The Kindness of Strangers is a new piece of software that has been created to equip small charities and churches with expert fundraising tools and guidance in one, easy-to-use platform.

Software platforms already exist that are designed to help larger organisations fundraise, but smaller charities are unable to afford these tools and they are often too complex for their needs. Therefore, the goal of The Kindness of Strangers is to help small organisations raise funds by providing them with the same kind of tools and advice that larger organisations have access to.

Whilst working at Appdrawn as a digital designer, a large project that I worked on was designing The Kindness of Strangers platform. The process started with initial discussions with the client to find out exactly what they envisioned and to confirm project goals. They needed a platform that would be affordable for small organisations, include embedded marketing tools, have access to expert knowledge on finance and strategy, and be accessible for those with varying technical abilities.

They already had existing branding, and so that enabled me to get a good understanding of the look and feel that they wanted to achieve - it was important for it to be bright, welcoming, and easy to use. I took inspiration from the simplicity of AirBnB, whereby users can start off their fundraising journey with just a few simple questions.

Detailed mockups were created in Adobe XD and I liaised with the client until they were happy with the designs. Once these were finalised, I built all the pages using HTML and CSS (Bootstrap framework) within a Ruby on Rails app. I then passed the code to the development team who handled all the functionality.