GoodBox: The tech behind the Mayor of London’s contactless winter homelessness campaign

We know the end is nigh for cash. UK Finance said card payments outstripped cash for the first time in 2017, as more and more people switch to paying on cards or devices like smartphones.

Much has been said about how to handle the impact the lack of cash will have on charity donations, whether it's cash buckets at a supermarket checkout, or even homeless people on the street.

GoodBox is the start-up helping charities embrace digital payments. At the moment its technology is behind the contactless donation points across the city, taking donations for the Mayor of London’s winter homelessness campaign.

You might have seen the points in a pub, or a coffee shop, or maybe walking around Waterloo. All you need to do is tap your card, or smartphone, and donate £3. At the end of the campaign, the funds will be distributed by the Greater London Authority (GLA) to 22 homeless charities across the city.

GoodBox launched in 2016, co-founded by CEO Andrew O’Brien, COO Francesca Hodgson, and CTO Tibor Barna. The start-up launched with the aim to facilitate the future of fundraising through technology, recently taking part in the Public govtech accelerator programme. “Cash is dying out and there needs to be an alternative means of giving,” Hodgson tells the Standard. “You pay with contactless for the tube, for your coffee, why is it so difficult for donations?”

The company picked up traction straight away, enlisting the likes of the Teenage Cancer Trust, the Royal Albert Hall and the Natural History Museum who wanted to use its donation tech. The Natural History Museum is an amazing example: it has had a 64 per cent uplift in donation income since it began working with GoodBox, with over £500,000 donated through the contactless points.

“We equated that to paying 14 members of staff for a year on London living wages,” says Hodgson.

For the Mayor of London's homelessness campaign, GoodBox is working with the non-profit TAP London, which aims to reduce homelessness in London through technology. “Visible signs of poverty are everywhere in London. Yet, when you see someone and you don’t have any change – which more and more of us don’t – by the time you get back to the office, most people will have forgotten,” Polly Gilbert, TAP’s co-founder tells the Standard.

TAP began working with the Greater London Authority after receiving funding from the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Innovation Fund to roll out donation points. GoodBox matched the funding, which meant the TAP could increase the units from 30 to 91. “It’s had really incredible support and the GLA have been a great partner in rolling this out,” says Gilbert.

The campaign has been running for just over two weeks with 58 out of the proposed 91 points installed so far. Already, over £10,000 has been raised, smashing through the expected targets. TAP has covered all the transaction charges, so 100 per cent of the funds raised will go to the cause.

Hodgson says that working with TAP was “a really proud moment” for GoodBox. “It was a moment of realising what we can do with our hardware, how we can access a new market and raise a completely new set of funds.”

The campaign is starting to gain traction outside of London too. “We’ve had demand from councils across the country looking at what we’re doing here in London, asking can we get permanent donations points in [other] cities,” she adds.

Overall, Hodgson contributes the success so far to the cause. “Homelessness is something that can resonate with everyone in London. You cannot not notice it, it’s so visible.”

But, it also helps that GoodBox’s technology is so seamless. The start-up had to ensure its tech could handle offline donations so it didn’t face any connectivity issues, and transactions had to be speedy; under six seconds.

It’s helping to bring in a new audience of donors: millennials. Gilbert says there is a fear in the charity sector that young people will give less, but this isn’t necessarily the case. “It’s often that charities are asking them to give in ways they’re not used to,” she explains. Millennials would rather do a one-off donation instead of a direct debit, so initiatives like this are a way of introducing new ways to encourage people to give.

As well, charities are getting access to insights they would never have otherwise. “Never before has a non-profit organisation been able to analyse live donations raised from cash”, says Hodgson. “When was it raised, what was the weather like, what locations were successfully fundraising, what campaigns do well with what audience? These are all questions that can start being answered by technology.”

GoodBox’s work in this space will continue long after the contactless points are taken down at the end of March. The start-up will be launching its new donation tech early next year, with bigger screens that will be able to communicate information about different causes to prospective donors. As well, the hope is that causes at different terminals could be rotated, allowing even more charities to benefit from contactless donations across the country.

“To see [GoodBox’s technology] in reality with the TAP campaign, to see it actually raising money to help brilliant causes is fantastic,” says Hodgson. “It’s not about small change, it’s about real change.”