heatherbird

Posted on: Thursday, June 25th, 2009



Zarine (CEO) on how we’re compensating charities

Zarine (CEO) on how we’re compensating charities from JustGiving on Vimeo.

We are really sorry for the problems you have been experiencing with the new website.

We did carry out extensive testing before we launched it last weekend.  However, what we now know is that we didn’t test it extensively enough, or try hard enough to break it.

We take full responsibility for our mistakes and our tech team is working 24 hours a day to fix everything, and the rest of the team are staffing the phones and email enquiries to try and help out as quickly as possible.

How we’re compensating charities

The bottom line is this: we know that the performance of the new site over the past week has been totally unacceptable. We take full responsibility for that and are committed not only to fixing it, but also to showing that we’re sorry. We want our actions to back up our words, and so we feel it’s only right for us to refund the JustGiving  5% transaction fee for any donations made from the day of launch (Saturday 20th June 2009) for seven days.

Moving forward

It’s extremely difficult to completely replicate the live environment, as we’ve already experienced. So we do need to continue fixing and testing things live and, where necessary, taking down the site in the middle of the night, as we have been doing.

It probably doesn’t feel like it right now, but we’re confident that this new site will, once it’s running smoothly, deliver a better much faster service to people donating, to fundraisers and to charities. What’s more, the technology we built it on allows us to act far more swiftly on user suggestions for improvements – so please do keep your suggestions coming.

We know we’re not there yet but we hope you have already noticed a significant improvement in site performance. Lots of issues have been fixed; but there are outstanding bugs that we’re working hard on, and will continue to do so over the weekend, until they are resolved.

We’re grateful to you all for putting up with the frustration and disappointment caused by these problems over the past week and for bearing with us while we restore our usual, reliable service.  We’d also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to give feedback, suggestions, views and even words of encouragement.

Zarine Kharas

**Update Saturday 27th June**

We know lots of you have found it hard to donate but wanted to let you know that donations *are* being made, with over £2 million given to charities this week, with many more being made today.

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  • Graeme Stuckey

    If you are really interested in feedback as you claim

    “We’d also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to give feedback, suggestions, views and even words of encouragement.”

    Can I suggest that you revert to the old site which:worked, it also displayed donation information MUCH better.

    Before burning your bridges, why didn’t you run both sites side by side? Giving people the choice of using the new site, that way, you had an immediate fall back option you would also have had much more effective testing of the new site.

    I hope you manage tp sort your problems before irreperable damage is done.

  • Jonathan

    My first and last time trying to give via your site having wasted half an hour on the site and following up to see what happened to my intended donation. Nobody in 2009 launches a new site in the incompetent manner you have depriving charities and fund raisers of moneyand frustrating givers like me. I have no confidcence in your ability to safeguard my personal data including my credit card information. You charge enough for the service as your 5% doesn’t include credit card etc charges so your disclosure is misleading and arguably a breach of trading standards. If Branson can do it for free let’s hope you deservedly go out of business. Unhappy – you bet!

  • http://www.justgiving.com/crmslingers George Bliss

    This really is a shame.

    I agree and echo the majority of the comments on this board: that Just Giving have let their users and their charities down.

    If tiny startup dotcoms can push for (and achieve) 100% uptime and SLA, with cheap cloud hosting and technology more reliable and easy to test than ever it seems unbelieveable that Just Giving, in comparison a relatively large dotcom are having these issues.

    A day would have been a disaster. Two days and jobs should be on the line. A whole week? Appalling.

    Looking forward to Virgin Money Giving going live.

  • Paul

    I’ve been using JG for years, but when the new website first went live and we were first emailed about it, I took one look and thought that the new site was awful – for the reasons already documented above. That’s without all of the flaws in the performance of the website that have been found.

    I don’t think that this question has been answered as far as I can see – why did JG bother changing?

    It’s apparent to me that they’ve put themselves and their users through a massive amount of grief, and we’ll all be worse off with the new website anyway.

    (Please don’t give any answers related to twitter/facebook/youtube/blogging unless you have to, which I really do think a lot of people will think a waste of their time – certainly in my experience)

  • http://www.ukbands.net John

    Video apologies at this stage with a waiver of the 5% from the past 7 dayes when no one can donate is a joke.

