Blog – Page 19 – The Chuffed Academy

July 12, 2017July 31, 2017

Crowdfunding for Legal Action – Australia for Dolphins Case Study

Australia for Dolphins (AFD) is a not-for-profit dolphin protection organisation with just two full time staff members. Even though they’re a small team, they pack a powerful punch.

In 2015, they brought legal action against the world’s peak zoo body, resulting in more than 60 Japanese aquariums being forced to stop buying dolphins from the violent Taiji hunts. They also successfully sued the notorious Whale Museum in Taiji, the centre of the bloody dolphin hunts.

In 2017, they had their sights focused on an Australian marine park, who still held dolphins in captivity. The team decided that they were going to sue the park for false advertising – their ads that said dolphins were happy and healthy, they just aren’t true.

Here’s how they did it:

Tactic 1. To tackle a global issue, focus on one story

The global dolphin captivity industry is such a large scale global issue that it can be overwhelming and lacks an emotional hook.

Rather than focus on the industry issue, AFD focused their story on one particular dolphin at Dolphin Marine Magic.

“We realised that the best way to raise awareness about this complicated issue and drive the campaign forward was to give it a singular narrative. We focused the story on one particular dolphin, called Ji, to give people a better idea of what the bigger picture is about. The title, video, the name of the legal action were all focused on this one dolphin, Ji.”

Tactic 2. Get to new audiences by leveraging your existing ones

For AFD, whenever they run a crowdfunding campaign, they focus on using it to reach new audiences. How?

Two ways:

1. Ask their existing audiences (people who they know are passionate about the cause, including people who had previously signed petitions or signed up to their newsletter) to share their campaigns with their family, friends and networks

“We have a number of supporters that already donate to us on a regular basis, and others that have donated substantial amounts in the past. We don’t want to ask them for more funds and will often exclude them from our other fundraising asks and campaigns. We will, however, keep them updated on what we’re doing: send them an email to let them know we’ve launched a new campaign and to thank them for helping us get this far (we treat them as if they’ve already supported our campaign, because in all honesty, they’re the ones who’ve gotten us this far already!). We may still ask them to like and share our posts on Facebook, so they can help us reach more people.”

2. Run Paid Facebook Ads: Advertising petitions and crowdfunding campaigns on Facebook to selected targeted audiences. They focus on people who are interested in animal welfare or specific dolphin captivity issues.

Here’s an example of a Facebook Ad they promoted during the campaign:

This segmented approach to communications, making their core supporters feel valued and included while focusing on reaching new audiences, is a powerful strategy that has allowed AFD to grow their audience to a strong community of over 200,000 people passionate about dolphin welfare over the past few years.

“Before each campaign we benchmark our database numbers. When we advertise our petitions and advocacy campaigns – we don’t want people who’ve already signed to sign it again – so we exclude them from our email communications to make sure that all the people we are getting involved are new. With this particular campaign (which was a combination of petitions and the crowdfunding campaign), we got 20,000 new people on board, which was really great.“

Tactic 3. Get PR and media on board

The fact that AFD found an avenue of Consumer Law that allowed them to sue the marine park for misleading people to believe that their dolphins were happy and healthy was not only incredibly innovative, but also newsworthy. They knew the story had a good media hook and could get a lot of PR attention.

“A national TV show called The Project produced an exclusive segment explaining the pending legal action and the underlying issue of dolphin captivity. So, when we launched the legal action there was already interest surrounding the case.”

By having all the PR contacts and press releases lined up before launch, and letting journalists know beforehand, they were able to generate awareness during their campaign which they could then use to contact their supporters again and raise more funds.

For more tips on how to get PR on board, check out ‘5 steps to get PR for your Crowdfunding Campaign‘.

Tactic 4. Secure match funding as the ultimate incentive for giving

Perks and rewards are a great way of incentivising supporters to support your campaign or to give more than they usually would. However, because of the nature of their campaign, AFD decided that getting matched funding instead could be the ultimate reward for people to support their campaign:

“Prior to this campaign, we had run a Chuffed.org campaign to put up billboards in Tokyo to blast real images of the dolphin hunts. Each dollar raised during that campaign was matched by EthicalJobs.com.au. This time, however, the nature of what we were fundraising for was quite different and we felt we had to come up with more engaging content. We realised we had to come up with a good video and spent some time on that. But we also thought about prizes and rewards. Because matched funding had worked well in our previous campaign and the nature of the campaign, and the need to keep admin costs low prohibited us from creating fancy perks, we decided to look for match funding instead of prizes.”

