Night shift · Nonprofits
The giving ledger
Two charity websites share the same job behind the scenes: let real people give and write in, keep junk out, and never count money that has not arrived.
A toy version, with the detail sanded off. The blocks are made up and the counts come from the toy.
- Promised
- 2
- Confirmed and counted
- 5
- Messages
- 2
- Bots turned away
- 0
01
Door
Gifts and messages come in through public forms. So do bots.
02
Guard
Rate limits, trap fields and a bot check turn junk away before anything is saved.
03
Inbox
A message is saved for staff to read, and a copy is emailed, so it never depends on one place.
04
Ledger
A gift is written down as promised, not received. The site never touches the money.
05
Confirm
A person checks the payment arrived and confirms it. Only confirmed gifts count in any total.
06
Receipt
Confirming is what sends the donor a receipt, and the action is written to a log.
Why it is built this way
- The site never takes a payment. It records the promise and leaves the money to tools built for money.
- Totals count confirmed gifts only, so a number on a report is a number in the bank.
- Nothing is emailed to a donor until a person has confirmed the gift.
- Who can see money is a switch per person, and every admin action is logged.
How it feels
I love these two projects. On the first I am mostly the person in the shadow: a silent monitor, moving the tech, improving things. Some requests are fun. Some sting a little, because it is my design, but I get over it and make it better, again and again.
On the second, new feature requests are the fun part, and none has been unreasonable yet.
What I wish for both is more visitors and more people involved. I would like to make friends, partner with ministries, and be more than the guy in the shadow.
Tea