Hi everyone,
Looking into the same use case I’ve come up using QR codes to allow users to make a donation. It works for my audience since I am in EU and most banks support the SEPA standard.
You can create the QR codes here: https://epc-qr.eu/. The url it generates is dynamic and you can tweak it to suit your needs. It yields the QR code image and the markdown then brings the resulting picture file into your assets. This process I like because that will be less vulnerable to tampering than keeping the url.
There are other providers but this ‘official’ one I like because it adds transaction reference, account number, benificiary and amount to the code so people can check in their mobile app it matches the data on the QR code (some level of fraud protection). You can also strip that if you like by the way.
I made a nice post indicating best things in life are free, but maintaining the site is not. Then outlined the nature of the cost and offering everyone the option to make a donation of either 5, 10 or 20 euro, depending on what you can afford and how much value you feel you get. I have indicated donators become ‘member’ get a shine on their avatar and get to decide what any surplus should be invested in (I’m not for profit). E.g. donate it to some charity or fund some plugin etc.
Should give it some time to see how it works but I like it so far as it is:
- free of charge
- robust and easy to explain
- easy to implement, no plugins to involve
- you can get notified through your bank app
What I don’t like:
- only for EU/SEPA audience. though that is 99% of my crowd. People can of course wire money directly if they get in touch. Don’t know if there is a similar QR-based system that spans globally?
- An improvement would be to make it more interactive. Was thinking a combobox to enter the amount for the donation, perhaps add data of the originator/donor etc. If we could do that using simple HTML or embedded code in a post that would be best. Building a plugin is also possible for other people but I kind of like the no frills approach of this.
Have other people approached it in a similar fashion?
Koen