I had two ideas right off the bat for this crowdfunding campaign. One idea was to raise money to donate to a food bank and the other involved raising money to give a school library new books. Real-life events have inspired these ideas. Food banks are finding more and more people visiting them due to reduced income, being laid off completely, and now trying to adjust to these changes. It’s a lot for anyone to deal with, including staff at these food banks who are doing their best to help others and protect their health at the same time.

Childhood literacy is close to my heart. I’ve been a reader from a very young age and I was fortunate to have a parent who encouraged my love of reading. Throughout high school, I worked in a library and to this day, whenever I have to kill time or need a quiet place to work, I go to a library. Some of you know this, but my main job is at a Canadian bookstore. (If you know, then you know. I should probably say that we also sell other lifestyle products as well.) There are a few ways the company gives back, but they also do a great job with raising funds for schools with limited library budgets in communities. We’re talking schools that can’t afford to replace outdated books.

If you have bought items in-store, more than likely you have been told at the cash desk that the store location is raising money for the school they have adopted and asked if you would like to donate. I believe it also appears during the checkout process online. It’s completely optional, but this fundraiser is how certain schools can purchase new books and other educational resources. There are also grants given, and let’s just say that more than one video of a cheque being presented to schools has made my eyes water. Yes, there are schools here in Canada who deal with this every school year, and thankfully, the fundraiser runs in spring and fall.

Knowing this, I thought, what if a school library had to raise money themselves? Let’s say that staff had a very limited library budget and they occasionally bought materials with their own money, but it still wasn’t enough. What would that crowdfunding campaign look like?

The beginning stages of what this campaign looked like.

I didn’t take many screenshots throughout designing this. In fact, the other two screenshots look blurry, so I’m not going to include them. But back to the task at hand…

This is probably a good time to suggest for you to open up the Figma prototype here and continue to read this post. No pressure. As always, if you want to read the copy, please remember to go to the Options dropdown in the top right corner of the screen and select 100% - Display at Full Size or press the letter Z on your keyboard.

I was only going to do one screen and move on to the next challenge in the series, but I found myself wanting to add screens in order to tell the story of this crowdfunding campaign properly. Details, FAQs, updates, and even showing what the last contributions were are all included. Yes, campaigns are used to raise money, however people know whether or not they will give money once they read the details.

I have donated to a few campaigns myself, both with my name attached to my contribution and anonymously. I believe that when you do a charitable deed, it’s not necessary to shout it out from the rooftops or brag about what you did. With that in mind, I decided to include an option on the last screen to make the contribution anonymous or to use the user’s name. Keep in mind that the user is already logged into their account and has a payment method saved on file.

[Alt text: Hand holding iPhone X showing a screen of a crowdfunding campaign.]

If you’re new here, then you should know I get all of my stock photos from Pexels. They’re free (yes, really!) and there’s a wide variety of pictures and videos to choose from. The wonderful pictures I used were by the following accounts/people in order of screens:

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
Photo by Ian Panelo from Pexels
Photo by Pragyan Bezbaruah from Pexels
Photo by mentatdgt from Pexels

Until next time, wash your hands (thoroughly) and be safe.