This is how the match funding on their first campaign was communicated:

“We’re a really small charity, there’s only 2 full-time staff and although that has its challenges, it allows us to take a very personal approach to our donors. We’ll personally call everyone who gives more than $250 and will meet as many of them in person if we can. We’re in touch with them all the time and really build personal relationships with them. Almost like a community of people. Because we build a great relationship with donors, we find out what they’re passionate about (ie. Taiji or captivity issues). When something comes up that we think they might be interested in, we get in touch with them and see if they want to get involved. Keep them updated throughout – make them feel very involved.”

This is how they communicated the match donation to their supporters on the campaign page:

Small change, big impact

Although the crowdfunding campaign was focused on one particular marine park, the success of the case could have wide ramifications.

“This will send a very loud warning bell to big marine parks like SeaWorld. It will also set a precedent, which we hope will bolster global efforts to end dolphin captivity and help convince politicians this cruel practice has to end.” – Jordan Sosnowski

To learn more about AFD and their Crowdfunding campaigns on Chuffed.org, here are their campaigns:

https://chuffed.org/project/support-legal-action-to-expose-captive-dolphin-cruelty

https://chuffed.org/project/ethicaljobs-australia-for-dolphins-matched-donation

To support AFD’s legal action, sign their petition: https://enddolphincaptivity.afd.org.au/sign

If you are a charity, nonprofit, community group or a caring individual who wants to use crowdfunding to tackle a global issue or a local one, reach out to us at support@chuffed.org. We’re here to help.

July 11, 2017July 18, 2017

Success Story: Amnesty 4 Manus & Nauru

“I’ve been a volunteer worker all my adult life, and after 20 years overseas working with indigenous communities and refugees in various countries, I returned home to Australia.

I moved to rural Tasmania, looking for a quieter life in my retirement. This didn’t last long, as I became increasingly concerned about how we were treating refugees. I vividly remember my shock at seeing people who came to us seeking asylum being forced onto buses and imprisoned in offshore detention camps. After many months of calling and writing to politicians, I received a friend request on Facebook. This was the first of the men imprisoned on Manus that I would talk to, and eventually come to call my friend. Over the next few years I would become a regular correspondent with many of the men and became witness to a heartbreaking series of physical, emotional and psychological abuses that became a daily part of life in the Manus camp. I helped in the only way I could – talking to them, listening to their fears, and eventually helping them organise medical and legal documents to be sent to organisations like Doctors for Refugees, the AMA and Amnesty.

Over the last three years I have got to know so many brave, resilient and amazing people. They have so much to offer to any country that provides them refuge: there are world-class sportsmen, engineers, poets, musicians, journalists, scientists, artists. There are those who have never known safety, who have been persecuted for their religion, or for speaking out against political injustice, corruption or censorship. There are people of many religions and those who have lost their faith. They are sons, brothers, fathers, and grandfathers. But for the accident of where we are born, these could be our sons, our brothers, our fathers.

If it wasn’t enough that the accident of being on the wrong boat, at the wrong time, has condemned these people to four years of hellish incarceration, there are some for whom even the slight hope of a U.S. settlement deal or relocation to some third country is not an option. Almost 170 of the men currently on Manus have not been granted refugee status, in many cases due to a flawed determination process. For these men, the imminent closure of the camp leaves literally no options. Some have already been forcibly deported back to danger. Others, like those who fled Iran cannot be returned, or are stateless Rohingya and cannot legally stay in PNG. The only hope for these men is to have their refugee status appealed, so they have at least the slight chance of eventually finding somewhere to settle.

The conditions on Manus are growing worse daily. Sections of the camp are being demolished around the men in an attempt to force them out, power keeps going out and there is not enough food.

Many of my friends have stopped talking to me, or only offer one-word responses.

