Without urgent action, global waste is expected to jump to 3.4 billion tonnes annually by 2050. High-income countries account for 16 percent of the population, but create 34 percent of the waste [1]. DonateDirect has created a way to reduce landfill and support local communities, and Thoughtworks partnered to support their mission with tech.
DonateDirect is a donations-matching platform that enables members of the public in Australia to list their preloved household items for charities and service organizations supporting disadvantaged people struggling to set up a home. A website upgrade has made the giving process easier for donors and also simplified the platform's admin and management. It means that more people in need can get help more quickly – further reducing the burden of landfill waste on our environment at the same time.
Working remotely, the First Nations Delivery Centre at Thoughtworks added automation to the DonateDirect website, making it much easier for this small volunteer organization to make a difference.
DonateDirect founder Rachel Samuel commented, "Before the support of Thoughtworks, donating one item involved up to 20 emails back and forth. There were so many pain points and problems that didn't allow us to scale up. Our old system was also messy for multiple volunteers to use at the same time, so we kept losing people. Now we can process large numbers of donations and engage volunteers to help with the load."
The enhanced website is easy to edit and the process for signing up as a donor or community organization is now really simple. Rachel Samuel hopes that DonateDirect’s new tools can be used to expand its model nationally, helping more charities to get on board and letting more people know about how to recycle quality goods that others so urgently need.
https://www.donatedirect.org.au/
[1]https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/20/global-waste-to-grow-by-70-percent-by-2050-unless-urgent-action-is-taken-world-bank-report