i=Change is the social impact business that makes it simple for companies to direct a portion of each sale to social or environmental NGOs. Its custom integrations enable eCommerce businesses and professional services firms to bring to life their purpose, letting customers choose where to send the business’ donations, all built right into the customer journey. And its live impact dashboard is a powerful way for brands to communicate their impact.
“USAID foreign aid cuts are expected to cost millions of lives around the world. The NGO sector urgently needs to fill that funding gap,” said Jeremy Meltzer, Founder and CEO, i=Change.
“Against that backdrop, it’s encouraging that our solution drives up to $18 in incremental revenue for every $1 donated. That shows consumers want to support brands and businesses that are committed to building a better world.”
Collecting these donations efficiently and reliably is essential for i=Change, so it can focus on its mission and forget about admin. GoCardess makes that simple.
Simple payments, at scale
i=Change invoices customers monthly for the donations they raise and forwards these funds to its partner NGOs. As it’s grown, it’s required more flexibility and automation than its previous partner could offer.
“There were limited integrations and features, particularly around international payments, so collections were a pain point,” said Jeremy. “GoCardless offers more features and visibility, and it integrates with our Xero accounting software.”
That makes getting paid much simpler. Invoices raised in Xero are automatically scheduled for collection in GoCardless, in customers’ local currency. Payments are then automatically reconciled in Xero.
“We're a volume business so we need a streamlined system that just works,” said Jeremy.
Whether we have a hundred or ten thousand clients, GoCardless integrated with Xero means managing payments takes very little effort. This way, we have more time to invest in increasing our impact. The accurate payments data we get back from GoCardless also helps power our impact reporting.
Failure rates just 2-3%
The reliability of GoCardless also helps i=Change stay focused on its mission.
“Payment failures with GoCardless are only around 2-3%, compared to upwards of 10% with cards,” said Jeremy. “Customers often max out their cards or they expire, which is more common than having insufficient funds in their bank account. We don’t have the resources, or the patience, to be chasing late payments.”
Higher payment success rate also adds up to a better customer experience.
Customers don’t want to be dealing with admin and payments any more than we do. It’s better for them when payments just tick along smoothly. GoCardless is also cheaper for them because we pass on the transaction charges, and Direct Debit costs much less than a credit card.
Motoring towards millions of dollars
As i=Change looks to maximise its positive impact on social causes, Jeremy is pleased to have GoCardless in his corner.
“GoCardless is what we need because it just motors away, working exactly as it should without causing headaches for our finance team,” said Jeremy.
Our target is to deliver $10 million every year to the NGOs we support, which we know can impact up to 40 million people, especially in the developing world. GoCardless is mission critical because collecting those funds on time and hassle-free means we can have the greatest impact on the ground.