Our government intends to abandon them. We cannot.

They have nowhere to go. They have no-one else to turn to.

If we don’t act, nobody will.”

Check out Anne & Helen’s inspiring campaign here:

As well as their completed campaigns below:

July 11, 2017July 25, 2017

How to Run a Campaign so Successful You Hit Two Stretch Goals

Do you wish you could share your passion with the world?

That’s exactly how Nat Panzarino and Fer Wicker felt. Both knew the struggles of greyhounds, and wanted to spread the message they lived out by volunteering for local greyhound rescue.

To do so, they decided to collaborate on a children’s book called Pointy Pembleton—written by Nat and illustrated by Fer—raising awareness about greyhounds in an appealing way. They’d also donate a portion of the book’s sales to greyhound rescue.

Their campaign required $15,000 to get the book to market, and it took off quickly. Once they noticed the success, Nat and Fer extended the goal to $20,000—then met it. They set a stretch goal of $25,000—and met it as well.

By the end of the campaign, they had raised $28,871 for the Pointy Pembleton campaign—almost twice as much as their original target.

But of course, the magic was behind the scenes.

Nat and Fer used three specific techniques to garner interest in the project and draw support.

Let’s jump in!

Tactic 1: Use videos to engage supporters

Throughout the entire campaign, Nat and Fer used videos to inform and rally supporters. The videos were vital to the campaign’s success, and really made it stand apart and develop relationships with readers.

To succeed with this medium, Nat and Fer followed a few principles.

They kept the videos positive and encouraging. Instead of including startling images of abused dogs, they chose to tell the story through uplifting stories of rescued greyhounds and Fer’s illustrations from the book. In the videos, they specifically asked people to share the project with friends to help the dogs.
They provided plenty of background information. To Nat and Fer’s surprise, they learned that many people didn’t know the background of abandoned greyhounds. The campaign explained everything in simple, concise language. “You don’t want to leave people with questions at the end,” Nat says, “so you want to try and answer all of their questions right there.”
They made the videos personal and informal. While the main promotional videos have a high production value, most of the videos Nat and Fer created for the campaign were casual, smartphone-filmed snippets of them and their dogs. Nat calls the videos she posted on Facebook groups “overly cheesy,” and some of the more popular video showed them working behind the scenes.

Tactic 2: Consistent communication

Nat and Fer were strategic with how they communicated to supporters, and it paid off big time.

Here’s how they succeeded.

They chose channels that already worked for them. Nat knew that Twitter wasn’t a strength for her and wasn’t as popular in Australia, so she focused just on Facebook and Instagram. A month before the launch, Nat and Fer created a Facebook page for Pointy Pembleton, and focused most of the promotion there.
They posted regularly. They posted a minimum of one time per day on Facebook and Instagram. But these weren’t all just requests for support—they gave behind-the-scenes detail and entertained followers with humorous and interesting videos.
They reached out to influencers. Every day, Nat spent about an hour messaging and posting to Facebook groups and pages to related organisations in the dog rescue and children’s book spaces. Only about one out of every 100 influencers responded, but those that did shared it themselves or encouraged her to promote to their followers.

You can check out all of their Facebook posts and videos here:

Tactic 3: Leverage your connections

One of the biggest factors leading to the success of the campaign was the large body of support Nat and Fer had before beginning.

Here are a few of the ways they rallied support with those who had already expressed interest before the campaign.

Enlisted volunteers to help. They already had 100 volunteer connections, and weren’t afraid to leverage them to join the cause. These volunteers helped spread the word and helped with some of the manual labor required to get the campaign going.
They used their follower’s content in their campaign. Nat created a guide for other to create their own videos for the campaign, and included those videos in the promotion. This built up a community and encouraged others to participate.
They encouraged existing followers to join the cause. Nat and Fer chose to not be shy about their request from support with their followers. After launching their Facebook page, they encouraged their existing 20,000 social media followers on the Greyhound Rescue page to like Pointy Pembleton. Nat also personally messaged her friends asking them to share the campaign.
They didn’t underestimate the funding of their existing supporters. Instead of expecting funding to come exclusively from others new to the campaign, Nat and Fer reached out to those who had closer ties to the campaign in the same way as those new to it—and it paid off! The biggest donor was an existing volunteer, and the second-biggest donor was Nat’s father-in-law.

