How did DanaMojo start?
I believe that the NGOs working directly with the underprivileged sections of society have the most inspiring stories of human achievement and social transformation. These stories are key to inspire retail individual donors, engage them and retain them to increase their giving over time. Retail donors, indeed, are key to an organization’s success, not only in fundraising but in achieving social change by impacting the hearts and minds of hundreds, thousands, millions and billions.
After leaving GiveIndia, I met many NGOs to see what I could do to help increase the funds they received from retail individual donors. One of the common themes I found was that they found it very difficult to get a payment gateway and a payment gateway is essential today to source retail contributions. I found it very unfair that while for-profits could easily get a payment gateway, non-profits could not. Also given that donations are neither a product nor a service they needed a very different type of solution and customer experience that did not exist in the market.
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Thus the idea behind this venture is that non-profits get the same level of financial access that a for-profit has access to. Today, DanaMojo acts as a SaaS Platform to assist NGOs in collecting donations online from their donors and automating several processes for the donor.
Who is your target audience?
Our target audience are NGOs across India - mainly small and mid-sized NGOs who have the least resources and face the most challenges in getting access to high quality technical resources as well as payment services.
What is your key offering to your clients?
Danamojo is a Payment Solutions Platform that helps NGOs by providing them with the necessary systems and tools to give donors a delightful experience in making a donation. Research in the US has shown that the average size of donations on an NGO’s own website is 50% more than crowdfunding websites and 25% more than portal/marketplace websites.
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Our Payment Solutions Platform comprises of 6 key elements:
- An “ecommerce-like donation storefront” that integrates seamlessly with an NGO's website in less than 5 minutes with an ability to showcase its donation products so that their donor can select from multiple options. We also assist NGOs in integrating this platform on their website at no additional cost to them.
- A 100% legally compliant donor form to capture donor information providing an NGO peace of mind on fundraising compliance.
- Online modes of payment include both Domestic & International Payment Gateways with automatic segregation of donations into the NGO's Indian & Foreign Donor Bank Accounts.
- Customized Thank You mail and Instant Automated 80G receipt on the NGO's behalf is sent to the donor immediately on confirmation of the donation for an enhanced donor experience.
- Engagement Campaigns like Monthly Mailers, Reminder Mailers and Retry Mailers that increase donations by 5-10% from the NGOs donors.
- Integrated Email Marketing Platform – Allows NGOs to send campaigns to their own donors with the least amount of effort by automating the process of list creation and updation.
- Most recently, we have introduced a tool for NGOs to auto-generate the Form 10BD and upload it to the IT portal
On the B2C side, we have recently launched 2 features - the Giving Marketplace and the Giving Calculator. Since we have on boarded 1,000+ NGOs, we decided to introduce the marketplace to offer an easy solution for people to donate to an NGO of their choice. Individuals can select to give to any of its 350+ active verified NGOs with a filter to help them choose a cause they feel strongly about or location they prefer.
The Giving Calculator is extremely useful for everyone as it helps individuals calculate their tax deductions & set charity targets for the year or month based on their income level and tax brackets in just a few seconds.
What percentage of fees does DanaMojo take for its services?
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DanaMojo has a 2 tiered fee structure. As a SaaS platform, we charge an Annual Subscription Fee that ranges from Rs. 2,999 to Rs.19,999 depending on choice of plans and platforms and since DanaMojo provides an online payment platform, we charge a transaction fee on every donation. This starts at 2.9% for domestic donations.
You raised your first round of funding last year. How has DanaMojo grown since then?
Yes, we raised our first round of funding from Ms Rohini Nilekani, Social Alpha and 2 other investors.We have been building our team and have a strong technology backbone in place on which we aim to build on in the coming years. We are laying the foundation for a strong growth in the coming years through investments in people, technology and systems.
Did you find a spike in online donations through DanaMojo during the pandemic? Does the trend continue?
Yes, online donations grew significantly during the pandemic. We noticed a growth of 3-5x regular volumes during the two waves of the pandemic. This growth happened for 2 reasons:
First, NGOs started asking donors for donations. They almost never used to do that but finally overcame their shyness to reach out to them and ask them. Secondly, donors moved towards online payment modes due to social distancing / lockdown related issues and discovered the ease and benefit of making donations online.
We certainly see these trends continuing as both NGOs and donors have seen a benefit in them.
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Why do NGOs require a specialized service?
NGOs are founded by extremely driven and passionate people. They come from different backgrounds, not always with great exposure to technology or good connectivity. More than anything, budgets and time are major constraints for them so hiring specialists or external vendors is not an option. We need to offer
more specialized solutions keeping all their constraints in mind, so the social sector can grow and fuel the development of the country.
Some of our NGOs are based in remote locations like the Tribal Health Initiative that has its center in the middle of forest in Sittilingi valley and they actually had to trek out 20kms from the forest to get any internet connection on their cell phones till a few years ago.
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What are your plans for the next year?
We have many plans for the coming year. First among them, is to build out a more complete Donation Management System. In essence a CRM for NGOs - a first in India.
We intend to build a Donor Support tool over WhatsApp that NGOs can use to communicate with their donors. We are also looking to partner with other organizations. We will also focus on providing tax benefits to donors from multiple countries by tying up with partners across the world.
We are also building out a Social Trust-Based Giving Marketplace to allow donors to give to organizations that they find have “social” trust. Besides this, we are planning to develop an integrated crowdfunding platform that NGOs can use on their own website
