What a year 2024 was for GWD!

Going into 2024, we set ourselves many goals, but our main mission has always remained the same: help raise money for good causes.

Our customers have continued to increase donations despite a challenging economic backdrop. By providing visitors with an effective way to donate, we’ve seen charities boost supporter engagement, encourage larger donation amounts and kickstart meaningful relationships. All while making a significant return on their investment!

We’ve seen what you have achieved but what did GWD achieve last year?

January: Launching Offline Mode

We started our year with a significant upgrade, by launching Offline Mode 2.0, with improved usability and more ways to capture donations. Offline Mode 1.0 was initially trialled with our Church of England roll-out customers – specifically those who required an offline solution due to lack of signal and Wi-fi.

The upgrades came as a result of customer feedback sessions to find out exactly what fundraisers need from this feature as well as how we could improve its overall usability.

Since then the feature has been offered to all charities who require it with many customers feeding back that the solution has been both user friendly and reliable.

Who has benefited?

  • Rural churches
  • Historical buildings
  • Sites without internet
  • Hospitals
  • Outdoor venues

"We have installed a GWD midi contactless payment machine recently in a 7th century church with no internet or Wi-Fi! It is a robust well-made machine but the support behind its installation has been excellent. Always someone at the end of the phone and willing to talk you through all stages. Excellent customer service."

– Beuno Sant Uwch Gwyfai

February: £4 Million raised through Donation Stations!

Over the past few years, we have seen our customers continue to connect with their supporters and raise valuable funds for their causes with on-site contactless donations. The generosity seen through our Donation Stations is quite remarkable, with charities reaching a total of £4 Million back in February last year.

This milestone marked over 500,000 donations made by the public, with a large percentage of the funds being Gift Aided, adding even more to the collective total!

We want to thank our customers for being part of our rapidly growing community. Without your support and enthusiasm for our solutions, the impact we’ve had so far would not have been possible.

March: Trialling the new product range

As we continue to grow our product range, we are consistently asking for your input and feedback. Last March saw the first customer trials of our new Lite Donation Stations; the Pocket and the Express.

After establishing a need for simple yet impactful donation devices, we decided to launch two new products with the hopes that they would provide even more fundraisers with the access to easy contactless giving. Enabling smaller charities and those with less tech experience to confidently collect donations on the move.

Both products were trialled for a month, with feedback sessions carried out by our Product Manager to ensure that any technical issues or user difficulties were highlighted and a solution could be put in place.

Despite some initial kinks to work through, the general consensus was very positive, with both customers successfully using the devices in their day-to-day operations.

Their experiences gave us some great insights into how this type of solution is best used in different environments, meaning our guidance and solutions can better serve you.

Donation Station Lite range

Read more

April: Our website gets a whole new look

Websites are often referred to as the face of a company and with so many changes and improvements happening internally, we wanted our website to reflect this! Like our products, we wanted our site to be accessible, easy to use and impactful – this way we can better communicate with our customers while making a positive first impression with the charities we haven’t yet supported.

Starting from scratch we listed all of the things we needed our website to do, with a focus on how visitors will navigate the site. Being easily contactable was a key consideration, as we pride ourselves on being both reachable and responsive in order to provide you with the best service possible.

May: Device error reporting goes live

After receiving feedback from our customers about missing out on donations when internet does down or other issues occur, we developed a proactive solution that not only identifies those issues, but flags them on your behalf.

In May we launched Version 3.5.2 of the Donation Station software, which makes spotting issues easier and effectively reduces the amount of time your device is out of action. You can then spend more time doing what you do best: fundraising!

The update consisted of two major changes:

  1. Help staying connected: any device with the latest version of the software will automatically show a message when it’s not connected to Wi-Fi and unable to take donations, ensuring it gets noticed and resolved.
  2. Flag hardware issues: any connection problems with the Donation Station card reader are made obvious so you can solve them before it affects your donor’s ability to give.

We want to see your donors engaging as much as you do, this way they have a better chance of being able to give to a deserving cause.

illustration of man stood in front of a donation station

June: We officially launch the Lite range

Our aim with these solutions is to make it easier than ever for donors to support your cause through contactless. Whether that’s face-to-face or events-based fundraising, our Lite products are perfect for collecting quick transactions on the move.