Lessons learned…

Along the way, Nat and Fer also learned a number of strategies they weren’t expecting.

You don’t need experience to succeed at crowdfunding. Despite being brand-new to the crowdfunding space, Nat carefully studied the Chuffed.org campaign strategy videos. “I probably watched them like a half a dozen times,” Nat says.
Build as large a team as you can. Even with the sizeable number of volunteers helping them, Nat and Fer would have built an even bigger team in hindsight. Once the campaign started, they could have used even more volunteers to manage the huge volume of communications.
Promote to influencers early. Most of the bloggers and influencers Nat emailed didn’t get back to her for 2-3 weeks. “If I had to do it all over again,” Nat says, “I should have started attacking sooner and got them kind of on board before we wanted to launch.”

Nat and Fer learned a lot in the campaign process, and inspired countless others to their cause of helping rescue greyhounds.

With a strategic use of video, powerful communication, and an effective use of their connection, Nat and Fer led a project that surpassed all expectations.

Start your campaign on Chuffed.org today. We provide free mentoring and support for anyone looking to crowdfund a social cause project.

Pointy Pembleton is now available for pre-order. Head to their website for more information.

July 7, 2017July 18, 2017

Success Story: Toward’s Wellbeing

“As an actor, after filming ‘The Tracker’, I was invited to some remote communities and was exposed to some of the extreme health problems that people are suffering from, as a direct result of having poor diet. This problem was magnified for me when I visited South Australia’s APY Lands to film ‘That Sugar Film’. People were suffering from type II diabetes and renal failure, from obesity and other diet-related diseases.

Here, on the APY Lands, was an entire population of Aboriginal Australians, directly affected by poor diets due to the introduction of sugar and processed foods – the APY lands have been alcohol free for 40 years.

Late last year I met Ina and her story gave me hope. Ina Scales grew up in the western community of Pipalyatjara on the APY Lands. Unlike most people from the area Ina’s family were able to ensure she got a good education which lead to work as an interpreter. Neither education, nor ongoing work are easily accessible in remote communities – for a range of reasons and challenges people face every day. Ina’s unique circumstances, and her ability to not only know that she needed some help, but was also able to seek it out, and then pay for it meant that she was able to get herself to Living Valley Springs.

In the two weeks Ina spent in the Living Valley Springs intensive workshops her world was turned around. She couldn’t believe the positive changes she felt within herself, and when she saw my film and made the connection to the challenges people are facing on the APY Lands through poor diet choices – she asked myself, and the Foundation for help. Ina could see that by giving people from her communities, an opportunity that they would not normally be able to access, to have two weeks of intense workshops in a supportive environment away from daily challenges, there was a chance that people’s poor health could be turned around. By giving people this opportunity, they too could return to community and shout the message of healthy eating and living from the roof tops, just as Ina has.

This same retreat has worked in the top end with Hope for Health – Yolngu returned with amazing results and a fresh attitude towards healthy living, and we are sure we can do the same for Anangu in Central Australia.

It’s a radical situation we are dealing with so it requires the radical approach that we are proposing. The costs are considerable in getting these women out to the retreat from such remote quarters, however their influence upon their return to community will be well worth it. We hope that we can have these sorts of retreats within community, once the word has spread as to how beneficial they are.”

Check out their campaign here:

July 7, 2017July 18, 2017

Success Story: Matt’s Walking to a Better World

Matt

“My name is Matt Napier and I want to see an end to world poverty.
During a trip to Nepal 11 years ago, I first realised how bad poverty can be in developing countries. I couldn’t face going back to my home in Australia and leaving these poor people behind when the only difference between us was the country we were born into. I had all the opportunities in the world but was wasting them, so decided to set my focus on becoming a voice for the world’s poor and since then have become an anti-poverty advocate.

Now, I’m no expert in International Development or a genius with a cure for the world’s ills, so what could I do? I decided to undertake extreme long distance adventures and use this to raise awareness of poverty, talk to schools and politicians and raise much needed funds for projects that I believe have the greatest chance of stopping the cycle of poverty.

