I remember back when I was in high school, we were always trying to pool money for this or that. A girl’s birthday, a teacher’s gift at the end of the year, a school day out,… and more than once, there were tensions and problems. Like that time I had 10 friends pledge £10 each for a birthday present, I went off to buy a £100 gift, and a couple of the girls never paid me. It was frustrating. And that time we were raising money for a charity in Africa and had to follow up with people, ask them to set up a bank transfer, make sure they had done it, not made a mistake with the account number, and so on… ugh.
So when I discovered Leetchi.com, an online money collection platform, I thought it was the solution to all these headaches. Why did it take so long to invent?
With Leetchi, it is easy to raise money for any project. From personal stuff like a birthday or a leaving do to a charity or community project.
In order to create a money pot, you need to register on Leetchi, either by entering your personal details, or by connecting to Facebook in one click. Once you are registered, you will be asked to chose the purpose of your money pot.
You can pick one in the drop down menu, then give it a specific name. Your money pot then gets geo located, you can enter a more precise address if you wish, or skip that step. Customisation continues with choosing a URL for your pot. Like Kyles-birthday. Money pots can be public or private, and you have to set an end date. You can add a featured image or keep the default one. And then you are prompted to write a description, explaining why you are raising money. Again, there is a default text if you’re not willing to write something special.
Time to set the amount! You are prompted to enter how much you wish to raise, and a few options like hiding the total collected, who contributed, or suggesting an amount to contribute.
Creating a money pot is free and Leetchi takes no commissions on contributions. You can get an email notification when people contribute to your money pot, and let them know when you have spent the money raised.
Now it is time to invite your friends! You will need to enter the email addresses of the people you wish to invite to contribute to your money pot. You can import your email contacts from Gmail or Yahoo! or send a private message on Facebook.
There are also ready links to share your money pot on social media in one click.
Once your friends get into the Leetchi site, they can contribute to your money pot by making a credit card payment. You can resend an invite to the people who have not sent the money yet, or share again on social media during the life of the fundraiser.
When you have reached your goal, you have two options. You can spend the money pot without paying a commission to Litchee, if you use the amount you raised on their partner sites, such as Amazon.
Or you can simply withdraw the money to your bank account. In that case, Leetchi charges a fee of 2.9% for amounts over £2,000 and 4% for amounts under £2,000.
Considering the time you will save chasing payments and keeping a tally of who paid and who didn’t, this seems like a straightforward way to handle your online fundraising campaigns. Plus, all credit card payments are secure!
What do you think? Have you ever tried Leetchi?
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