Building a Fundraising Tool to Help The Vulnerable

Working on the app helping the elderly affected by the pandemic by improving their access to meals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lives of many people, but since the beginning of the crisis elderly folk have been among the most vulnerable.

During the lockdown, they became almost completely isolated. Those living close to or under the poverty line were hit especially hard. This is why Posiłek dla Seniora was created.

Netguru supported the initiative by designing and building its online platform, which consisted of a web app, a mobile app, and third-party integrations.
Posiłek dla Seniora app is no longer active, but the initiative was broadened – now the client supports the elderly by the foundation Pomoc Seniorom (Help for the Elderly).

An initiative based on kindness

The client, Grupa Warszawa, is a food service and event management business that runs a number of stylish venues. They came up with a project, Posiłek dla Seniora (a meal for the elderly), to help older people feel safer and to increase their quality of life during the COVID-19 lockdown.

It was a tech for good initiative giving senior citizens access to healthy meals every day. It was donation-based, and the meals were cooked by local restaurants.

Upon delivery, elderly folk not only got delicious food, but also the opportunity to spend some time in company, to have a conversation. Many of them lived in poverty, alone and forgotten.

Scope of the project

The platform operated in four simple steps:

The user donated to meals for senior citizens, either through a single donation or a daily subscription.

The restaurants participating in the initiative prepared the meals, which had the additional benefit of supporting the struggling food service market. Meals were planned according to nutritional guidelines for people over 60.
The Posiłek dla Seniora team packed the meals up and delivers them safely to the elderly. It was not a quick drop-off. A short conversation could mean as much to a lonely person as a much-needed nutritious meal.

Netguru helped Grupa Warszawa create the landing page, web app, and mobile app for Posiłek dla Seniora.

We used React for the fundraising app, which allowed people to donate meals to the elderly. They could choose to do so through a daily subscription or a one-time payment.

We also used React Native for the mobile app, which made it available on both Android and iOS phones. Finally, the platform’s backend used Node.js.

Aiming for high engagement

Posiłek dla Seniora was a solution to a specific problem: the loneliness of eldelry people and its impact in a time of global crisis. It had to not only be highly functional and engaging to work on a large scale - it also required an approach based on compassion.

The client wanted to build their own fundraising tool from scratch, and this involved a significant amount of work as well as a lot of responsibility for users’ safety.

On the design side, the app and website had to promote the initiative, engaging users through the social media module, push notifications, and flawless fundraising functionality.

Challenges

The first challenge to overcome was integration with the payments system and an operator processing card payments.

The platform needed to be trustworthy for people to feel safe enough to make donations.

We also built a multi-environment Firebase project setup.

The app had to manage payments quickly and securely, and send push notifications to motivate users to support the cause.

We also put a lot of effort into creating the perfect UX and UI from scratch, knowing that a good experience would be crucial to the project’s success.

Results: accelerating the fundraising process and delivering healthy meals

Posiłek dla Seniora launched successfully and fulfilled its mission of supporting the elderly in a difficult situation.
Thanks to the user-friendly designs, the fundraising process was smooth and flawless.
After months of delivering healthy meals to the elderly, Posiłek dla Seniora evolved into the Pomoc Seniorom Foundation, helping not only by providing food for those in need, but also by buying prescribed drugs, renovating flats or providing legal services for elderly.

Posiłek dla Seniora led to the preparation of more than 40k meals, supported by over 15,000 donors, with over 1,000,000 in total donations.

We’re proud to be a part of this project. We feel that it contributed considerably to social good by supporting elderly people in a time of crisis.