Case studyThe Friendship Circle

Fundraising Idea to Live Donation System

How The Friendship Circle got a living donor tree with card payments, a secure staff dashboard and emails that send themselves, live and taking real donations since November 2026.

Client
The Friendship Circle
Industry
Charity / Fundraising
Live
November 2026
tree.friendshipcircle.org.uk/admin Live
The Tree of Inclusion staff dashboard, shown with made-up gifts
Payment to leaf

A second or two, with the donor's thank you already on its way.

The story

From the brief to the result.

Where The Friendship Circle was when we met, what we built together, and what changed once it went live.

tree.friendshipcircle.org.uk / The public treeLive
The Tree of Inclusion public tree on a laptop, every leaf a gift
The Friendship Circle, the tree supporters see.
  1. 01 · The challenge

    Where they were.

    The Friendship Circle is a Salford charity that supports children and young people with additional needs, and their families, through friendship. They wanted a living tree for their year of fundraising, where every gift becomes a leaf carrying a dedication. Behind it they needed far more than a web page: card payments, gifts taken over the phone at a telethon, cheques and bank transfers, Gift Aid, yearly renewals and records that match their CRM, all run by a small team.

  2. 02 · Our solution

    What we did.

    We designed the tree and built the whole system behind it in code. Supporters choose a gift, write a dedication and pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay without leaving the page. Staff run the campaign from a secure dashboard: payment links for phone gifts, offline gifts, exports for Gift Aid, Mailchimp and Donorfy, and a check against Stripe every 15 minutes. The emails send themselves, from the charity's own mailbox.

  3. 03 · The results

    What changed.

    The tree went live on 5 November, in good time for the charity's public launch at the end of the month. A gift appears on the tree a second or two after payment, the donor gets a thank you with a link to their own leaf, and the team runs everything from one dashboard, with nothing retyped between Stripe, the tree and their CRM.

  • 639places on one living tree
  • 15minutes between checks against Stripe
  • 7kinds of email the system sends
  • 453automated tests before every release
The system

How a gift becomes a leaf on the tree.

The tree is the part supporters see. Behind it, Stripe takes the payments, a database keeps the records and enforces the rules, and scheduled jobs check, send and tidy up on their own. Here's what happens when someone gives.

Donation to leaf / the gift flowLive
  1. 01 · On the tree

    A supporter chooses a gift

    They pick a leaf, blossom, apple or branch, add a dedication and Gift Aid, and pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay without leaving the page.

    Five short steps
  2. 02 · Stripe

    The payment is confirmed

    Stripe tells the system the moment the payment clears. The whole gift travels with the payment, so Stripe is the record everything is checked against.

    Instant
  3. 03 · The database

    The gift is saved and shown

    It's saved with its dedication, Gift Aid and twelve months to run, and the tree's public file is rewritten. No rebuild, nothing to approve.

    A second or two
  4. 04 · Everyone hears

    The thank you goes out

    The donor gets a thank you from the charity's own mailbox with a link to their leaf, and staff see the gift in the next morning's summary.

    From the charity's mailbox
What happens when a supporter gives on the tree.
  • A dashboard for the whole campaign

    Money raised, places left at each level, where gifts came from by channel and campaign, renewals due and business enquiries, all on one screen.

  • Gifts by phone, post and at events

    Staff send a short payment link by email or text during a telethon, or record cheques, cash, bank transfers and charity vouchers. Card numbers are never typed in.

  • Two-step sign-in, enforced by the database

    Staff sign in with a password and a code from an authenticator app, and the database itself refuses anyone without both.

  • Checked against Stripe every 15 minutes

    Every payment carries the whole gift, so anything missing from the tree can be put back with one press, without going back to the donor.

  • Exports for Gift Aid, Mailchimp and Donorfy

    One button makes an upload file for Donorfy, their CRM, in its own template, sending each payment once and never twice. Gift Aid and renewal lists come out ready to use.

  • A screen for reception

    Screen mode shows the tree on a display and cycles through dedications, with no sign-in and nothing private on it.

The automations

What runs on its own.

The team shouldn't have to remember to send a receipt or check a payment went through. So the system does it: every email goes once, a failed one is retried, and an email problem never stops a payment or a gift.

