becauseOne

The Idea

The becauseOne approach differs from traditional online giving. Rather than donating to a general fund, individuals purchase specific items. This turns philanthropy into an eCommerce-like experience. And because of that specificity, individuals can visualize the impact they make. You aren’t just donating $20. You’re buying a coat for a child in need.

The Brand

Every good idea needs an identity to go with it.

We helped develop the becauseOne name and brand. The name speaks to the power of the individual. One person truly can make a difference.

For the brand, we invited beauseOne to our BRANDWISE workshop. It was an opportunity to get everyone in a room to talk, listen, collaborate, and clarify. We helped the team:

• Articulate their story

• Define key brand statements

• Understand their brand personality

• Identify audiences, personas, and competitors

This information then shaped the design of foundational components such as the logo and style guide.

The Video

To help spread the word, we wrote, designed, and managed the creation of an explainer video. It built excitement for the platform while also providing an overview to help gifters and nonprofits get started.

The Discovery

We kicked off the project with technical discovery. By asking the right questions and digging deeper into the vision of what becauseOne would become, we were able to:

• Understand how the platform would be built

• List the core set of functionality requirements

• Estimate the costs of building the platform

The Platform

becauseOne is a gifting platform that serves both nonprofits and individuals (called gifters). Nonprofits receive a dedicated page to set up as their room. This acts as a storefront, allowing the organization to display the items it needs to make a difference.

Gifters are then able to move from room to room, deciding the exact impact they want to make. But it doesn’t stop there. We also built in social features. Gifters can follow nonprofits, follow each other, and like the actions of other people. By scrolling through their feed, gifters are constantly encouraged by the charitable contributions within their network. This creates the domino effect of one good deed inspiring another.

The patent-pending alignment technology brings these two audiences together. When a gifter first creates an account, they select what causes they’re most passionate about. This helps introduce them to like-minded organizations.

We developed the platform within an agile methodology. This allowed for consistent collaboration and communication. Not only did we move quickly by iteratively developing and testing features, but we also equipped the becauseOne team to provide feedback in near real-time. This helped avoid late changes and other delays. We also focused on the minimum viable product (MVP), keeping the door open for non-critical future enhancements to be addressed after the launch.

becauseOne is just getting started. We couldn’t be more excited about the future and the impact this platform will make for the greater good.