What are needs and how to do I structure them?

1. What are needs and what is the best way to divide them up?

A characteristic of betterplace.org is that we substantiate donations in the form of needs. Needs could potentially be roofing for a school, medicine for people sick with malaria, or sewing machines for a tailor.

To begin with, consider the urgent essentials your project needs. Avoid listing all possible needs at once. Limit yourself to the most important and try and achieve those that can be successfully funded. At any point in time you can create new needs for your project, like when a previous needs is fulfilled.

Our experience has shown that small structured needs encourage more donation than larger ones. The smaller the donation amount for an individual need to reach 100 percent the better!

Break down your needs as far as possible into their component parts: Preferably create more needs, multiple “2 Bags of Seed” instead of one “20 Bags of Seed”. Better twelve individual monthly salaries than of one annual salary, individual scholarships rather than one for the whole class, specific building materials instead of general etc. This way the individual needs have a greater chance of being quickly filled.

2. How large can/should needs be?

As a private individual without recognition as a charitable organisation in Germany, you can collect a maximum of 2,500 Euros per quarter in donations through betterplace.org. Therefore generally you should not have any needs higher than that.

We always recommend that you make your needs as small as you can and create more needs that are smaller. Naturally you will be unable to further divide up some needs, like ongoing financing for lifesaving organisation. But even here the need can be divided up into various “rates”.

3. Can my needs also indicate if I would like material donations or volunteers?

On betterplace.org you can also look for material donations or volunteers. Simply enter “Donations in kind” or “Volunteers” and specify this in your need.

When a material donor or a volunteer is interested in your project and would like to help, you will receive a message from them. As soon as you have received the material donation or volunteer work, you can indicate this in your need. You should always do this so people who visit your page can see who or what is still needed.

4. Can I specify donations received from outside betterplace.org?

Naturally a part of your financial support could be made from outside betterplace.org. If this is the case, you should definitely inform your supporters, and make sure your project is up to date.

There is a separate function that allows you to “virtually” fulfill your needs. The donation bar on individual needs will increase, but the amount on betterplace.org listed as “Donation from elsewhere” will not appear in your donation administration. Find out how to represent external donations here.