So, in 2012 I cycled 3,800km across Australia and then in 2013 I bounced an Aussie Rules football from Perth to Sydney. These adventures were so successful that I then set my sights on Africa and in 2016 I walked 2,300km across southern Africa from Walvis Bay in Nambia to Maputo in Mozambique. I raised $62,000 through four separate chuffed campaigns (one for each of my charity partners) and also gave out over 200 soccer-balls to schools and community groups along the way. Oh yeah, did I mention I kicked a soccer-ball the whole way!?

This year I am walking 1,860km from the southern border of Namibia to the northern border with Angola. It will take me through some of the harshest terrain on earth including the Namibia Desert and the infamous Skeleton Coast. This year I have two charity partners – Empower Projects and Caritas Australia – and aim to fund a specific project through each of them. Each project is unique but the thing that they both have in common is that they work with the communities to identify their needs and solutions that will work for them, and then they support them to implement them in a way that is sustainable and will create long term change.

I am currently one week into my 7 week journey and although I am finding it a bit tough at the moment, I am encouraged by the support I have received and the emails I get from Chuffed telling me when someone has donated.”

Go Matt! Learn more about his mission by checking out his Chuffed.org campaigns:

June 30, 2017September 14, 2017

Become a Chuffed.org Community Leader

people attending workshop

Thanks for showing an interest in becoming a Chuffed.org Community Leader. Chuffed.org is a social benefits company and not surprisingly our campaigners are at the heart of everything we do.

Role Description

Community Leader / Crowdfunding Workshop Facilitator role in rapidly-growing, VC-funded, social-cause tech startup, changing the world.

Chuffed are seeking a team of enthusiastic and motivated campaigners to add capacity to the organizing of community events (ie. Crowdfunding Workshops) in your local area. This is a voluntary role, but proceeds from the workshops will go to support your next campaign on Chuffed, or any other cause on Chuffed that you would like to support.

Within the Community Leader role you not only have the benefit of raising funds for your cause through organizing workshops, but also a great opportunity to meet and support other campaigners in your local area and make sure they have the best possible chance of running a successful campaign on Chuffed.

Our Community Leaders are a vital part of helping more people raise the needed funds to bring their social cause projects to life, so why not check out the info below to see if it’s right for you!

LOCATIONS: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

What you’ll be doing

The Community Leader functions as a volunteer for Chuffed. With the support of the team at Chuffed, Community Leaders organize and facilitate crowdfunding workshops in their local area. In addition with this, you will work with the team at Chuffed to come up with other ideas for how to help better support your local community. We’d provide free training and resources to help you organize your first workshop.

STATUS: Voluntary (min. 1 day / month) with proceeds of the workshop supporting your campaign on Chuffed (or any other cause on Chuffed that you’d like to support).

DURATION: August – October 2017 (1 day / month), opportunities for ongoing involvement

KEY RESPONSIBILITY AREAS:

1. Coordinate and facilitate at least one Chuffed Crowdfunding workshop per month in your local area for 15 participants.

2. Help promote the crowdfunding workshops in your local community and assist with finding a suited venue for the workshop.

Requirements:

We’re looking for people who:

have crowdfunding (or other relevant fundraising) experience
have experience running and facilitating events
are excited about Chuffed and what we do
have run a successful crowdfunding campaign on Chuffed before (*bonus)

In terms of commitment you’d need to:

Be willing and available to participate in training between 17-31 July (2x 1h Skype session + approx. 3h background reading)
Be available for 1 day/ month during August, September and October to prepare for and facilitate a 3-hour crowdfunding workshop for up to 15 participants.

This is a volunteer role, where proceeds from the workshop will go to support your project on Chuffed or any other cause on Chuffed that you would like to support (this can be anywhere from $200 – $400 per 3-hour workshop).

We provide free training and resources to help you organize your first workshop.

Who is Chuffed?

Chuffed is one of the global leading crowdfunding platforms for social causes, ranging from environmental, animal welfare and international development causes to social welfare and projects supporting refugees across the world. We’re a purpose-led company that’s transforming how people think about charities around the world. We’re making the face of charity awesome, bringing to life exciting projects that people want to be part of.