    The money you are making from your 5% should be shared among all the charities that are active over the past 7 days.

    what about the costs incurred from the people who are supporting the charities?

    I know I have spent a lot of time and money on printing and marketing which has been all wasted as no one could donate.

    If only you had spent more on the development instead of trying to do it on a budget and setting cowboys on to develop a new site.

  • Andrew

    Noticed that the firstgiving sister site is still using the old UI – can you guys switch back to that?

    As per Paul’s blog, i’m not really sure what the rationale for change was here. At this time of increased competition, why did you upset your loyal customer base who before these changes were largely your advocates?

    Did you unknowingly hire programmers from Virgin?

  • Jimbo

    New site is a disaster.

    The new site looks basic, hiding part of the important “My Story” is unacceptable, the oversized donation entries spread over multiple pages is time consuming.

    The new widget is awful, also looks basic, much prefer the previous version which listed 3 latest donation comments and looked great.

    Offer of 5% of donations since launch of new site is worthless if people were unable to make donations!

    Bring back the old site. I will be looking at alternative sites in future.

  • http://www.twitter.com/bigdavesb BigDaveSB

    @Paul Facebook/Twitter etc are important. I have received over £500 directly from Twitter use. It’s up to you if you ignore the latest digital technologies and trends that are out there, but let’s face it, JG needs to move with the times, even if you choose not to.

  • http://www.justgiving.com/Capital_To_Coast_09_Nigel_Rudkin/ Nigel Rudkin

    A total shambles.

    I have used JG for 4 or 5 years now with absolutely no problems. The day I sent my main mail out to probable donors was the day it all went wrong.

    I agree with the vast majority of the comments here – first why bother – the old design was neat, clean, you could see all the text without further clicking, donating was easy. Now, you have the Flash target-barometer and the apps for facebook etc – hardly much of a payback.

    I too will look seriously at other giving sites now – my donations are definitely well down, and I have given up telling friends to “try again soon” – a total and utter b*lls-up.

  • Paul

    Hi BigDaveSB

    “JG needs to move with the times, even if you choose not to.”

    It’s not necessarily that I choose not to use these things, but I think that it’d be a waste of my time as my sponsors wouldn’t use these things either. I think with all of this hype over these technologies, I still suspect that the majority don’t bother based at least based on the evidence from my circle of friends / family / colleagues / aquiantences.

    When I started with JG, virtually all of my collecting was done on paper rather than JG which was just down to people’s preference, so at least that’s changed – I’d say it’s about 50/50 now.

    I’m glad it works for you though.

  • http://www.justgiving.co.uk/Allyson-Elms-Lester/ Paul

    Website now allows donations, but no comments. The only way is to go through the Help facility and locate a link which allows you to add a comment later. A painful process.
    If JG don’t have the appropriate skills to run a large IT project properly, perhaps they should use external specialists .

  • http://www.justgiving/sharon-down sharon d

    This is the first time i have used this ‘charity donation website’ and i wish i had not bothered!!! – many ppl i know have tried to make donations – only to find that this site DECLINES their kind and generous donations!!
    Totally Ridiculous & Highly Embarrassing…….

    PLEASE get this problem sorted out!!!! – TEN DAYS ago i created my account & you are still having problems??? – why not revert back to the OLD VERSION until this issue gets sorted out ?? That way the charities don’t loose out – You save (some) face, AND the ppl who are asking to be sponsored and promoting that they do it via your site don’t end up looking stupid for recommending something which does not work!!

    Please let me know of other sites which i can get aa service which will actually work??

  • http://www.twitter.com/bigdavesb BigDaveSB

    @Paul Sorry, my first reply to you was a bit updrupt (my fault for writing it in a rush). I got the impression from your post that you were being very dismissive of these “Web 2.0″ (Facebook etc). it seemed to me you were saying, it doesn’t work for me and my social circle, well why bother?

    Obviously thsoe that use Justgiving AND Facebook (and the like) are a subset of the total JG users. However, I think it is crucial for JG (and charities in general) to get on top of how the interent is changing.

    In the past, it was very much that you took what you were given. Now with blogs, you tube, comments etc we, the users, are also in control of the content.

