LINCOLN, Neb. — May 31, 2018 — Givesource, a software platform for community foundations hosting giving days, is now available as open source software. This makes Givesource the only giving day platform that can be used for free, while also making it possible for software developers around the world to contribute new features.
Using Givesource for its 2017 Give to Lincoln Day, the Lincoln Community Foundation raised a record-breaking amount, saw a 20 percent increase in donations and saved $74,000 in fees the foundation and participating nonprofits would have otherwise paid. The 2018 Give to Lincoln Day is scheduled for May 31, 2018 and the LCF is expecting record results with a target of $4 million raised for Lincoln nonprofits in one day.
“Givesource provided Lincoln Community Foundation with the giving day platform we had been searching for,” Michelle Paulk, Lincoln Community Foundation program coordinator said. “It’s simple to use and allowed our staff to control aspects of Give to Lincoln Day that we hadn’t been able to manage on our own in previous years.”
Developed in collaboration by students at the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and software company Firespring in spring 2017, the software was built using a new, serverless architecture that doesn’t require provisioning, maintaining or securing expensive servers. The code is hosted on Amazon Web Services’ cloud-based platform in order to keep costs low, accommodate large spikes in site traffic and ensure no downtime during giving day events.
“One of the cool things about Amazon Web Services Lambda is that it has so few components,” Wyatt Goodin, project lead from the Raikes School, said. “So much is handled for you, which has its benefits and drawbacks, but it’s an interesting new way of things working.”
“This software puts control in the hands of the community foundations and the nonprofits they support,” Jason Wilkinson, Firespring’s chief technology officer said. “We were adamant that it be open source because we see Givesource as a gift to the nonprofit community.”
Now any community foundation will have more control of their giving day and the opportunity to save tens of thousands in fees for every event they host and any developer, anywhere in the world can add to its code base.
More information about Givesource, including a link to download the software, can be found at givesource.com.