In contrast to many other charity providers and fundraising platforms, we do not charge any commissions or fees to campaigners. This way 100% of funds raised can go to support projects. Instead, we rely wholly on the kindness of donors to cover online transaction fees and include an optional donation to support our platform. Lucky for us, turns out they do!

Since launching in October 2013, we’ve raised over $13M / £9M for close to 5,000 projects in 20 countries, and this is only the start.

Everyone on team Chuffed.org deeply cares about the causes we support. We’re a genuine bunch and look forward to having you on board!

To apply, please complete the online form below:

COMPLETE THE APPLICATION FORM

Application closes: 30 November 2017

Skype Interview dates: ongoing

Trainings: 2x 1h Skype session + some background reading (approx. 3-4h)

If have any further questions regarding this role please contact info@chuffed.org for more information.

March 30, 2017July 18, 2017

We’re hiring: Customer Support Advocate (London)

Customer Support Advocate (London)

The very brief version

Customer Support role in rapidly-growing, VC-funded, social-cause tech startup, changing the world.

Who is Chuffed.org?

We’re a purpose-led company that’s transforming how people think about charities around the world. Instead of thinking of the charity muggers harassing you on your way to work, we’re making the face of charity awesome, exciting projects that people want to be part of.

Since launching in October 2013, we’ve raised over £9M for close to 5,000 projects in 20 countries. We’ve reunited a Somali refugee mother with her son that she hadn’t seen in 23 years; we’ve helped legalise medicinal marijuana for the terminally ill; we’ve transformed how the Vanuatu Government does disaster relief… and a lot more.

What you’ll be doing?

You’ll be joining our London-based team as we grow to get our product from thousands of campaigners to hundreds of thousands. You’ll be responsible for:

Support (80%): You’ll be providing email support to our amazing social cause campaigners and donors. This will be both technical support (how to use the platform) and crowdfunding strategy support (how to run a crowdfunding campaign). Campaigners love the real human connection they get with Chuffed.org, so being empathetic while communicating clearly in writing is important.
Coaching (15%): You’ll become a coach to potential campaigners on how to succeed in their crowdfunding campaigns. Don’t worry, we’ll train you on what works from our experience with over 5,000 campaigners. This will be both in person and on Skype
Advocating (5%): As you’re the closest person to our customers, you’ll be reporting back to the team on what customers find exciting and confusing about the platform so that we can build an even better product.

In addition, as you get more familiar with Chuffed.org and our customers, we expect everyone in the team to contribute their ideas and opinions on how we can support more organisations better. You might be involved in brainstorms, feedback sessions and customer interviews.

What we’re looking for

Culture

You’re empathetic: we’re looking for someone with an ability to understand what the world looks like from their point of view. When they’re confused and frustrated, you’ll need to be understanding and helpful
You care: we’re a purpose-led company and we love working with people who care about the world around them
You learn: there’s a lot to learn about how Chuffed.org and crowdfunding works – and it changes all the time. You’ll need to be curious and have the willingness to be over the small details as well big things
You’re independent: we’re a small team distributed across London, Sydney and Melbourne. You’ll be part of an office of 3-4 people, but we generally work at high pace, in different locations and timezones and often quite independently. We’ll give you a lot of flexibility on where and how you work, as long as you get your work done.
You play nice: because we all love coming to work and we want you to too

Experience

2 years experience in a customer service or support role or other relevant experience

Bonus points

You like building systems that make your job easier – and that make it easier to train others on what you do
You like and want to learn more about tech and startup world
You’ve worked with the non-profit/charity/advocacy sector before

The details

Based in WeWork London Field (E8 4RU)
£22-25k salary + 0.1-0.5% equity
You’ll report to the CEO (London), and work closely with our Growth Manager (London)

Why work for us

People come for the social mission, they stay for the team. We’re a fast-growing social enterprise, that’s backed by some amazing tech investors (Blackbird VC and Bevan Clark) but retains our social mission at our core. We even created our own legal structure over in Australia – the Social Benefit Company – to let us do that. We’ve worked in the social sector for years and changing how it raises money for the amazing work that it does is something that we deeply care about. We’re the place where you can do work that you care about and be part of a fast-moving company at the same time. We also allow for flexible, distributed working to cater for parents.