    Justgiving refelcts this. Initially, we had very little control over our pages. This upgrade (yes, I view it as a step up, despite the problems) gives us, the users, more control over our pages. In addition, JG are lsitening, and will be able to introduce further changes.

    Alreay they are listening – you can bet your bottom dollar that we will soon have the option of displaying 10 donations, or 50 (or more?) on our pages, and that we can show more of our message, or less. It will be up to us.

    I look forward to that happening. I already have a few adventures in my mind for next year (I’m a serial fundraiser) and am looking forward to then, when I will be able to customise my site a lot more.

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  • http://www.justgiving.com/tinaforsyth-taylor Tina

    5% of nothing is nothing… I’m afraid that I find your gesture of refunding the 5% transaction fee hollow.

    You mention that you will refund the transaction fee on all donations made between the 20th and 27th June… NONE OF MY FRIENDS COULD MAKE DONATIONS DURING THIS TIME DUE TO THE ERRORS. They have only just started putting their donations through this week after numerous attempts last week which failed (Oh and incidently I completed the event on the 27th). I have tried texting and texting the sponsors that were going to donate in good faith but were put off by the site issues, I think it’s costing me more in text messages than your transaction refund!!!!!

  • Rishad Alikhan

    The website problem was a minor hiccup and although unfortunate, was quickly resolved. Good work.

  • http://www.justgiving.com/sharon-down Sharon D

    to Rishad… ermm ‘quickly resolved’??? from what i have read here and on http://blog.justgiving.com/2009/06/30/new-on-justgiving/update-on-the-justgiving-site-%E2%80%93-tuesday-30th-june/comment-page-1/#comment-2254 webpage there are still many people having problems – including myself, of which i am still waiting for someone to email me about, so not sure where your ‘minor hiccup’ comes into it as I’ve had problems for the past 10 days… and as for it being ‘quickly resolved’ as far as i am aware there is no resolution to ALL of the problems myself and others are experiencing!

  • http://twitter.com/omfg_followme John Scott Cothill

    5% of nothing, is nothing. Week 1, day 1 stuff to be quite honest.

    I personally detest the new design, I swear you guys are going backwards with technology, not forwards. Sadly, your site now has fail whale written all over it.

    Moreover, Virgin Money Giving is up and coming and after a quick sneek peek at their website, it doesn’t take a genius to understand why they are better than your service for charities. Comparison here; http://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/giving/how-we-compare.jsp

    Furthermore, your negative stance on Vigin’s new launch here http://justgiving.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/justgiving-welcomes-virgin-money-giving/ is not good.

    I look forward to seeing how you guys rise to the competition. You can do it.

    Best of luck,
    John

  • Connie Wan-Docksey

    I thought I was alone in feeling completely racked off with Just-giving then I read all these emails.
    I’ve had (very) delayed replies to my emails which say they are trying their best blah de blah, I just dont think its good enough!
    Its the charities that are losing and by compensating 5-poxy-percent you think that shows your sorry?!
    No it doesnt! Too little too late.
    You have to understand that people are very busy and once they’ve made a donation, they aint gonna check their bank accounts and make another donation if it hasn’t shown up!
    Flippin useless and I will NEVER use this website again!
    Also, how can you possibly say you didnt test it enough to ‘break’ it?! What the hell? People are just trying to make a donation? Whats to break?!

  • http://www.justgiving.com/mikehenley/ Mike Henley

    It’s a fine gesture offering 5% admin refund for one week (which has now expired), but when I still have friends today telling me that they have tried to donate multiple times and have failed, that doesn’t really help – 5% of nothing is still nothing!

  • Trish D

    I am extremely disappointed in Just Giving dot com. It’s been more than 2 weeks and I know I have lost a lot of donations as people have just given up trying. As others have said: 5% of nothing is zero and I feel my efforts at raising donations have been thwarted by JG AND I much preferred the old site!

  • Dan

    Gutted that JG made such a hash of this transition. The fallout for me was:

    1) the charity did not get the amount of money they could have done.
    2) I was embarrassed in front of colleagues including senior managers
    3) I wasted time I could have spent doing something worthwhile trying to sort it out.

    The pathetic gesture of 5% of donations that couldn’t be made is the final insult. 5% of nothing is still nothing.

