GoCardless JustGiving Awards 2024: Inspiring people doing incredible things

The GoCardless JustGiving Awards are a wonderful, moving celebration of dedication to great causes, generous giving, and imaginative – jaw-dropping, even – fundraising achievements.

We’ve been proudly powering bank payments for JustGiving since 2022, becoming their exclusive open banking payment provider at the start of 2024, but this was just our second year as the awards’ headline sponsor. I think I speak for everyone at GoCardless when I say we’re extremely proud of the part our payments expertise plays in helping fundraisers give to the causes closest to their hearts. 

I heard even more of their stories this time around, because I had the privilege to be on the judging panel. This involved distilling 18,000 entries down to a list of just 21 finalists that would provide, following a public vote (with over 50,000 votes cast!), the seven eventual winners. From entrants to finalists to winners, there was no shortage of utterly inspiring people doing incredible things.

It was humbling to be involved in this process, and to share the evening with the finalists and winners who have gone above and beyond in their efforts. The experience also served as a reminder of the power of payments. It’s easy to think of payments as a simple operational function. Indeed, when things are working smoothly that’s exactly how they should appear to donors, customers and organisations. But for JustGiving, more cost-effective, reliable and higher-converting payments ultimately mean more money reaching good causes. 

This year, we were privileged to play a bigger role by complementing our Awards sponsorship with the addition of Instant Bank Pay, our open banking-powered payment feature, to the JustGiving platform. With Instant Bank Pay as a donation option, we enabled more supporters to funnel funds to charities - including on the awards night, when attendees could quickly tip a busker or donate to other causes via Instant Bank Pay QR codes, before getting back to the main event.

The results achieved by JustGiving (and many, many more organisations) with Instant Bank Pay have fuelled our belief that it is an extremely powerful payment method for the charity and fundraising spaces. Something we put to the test, in fact, during the build-up to this year’s awards, when we rallied our employees to participate in a competition to raise money for four charities. GeeCees taking part raised an amazing £2,500 through custom-built JustGiving pages with Instant Bank Pay at the heart of the payments flow. The online public vote also featured Instant Bank Pay-optimised payment flows that allowed visitors to also become donors.

GeeCees using Instant Bank Pay and providing honest feedback have enabled us to continually improve the Instant Bank Pay payer experience. We now reach more than 98% of UK banks, stand up direct API connections to more than 55 of the UK’s biggest banks, and have achieved 99.99% uptime. Our investment in payments innovation gives us the confidence that we’re providing JustGiving and their fundraisers the best possible experience, and it was exciting to witness live how good causes stand to benefit from a new payment type that promises to help them keep more of their money. 

I want to end with a final mention of the incredible fundraising heroes who were nominated in this year’s GoCardless JustGiving Awards. In a similar sentiment to a specially created video, aired on the night (and embedded in this post), your hard work and dedication should give everyone great cause for optimism, at a time when it feels like there isn’t enough of that around. All of us at GoCardless want to thank you for everything you do; every activity undertaken, every mile walked, run, swam, flown, and everything in between. Keep up the stunning work.

If any charities or non-profits are reading this and looking for ways to optimise their payments and maximise their donations, then please reach out to a member of our team who are ready to help right now.