The vast majority of NGO’s in Costa Rica are financed through monthly periodic donations from their supporters. However, currently this process must be done manually, since creating an automated donation system through banks services is a terribly bureacratic and technically challenging task for the organisations.

To put this into context, today NGO’s share their bank accounts with their donor base so they can each make deposits every month. The big problem with this system, is that on a monthly basis the organisations have to knock on donor’s doors to remind them to make the donation that they so desperately need. This makes the process uncomfortable for both donors and fundraisers. Not only that, but the manual process often causes donors to miss a month because they forget or are too busy to make the deposit and in some cases they might even lose interest because of the complicated process.

If an NGO wanted to apply for a service in a bank that automatically discounted the donation from the donor’s account, the process would not only imply months of paperwork but it also involves legal requirements that only big companies can fulfil. If in the other hand, they would want to develop an online payment solution for their donors through the services of banks, they would not only have to pay for the development expenses of the platform but they would need a minimum safety deposit of $50,000 to be able to receive online payments through ecommerce platforms.

This is a requirement that most NGOs aren’t able to accomplish. However, all of them own Facebook fanpages with vast number of supporters. FuelThis turns “likes” into the “fuel” that helps organizations keep rolling.

FuelThis is a web platform that allows donation automation for the NGO’s most loyal supporters, their fans. Microfunding for fanpages.

FuelThis allows users to create automated donations tabs connected to their Facebook fanpages with an online payment system through the PayPal platform, making the process fast and easy for both the NGO and the donors. FuelThis works through micro-donations, amounts as small as $0.5 up to as large as $9, which may not sound like a large number for the donor but the impact is huge when grouped together on a fanpage. Besides this, the transactions are made automatically on a weekly basis in such way that the process is seamless for both parts.

The process is simple: NGO’s fanpage administrator connects to FuelThis with his Facebook account, allowing him/her to add it to the platform. Then, they establish the reasons why they are receiving donations and connect a PayPal account. After this, all they have to do is publish their donations tab and wait for donations. Since the donations tab is connected to their Facebook account, the application stays updated automatically with the latest pictures, posts and stats without the need for the fanpage owner to add any code.

FuelThis charges a 10% commission of the total donation, amount that is used to promote the active campaigns on the platform through Facebook ads, achieving this way sustainable help for the organization and a constant growth for the platform through a viral loop.

Currently, FuelThis is in “public beta” with a selected group of NGO’s that today are already receiving donations. The platform is in our property and it already has gone through the respective revision and approval from Facebook and PayPal. The platform has not needed to receive any kind of funding and is currently self sustainable.

Our main objective is that FuelThis becomes the #1 platform for automated micro-crowdfounding for NGOs in the region and this way trying finally turn ‘likes’ into real support.

There is a large amount of NGO’s with a vast number of fans and followers on social media but with limited budgets for big advertising campaigns or enough financing to keep fighting for their cause. FuelThis solves both problems, it gives them the necessary visibility through auto financed Facebook ads and gives them the automated weekly support through the donations tab.

FuelThis recently aired in its public beta version in February 2015 but already counts with over 600 users of which close to 50% are active donors. This means its off to a good start and it still has a long way to go.

The platform is built on flexible scalable technologies. The main system is developed on NodeJS and is backed by platforms such as Heroku and Amazon S3.

The next steps contemplate the platform’s public release on July 2015, which will include extra features on the platform like the use of “Facebook Credits” as an additional payment method and the use of other social media platforms besides Fecebook fanpages.