You can read more here:

How to apply

Send us an email to careers@chuffed.org with your CV and a cover letter talking about who you are and what you care about.

Applications close 30 April, or when we find the right person.

February 13, 2017July 18, 2017

We’re hiring: Front-End Developer (Sydney)

Front-end Developer (Sydney)

tl;dr

Front-end developer job in rapidly-growing, VC-funded, social-cause startup, changing the world.

Who is Chuffed.org?

Since launching in October 2013, we’ve raised over $13M for 4,500 projects in 20 countries. We’ve reunited a Somali refugee mother with her son that she hadn’t seen in 23 years; we’ve helped legalise medicinal marijuana for the terminally ill; we’ve transformed how the Vanuatu Government does disaster relief… and a lot more.

What you’ll be doing?

You’ll be joining our Sydney-based team as we grow to get our product from thousands of campaigners to hundreds of thousands. You’ll be responsible for:

working with the engineering team to build new ways for social cause campaigners to build communities and raise funds and new personalised experiences for donors
implementing the experiments and new products that the Growth team wants to test – this will be a mixture of front-end/design work as well as building back end features:
- Possible activities include: creating landing pages, changing user flows, improving email designs, improving tracking, creating adaptive education in our campaign editor and more
instrumenting our app to collect the right data to measure the impact of experiments, gain deeper insights on how users are engaging with our product and where they’re leaking out. We use Segment, Mixpanel and Google Analytics, but are open to others
working with the engineering team to ship code every day

As you get more familiar with the product and our customers, you’ll be providing input on what growth initiatives we should pursue too.

What we’re looking for

Culture

You care: we’re a purpose-led company and we love working with people who care about the world around them
You learn: because there’s always another JS framework around the corner and a better way of making our customers happy
You play nice: because we all love coming to work and we want you to too

Technical

Experience in JS/HTML/CSS (mid-level, about 3 years)
Familiarity with PHP (we use Laravel) or a willingness to learn
Experience with Angular, React or other modern JS frameworks

Bonus points

You’re data driven, curious about what customers value and why they behave in certain ways
You’ve worked with the non-profit/charity/advocacy sector before

The details

Based in Darlinghurst, Sydney
Competitive salary package: we’ll normally pay a mix of cash salary and equity
You’ll report to the CEO (London), and work closely with our engineering and growth teams in Sydney, Melbourne and London

Why work for us

You can read more here:

How to apply

Send us an email to careers@chuffed.org with your CV or any links you have to apps you’ve built, github repos, portfolios. We love getting applications that talk about what you’ve built and why you care.

Applications close when we find the right person.

February 7, 2017July 18, 2017

Architects of Hope

Following the US Executive Order halting refugees and migrants at the end of January, I sent this email to the Chuffed.org Team:

Team,

As you all would know, two weekends ago in the US, President Trump issued an executive order to halt all US refugee intake for 120 days, bar Syrian refugees from the US indefinitely and severely restrict travel to the US of citizens (including dual nationals) of seven majority-Muslim countries.

Upon hearing this order and reflecting on its effects, I spent much of that weekend buried under the weight of fear. It wasn’t just the act of turning our backs on people in their hour of need that triggered this, or the fact that green card permanent residents were no longer able to return home to their families, but the built in ideology that foreigners, and in particular Muslims, should be judged a threat until proven otherwise.

As a perpetual foreigner, that ideology terrifies me.

The fear that I felt in response to this policy pales in comparison to the fear felt by people fleeing for their lives. It is wrong to arbitrarily deny them the hope that a life in our countries brings, especially after years of vetting, waiting and despair. To then treat them as a threat is undeniably callous.

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In the year I was born, race riots ravaged Sri Lanka. People of one race judged another to be a threat and burned them on the streets. That’s what happens when a Government implicitly or explicitly sanctions fear of a particular group.

In a more welcoming time, we were lucky to immigrate to Australia, which took pride in its multicultural identity. To be sure, it wasn’t perfect; it did debate each wave of migration but it didn’t define its national conversation around deciding who they let into the country and the circumstances in which they came.

