. This concept also extends to days in the University during events such as rag days where funds are raised for worthy causes such as Orphanages, Motherless Children’s Homes and many others. Today, with the advent of technology, crowdfunding for social causes can now be performed online on various crowdfunding platforms.
However, in a bid to ensure no huge cause or life changing project goes unfunded, donate-ng a crowdfunding portal in Nigeria where people with causes and projects can raise funds for social causes, has changed the playing field for crowdfunding in Africa with the introduction of mobile Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) service that enables people without internet connection or debit cards to donate to charitable causes.
As you would know, about a year ago, GTBank launched the *737# mobile banking solution – a secure, easy to use and convenient service that enables GTBank customers carry out day to day banking services on the go. By simply dialling the USSD short code *737 from their phones, GTBank customers have been able to perform activities such as funds transfer, air time top-up and balance checking; but by leveraging on the technology provided by this service, donate-ng has made crowdfunding in Nigeria possible on mobiles phones without the need for internet or debit cards. Starting today, GTBank customers will be able to make donations to all projects/charitable causes listed on donate-ng as part of the *737# service.
According to Mr. Ayo Amusa, Co-founder of donate-ng, “donate-ng is on a mission to ease the burden charities and charitable projects face when trying to raise funds and will continue to leverage technology and partnerships like this to make this possible”. As previously covered, donate-ng has been quite successful with crowdfunding in Nigeria having successfully raised about N 4 million naira for different charities and individual campaigns on their platform within only a few months of operation.
From all indications, donate-ng is definitely a startup to watch as it seems like they are gradually becoming successful in a space where other startups have struggled and some even ending up in the startup graveyard. This new offering and innovation is expected to save donors the hassles of going to queue-up at banks to lodge cash deposits for a charity and also open doors for donors with little or no knowledge of computing to participate in crowdfunding.
Visit https://www.donate-ng.com and support a charitable cause
