DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE CAMPUS FUND RAISER SYSTEM

1.1 Introduction

Campus fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gather money for non-profit organizations, it is sometimes used to refer to the identification and solicitation of investors or other sources of capital for for-profit enterprises (Huffington, 2016). Similarly, Campus Fund is a person-to-person crowd funding platform and nonprofit organization through which donors directly contributes to educational scholarships for low-income students in countries that do not offer free, public tertiary institution. Like other civic crowd funding platforms, through The Campus Fund, large numbers of online visitors support philanthropic efforts by pooling small contributions. The Campus Fund crowd funds for students who have been identified by their teachers or local school officials as not having enough money to continue paying to go to Campus (Wikipedia, 2021a).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Over the years students use manual ways to raise funds to support their election ambitions, help pay less privileged students school dues, sick friends and many other challenges which they face in the school. The Internet has opened up a whole new world that nonprofits large and small are using to expand their universe of influence and support. The Internet lets even small or local organizations in every work of life reach out to potential supporters around the world and around the clock. Fundraisers are especially excited about online opportunities for locating new donors and for adding a new communication channel for cultivating existing donors.

Successful online fundraising programs generally have two major components. The foundation is an informative, interactive web site communications program which, together, help build relationships with your website visitors and the people you get to sign up for your email newsletter or online advocacy program. The second component, often overlooked, is a strategy for attracting new people − especially potential donors − to your site, so you can begin the relationship-building process. Online fundraising can’t exist in a vacuum. The success of your online fundraising program will be largely dependent on your organization’s overall Internet presence as well as your traditional offline activities.

With the Internet’s growing importance, influence, and widespread use, nonprofits have new opportunities for communicating with their constituents, getting their work done, and garnering support. The Internet isn’t replacing other media, but it is taking its place alongside them. Most notable is the role that an online donor system is playing in the operational capacity of nonprofit organizations. This system has created a sea change as a tool for communicating with donors and colleagues, alerting activists, and disseminating information.

Initially, the Web created a revolution in “brochure-ware,” allowing nonprofits to reach many new supporters and media with simple sites. New services enable even nonprofits with the smallest budgets to sign up members, take credit card donations, sponsor online discussions, offer surveys, put up searchable databases, and much more. As a complement to existing methods, the Internet is a medium that has finally come of age for a nonprofit sector that is hungry for modern and effective campaign tools and techniques.

The challenges encountered that led to the execution of the research work is that, some institutions use manual paper fund raising sheets for funds collection while this will be difficult for record keeping and also to keep track of the large number of students donating towards a particular project, so it is not reliable. It is against the background that the developments of this software to reduce money laundering among students officials and increase the charity / giving among students. This research work on campus fundraisers often benefit charitable, non-profit, religious, or non-governmental organizations, though there are also fundraisers that benefit for-profit companies and individuals (Demaria, 2015).

1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed that most educational institutions fund raising is done manually. It is not only time consuming, but it is also unsecure and unreliable and it can be lead to money laundering among corrupt student officials. Some institutions use manual paper fund raising sheets for funds collection while this will be difficult for record keeping and also to keep track of the large number of students donating towards a particular project, so it is not reliable.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to design and implement an online campus fund raiser system. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:

1. Eliminate duplicate data entry and errors in time and entries.
2. Eliminate paperwork and save time.
3. Reduce money laundering among students officials.
4. Increase the charity / giving among students.

1.5 Significance of Study

The implementation of the proposed system will enable students’ to easily raise funds/ donations towards a particular project and challenges faced in the school campus. The funds collected from students are taken automatically by payment gateways which will be integrated on the system, each student details and records will be easily recorded automatically without time consuming, which is reliable and without any error.

This study will be helpful to other scholars who want to undertake a research on the same subject matter or take the scope of this research to another state. It will provide additional materials for researchers to make use of for reference purposes.

1.6 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Design and implementation of Online Campus Fund Raiser System using Imo State University (IMSU) as a case study.

The proposed system is limited to several processes: handling of student fund raising on campus, managing records of successful donations, and records every transaction for easy assessments. It will generate the reports such as funds raised during a particular campaign.

The online campus fund raiser system is designed in such a way that makes it possible to access through any device connect to the internet.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

Internet: A global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.

Transaction: An exchange or transfer of goods, services, or funds

Campus: A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated

Online: Computer or device connected to a network (such as Internet) and ready to use (or be used by) other computers or devices.