As an immigrant, that generosity that Australia showed – that idea that I was welcome and not a threat – created a sense of hope. Hope that I would be treated fairly. Hope that people cared about me. Hope that even though we didn’t know each other, we were on the same side. Hope as an immigrant is a powerful emotion. It’s the thing that gives you the ability to contribute, to integrate, to learn and to create.

Chuffed.org was born out of hope.

And immigrants.

The majority of the Chuffed.org team live in a country that they weren’t born in. For those who were, everyone has at least one parent that wasn’t born in that country. We’re a team of immigrants, who work every day to make the countries we call home better for everyone.

As immigrants, we have to ask ourselves, how do we respond to what’s happening in the US – with hope or with fear?

It’s easy to let fear guide us. It is fear that guides our urge to shout at people who we disagree with. It is fear that guides our desire to flee to the comfort of our social media echo chamber. Fighting fear with fear is momentarily satisfying but that’s about it.

The only way to overcome fear in the long term is to consciously create a world of hope for everyone. Especially for our fellow citizens whom we don’t see eye-to-eye with. That’s why we need to build a community that supports and encourages people who bring hope to the world – particularly to those who need it the most.

The Anne Moon‘s who bring hope to refugees imprisoned on Manus Island and Nauru, the Phili and Rob’s who bring hope to the homeless freezing on London’s streets, and the Jeanna’s who bring hope to the women of Alaska so that their rights will be protected. These amazing people, and thousands more like them, are our architects of hope.

If we can design the world with their plans to guide us, we’ll create a fear-proof world, one that can’t burn down.

Prashan Paramanathan, CEO Chuffed.org

January 19, 2017July 18, 2017

Hey Australia, we’re getting your donations to you faster

There’s nothing like the feeling of seeing your campaign funds hit your bank account. And we want you to have that feeling even faster than before.

To date, when supporters donated via credit and debit cards to your campaign, you had to wait 5-15 days after your campaign ended before you got your funds. That’s changing today for all new campaigns.

So what’s changing, exactly?

For all new campaign that start from today, donations made via credit and debit cards to Australian campaigns will be transferred to your nominated bank account in 2-day rolling cycles. That means all the donations made to you today, will be sent to you in 2-days time – with the exception of weekends and public/bank holidays. If that’s too frequent for you, you can change this to weekly or monthly.

How do the changes work?

In order to make this happen, we’ve partnered with Stripe – a global payments platform. We’ve actually been using Stripe in the background for all our credit and debit card payments for a number of years already.

Going forward, when you start a campaign in Australia and choose credit/debit card payments, you’ll now need to create and connect an account with Stripe. It’s a <5 minute process and is integrated into our system, so you’ll barely notice.

Then, everything works as normal. Someone donates to your campaign. That donation gets transferred to your Stripe account and then Stripe transfers the donations to your bank account automatically in 2-day rolling cycles.

No more waiting around until after your campaign ends to get your money.

Magic!

Some FAQs

1. What if I’ve got a campaign running in Australia already?

For existing campaigns, you’ll still receive your credit/debit card donations 5-15 days after your campaign ends. When you create your next campaign, you’ll be on the new system and need to connect a Stripe account so that we can send your funds to you more frequently.

2. Will this effect non-Australian campaigns?

No. Full steam ahead for campaigns in all our other supported countries. This brings Australia in line with what we’ve been doing everywhere else for a while.

3. Who are Stripe?

Stripe are a global payments system that handles billions of dollars of payments every year around the world. They’re also incredibly reliable and lovely people. You can read more about Chuffed + Stripe here: Stripe leaves Aussie Non-Profit Platform Chuffed.

4. How do I get my donations less frequently?

Sometimes getting transactions into your bank account every day can get really messy – particularly for the accountants – and you’ll want to receive funds less frequently. To do that, you’ll need to:

– Log into your Stripe.com account (www.stripe.com)

Click on your name in the top right
Click on ‘Account Settings’
Click on ‘Transfers’
In the ‘Transfer Schedule’ click on ‘Change Schedule’
Choose the frequency you want and click on ‘Save Schedule’

All future transfers will then be on the new schedule that you chose.