Turning a shop checkout into a purpose-built contribution platform
Millennium Mams has taught women to understand and manage their own money since 1993, funded by contributions from members and well-wishers. Those were being collected through a shop checkout. We replaced it with a purpose-built contribution platform: three steps on any phone, a payment trail the team can read, and a system that settles its own loose ends.
What was getting in the way.
A shop asks what a shop needs: billing, shipping, a cart. The questions the organisation actually needed had been added underneath, on a page never designed to carry them.
Every field sat in one column, on the phone where most contributions start.
Contribution details were spread across order data, awkward to search or export.
If a donor paid and closed the tab, the payment succeeded at the bank but was never recorded.
There was no way to see whether a receipt email had bounced.
Process first, then software.
Understand
We started from the contribution, not the page: who gives, on what device, and what the organisation needs to know at that moment.
Analyse
The field set was not too long, it was unsorted, mixing what everyone must answer with what only new or existing members should see. And the gateway integration listened only for the donor's browser, with no second route to the truth.
Re-engineer and build
We built on Classly, our accelerator already in production, and shaped it around this process.
The platform, role by role.
For donors
- Three steps with a progress rail and the amount always visible
- New or existing member chosen once, after which each sees only their own questions
- Validation that explains itself and never loses what was typed
- A receipt by email within moments
For the organisation
- Every contribution in one searchable list, filtered by status, city or date
- One-click CSV export and a daily payments report by email
- A log of every email sent and what became of it
- A warning on a donor's record when their receipt hard-bounces
For payments that go quiet
- The browser callback, as before
- A server-to-server notification from the gateway
- A scheduled check that settles anything still pending and sends the missing receipt
- Amounts set by the server, receipts issued exactly once, every gateway exchange stored
What changed.
- A contribution takes three short steps, not one long scroll
- Each person answers only their own questions
- Payments no longer go missing quietly
- Records belong to the organisation: one list, one export, one daily report
CCAvenue, kept unchanged so nothing changed for the finance team.
The next phase extends the platform towards membership: recognising returning members and the programmes they join.
Your process could be next.
Tell us what is holding your team back. We will show you what it would take to fix it, and how fast.