Whydonate - using localization for global crowdfunding

Whydonate is a Netherlands-based crowdfunding platform. However, their mission is to unite people across the globe by providing a space to share worthy causes.

Niels Corver, the co-founder and Managing Director of Whydonate, shared with us his perspective on the future of crowdfunding, the value of good ideas and why even small non-profits need to start thinking global.

1. Whydonate is a fundraising platform. As a co-founder, what was your inspiration to create such a space?

As a student, I have been working for quite a few non-profit organizations.

We spend a lot of resources on finding new recurring donors by going door to door, doing telemarketing and sending out letters. Of course, this is very expensive and not always appreciated by the people that are being contacted.

With Whydonate we want to resolve these issues and create the best fundraising experience.

We do this by creating an efficient and relevant online fundraising platform that connects donors with charities.

2. What has been the biggest challenge in setting up the Whydonate platform? How did you overcome it?

We have to spend a lot of time and effort to offer a reliable and secure platform.

We need to innovate and release new features as much as we can, and on the other hand, we need to guarantee an up-time of 99,9%. 

3. Whydonate was founded in 2013. In your opinion, how has the online culture of crowd-funding changed since then?

Crowdfunding has become a common way to raise funds and I think that’s a good thing.

People are not relying anymore on banks and foundations,

they can now ask money from every person. This is a big opportunity for many people.

4. Up until now, Whydonate has cooperated with more than 100,000 donors and has more than 4000 fundraisers. What impact do you believe your campaigns have made?

Together with our donors, we have helped people to fulfill their dreams, overcome a financial crisis, recover from illness and do lots of great things to help each other!

5. How do you see the future of Whydonate? Why is global expansion important for your work?

In order to do efficient matching between donors and charities, we need a big data set.

If we have more options to match, we will be more relevant and have an even higher success rate.  

6. Whydonate is a cross-continent platform. Would you say it's relevant for non-profit organizations to go international and why?

Supporting foreign countries and populations in need isn’t new. However, at the moment, these donations are pass through a lot of organizations before they end up at the actual project.

By making Whydonate a cross-continent platform, we allow the donor to give directly to the project.

7. Why did you decide to start using Lingohub localization services? How does Lingohub help you achieve your mission?

Operating in Europe can be a big hassle because every country has its own language. This means you have to spend a lot of time adding and editing translations.

In the beginning, we were doing this manually. However, this was very time consuming and a rather boring task for our developers and translators.

Because we are now using Lingohub, our translators can now add the translations themselves and our developers don’t have to spend time on this anymore. This is a very convenient solution for the whole company! 

Images courtesy of Whydonate

In our Global Champions series, we share inspiring stories of Lingohubbers who are dominating the multilingual software market.