Designed with fundraisers in mind:

  • Minimal set-up required
  • Perfect for fundraising on the go
  • Secure, portable payments
  • Excellent for community events
  • Take payments anywhere
  • Accessible and easy to use

Since our launch back in April, we have deployed hundreds of Lite devices to new and old customers alike. We are seeing incredible success, with organisations consistently raising enough to cover their monthly fees and then some!

July: We shared our guide to contactless giving

Over the summer we published an up-to-date guide on all things contactless fundraising.

The guide looks at breaking down some of the barriers charities experience when investing in digital tools such as the Donation Station. As well as showcasing what our customers have achieved through contactless.

Discover how contactless can:

  • Maximise donor engagement
  • Boost donation income
  • Kickstart long-lasting supporter relationships

Read more

August: All things UK heritage!

August was a big month for the heritage sector in particular, with the school holidays taking place, warm weather for outdoor activities and Heritage Open Days – not to mention a deadline to spend any extra funding!

Our arts, culture and heritage customers consistently see success through contactless donations, from museums to theatres to historical sites, the pubic are always keen to support UK heritage. Giving them an easy and visible way to do this, ensures no funds are missed.

September: The Donation Station is now PGS integrated

This was great news for our Church of England customers, as it improves the user experience for this sector even further. This development means that churches registered with the scheme can streamline their fundraising processes, while reaping the benefits.

What are the benefits of Parish Giving Scheme x Donation Stations?

  • Quick and easy on-boarding
  • Automated Gift Aid claims
  • Regular settlements

October: GWD touch down in Ireland

We have supported UK based charities for the past 5 years – our next goal as a business is to start supporting Irish charities through our solutions too.

"In an increasingly cashless society, creating engaging opportunities for your visitors to give back is vital. We've seen first-hand just how impactful contactless solutions can be for charitable organisations. Our Donation Stations have continued to encourage generosity, raise cause awareness and boost fundraising income for UK charities. Offering our solutions to Irish charities is a natural next step, ensuring we can support as many fundraisers as possible by maximising donations."

– Ben Widdows, CEO

A recent news article reported that a large proportion of Irish charity workers are suffering from burnout with some organisations struggling to fill certain roles. The UK charity sector has experienced similar issues including a lack of funding as well as overstretched resources in recent years. This re-affirms the need for tools like the Donation Station to boost income and help fundraise on behalf of your team.

November: Donation Station Portal updates go live

In November, the latest update to our customer portal went live, with many exciting benefits now available to our customers. 

So, what’s different?

DIY donor journey set-up: you and your team can now make changes to your device’s donor journey via the GWD Portal. This is in addition to the configuration service we will continue to offer via our Helpdesk.

If you would prefer to manage things yourself, you can see your Donation Stations in the Manage Kiosks section and:

  • Update or add causes
  • Change donation amounts

Enable or disable Gift Aid Automated transaction reports: you can also schedule email reports on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. If you’ve got multiple sites and devices to manage, it’s now easier than ever to organise your accounts, set-up regular reports and send them to the relevant team members. This update gives you more flexibility to control the flow of data within your team

Getting the most from your Donation Station
Using the varied Donation amounts

December: £3.3 million raised in 2024

In 2024, we raised a total of £3.3 million for good causes. That’s more than 2021, 2022 and 2023 totals combined!

This life-changing achievement is not just ours, it’s a testament to our incredible customers with causes worthy of support, as well as the members of the public who choose to support them. This shared milestone showcases the significant impact that can be achieved when we enable our customers to improve their fundraising efforts with our Donation Stations.

We are hoping that 2025 will be just a fruitful, with a many more exciting projects underway and lots of product updates coming your way. Stay tuned!

Who are GWD?

We help socially-minded organisations transition to digital systems, building stronger relationships through impactful products and services.

Our experience goes back two decades, with a foundation building and providing critical digital services and products for the financial services and retail industries.

With a long-proven ability to handle challenging projects and a team of trusted experts, we work hard to solve problems and deliver change that helps others.

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