    I noticed the patronising e-mails telling me to harrass people I knew continued to pop up in my in box. I should have remembered to send JG one to remind them to employ competent project managers and IT professionals.

  • Tricia B

    I have just completed my challenge and thought i had been one of the lucky ones who had not had any problems with the JG web site, but hey ho text from a very good friend who could not donate to the web site though could see others had!! Please can you tell me how we can find out about failed donations as we need to revisit these generous people?
    I collected by late donations on sponsor forms and now have the challenge of collecting in the money.

    Preferred the old site not just because it worked, it also looked more professional and the information was easier to read. Also donors could easily see what others had given

  • http://www.justgiving.com/arctic_challenge Peter Brand

    Not enough. Give the charities all your income from launch date until the site is satisfactory. I still can’t edit my page because it has more than 10000 characters (but it won’t tell me how many more – I can only count 8900) and the site refuses to load the photos I previously put into Flickr (I guess they’re too big but I don’t get an error message!).

  • Bel C

    I have had exactly the same problem as Tricia (above). It is really embarassing and frustrating to know that friends have wasted their time trying to donate over and over again – and probably gave up after some time. Is there any way we can identify who tried to make donations and failed?

  • heatherbird

    Hi Peter Brand,

    I’m sorry that you are having problems editing your page. it could be because the character limit is 10,000 but it includes all the HTML code which sits behind the text (we are currently working on a fix for this), so the more formatting you have in your message, the less visible ‘words’ you can have.

    A short term fix is to copy your whole message into Notepad and paste it back in without any of the formatting. This will leave you with more room to write, as your allocation is not being consumed behind HTML code. We’ve got instructions for you in our help section here: http://bit.ly/tSzmn

    The photos have to be smaller than 4MB to upload properly – you are right there should be an error message to explain this -it is on the list to implement.

    Thanks
    Heather

  • heatherbird

    Hi Tricia B,

    I have sent you an email about your donations, if you have any further queries please don’t hesitate to get back in touch.

    Thanks
    Heather

  • heatherbird

    Hi Bel C,

    If you email or call the helpdesk they can tell you whether your donation has gone through successfully or not. I will email you to investigate further.

    Thanks
    Heather

  • http://www.thepcrf.org Emma Halls

    Hi there, can you tell me when we will get the refund, as no sign of it yet!!!!

  • heatherbird

    Hi Emma Halls,

    I’ll send you a separate email so that you can send me more information about these donations so that I can let you know when your money will be refunded.

    Thanks
    Heather

  • http://www.justgiving.com/jennygregson Jenny Gregson

    I am gutted that, having just got back from doing a 700 mile Charity walk in aid of MacMillan Cancer Support to find that all the cards I handed out with my Just Giving Website have been completely useless, and anyone trying to give must have just given up. What was wrong with the old format, which I found very satisfactory and easy to use? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

  • http://www.justgiving.com/madeupname/ MadeUpName

    What a complete shambles this upgrade (!) has been. Being as you didn’t respond to my request for help via email, I’ll post here. I have had emails from potential donors this week and last telling me

    1. that they have donated but can’t see it on my site
    2. they can’t donate because the site just times out and they can’t back to it
    3. the site is just unavailable

    In addition I have had donations but not always received the confirmation email (at least the donation was made but shows that there is an issue) and there is a donation on my site that has no amount against it.

    5% of nothing when I was at school was nothing – so therefore your compensation gesture has the same value, nothing.

    If you can’t be bothered to test upgrades properly then I suggest you leave well alone. The system before as far as the user and charity was concerned seemed to work – messing around with it has led to donations not being made. For you that impacts your job, for the beneficiaries of the charities that CAN mean the difference between life and death.

    Hang your collective heads in shame.

  • Tricia B

    Hi
    I have still not received an email from Heatherbird regarding my question of July 10th
    Tricia B

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  • heatherbird

    Hi Tricia,

    I’m really sorry that my email response was delayed. I have now sent you an email.

    Thanks
    Heather

  • http://www.justgiving.com/kenthomson1 Ken

    I am bitterly disappointed in this website. So many people have tried to donate to my charity and have found it impossible to make a donation. In future I will be looking for a website which actually works.

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