A donor's thank you email from The Friendship Circle on a phone, with a link to their leaf
The thank you, sent from the charity's own mailbox. Shown with made-up details.
  1. When a payment clears

    The leaf goes on the tree

    Stripe confirms the payment, the gift is saved and the tree's public file is rewritten. Nobody has to approve or publish anything.

  2. Straight after

    The donor's thank you

    Sent from the charity's own Microsoft 365 mailbox, with their dedication, what their gift pays for, the Gift Aid it adds and a link to their leaf.

  3. When a business enquires

    A reply, and an alert for staff

    A business asking about a trunk or root place gets a reply straight away, and staff get an alert they can answer with Reply.

  4. Every morning

    Yesterday's gifts, in one email

    Staff get a summary of every new gift, with the total and where each one came from: the website, a payment link or offline.

  5. Every 15 minutes

    Checked against Stripe

    Every payment in Stripe is matched to a leaf. If one is still missing on the next check, staff get an email and put it right with one press. Any email that failed is tried again.

  6. Every day

    Holds, renewals and lapses

    An unpaid checkout lets its place go after 45 minutes, a telethon payment link holds its place for 26 hours, and a gift that isn't renewed after twelve months frees its place for someone new.

Why it worked

The thinking behind it.

A charity's fundraising doesn't happen on one page. Gifts come in online, over the phone on a telethon evening, by cheque at an event and by invoice from businesses, and every one needs a receipt, a Gift Aid record and a place in the CRM. So we started from the jobs the team actually does and built one system around them. Stripe holds the truth, the database enforces the rules (one gift per place, twelve months for everything, nothing private ever public), and the dashboard turns each job into a single button. The tree is what supporters see. Everything behind it is what lets a small team run a whole campaign.

What we delivered / 13 items
Design 2Website 2System 6Automation 2Support 1
  • Tree Illustration & InteractionDesign
  • Gift Flow & DedicationsDesign
  • Public Tree & Full ListWebsite
  • Stripe Checkout & Payment LinksWebsite
  • Staff DashboardSystem
  • Two-Step Staff Sign-inSystem
  • Stripe ReconciliationSystem
  • Gift Aid & Mailchimp ExportsSystem
  • Donorfy CRM ExportSystem
  • Screen Mode for ReceptionSystem
  • Email Automation via Microsoft 365Automation
  • Scheduled Checks & RenewalsAutomation
  • Staff Guide & Privacy NoticeSupport

The tree is what supporters see. The system behind it is what lets a small team run a whole campaign, from a telethon evening to the Gift Aid claim.

Questions

Building a system like this.

See the other systems we build

Yes. The Tree of Inclusion belongs to The Friendship Circle, but the parts behind it are what we build for every kind of business: taking payments, staff dashboards, automatic emails, scheduled checks and exports to the tools you already use. We start from the jobs your team does every week and build around them.

Usually, yes. This system sends email through the charity's own Microsoft 365, takes payments with Stripe and makes files for Mailchimp and Donorfy. Most tools can be connected through their API or an import file, and we'll tell you on the first call which route suits yours.

Staff sign in with a password and a code from an authenticator app, and the database refuses anyone without both. Card details never reach the system, because Stripe handles them. The public page never reads the database, so it can't show anything private, and the database is hosted in London and backed up daily.

The system checks itself. Every 15 minutes it matches Stripe's payments against the tree, emails staff if something is still missing on the next check, and lets them fix it with one press. A failed email is tried again, and an email problem never stops a payment.

Yes. The dashboard has a Help area with step by step guides and pictures of the real screens, and it's updated with every release, so a new starter can take a donation over the phone on their first day.

Your supporters' or customers' data is always yours. Who owns the code is agreed in writing before any work starts, so there are no surprises later.

This one is built in code on Netlify, Supabase and Stripe. Many of the systems we build run alongside a Wix website, or on Wix Headless, where Wix runs your content, forms and contacts. We'll recommend whichever suits what you need.

It depends on what the system needs to do. After a short call about how you work now, we give you a fixed price and a timeline before any work starts.

More results

Keep reading.

Start a project

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Book a quick call, or send us your current website for a free video review: what's working, what isn't, and what we'd change. You'll get honest advice, a fixed price and a timeline. No hard sell.

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Ryan EcclestonFounder. Every enquiry comes straight to me.