Aiuto Solutions

Aiuto Solutions is a hub that connects people in need with people who want to give. Donors see how their contributions directly impact people, creating a meaningful donation process.

Aiuto Solutions is a hub that connects people in need with people who want to give.

Our app enables charities and organizations to create “wish lists” from people in need and enables donors to fulfill these specific needs, thereby gaining satisfaction and engagement in the donation process. Our process allows for efficient matching, whilst permitting local businesses to participate in sourcing the needs. 

Charities use the Aiuto Solutions platform to market themselves to donors and communicate impact through “social media” posts. They are able to break down their organization into sub-causes and share where the money they receive is going. With more relevant and palatable information, donors know exactly how their contributions are helping. 

Aiuto Solutions grants donors the ability to “pin” the causes that they are interested in, to create long-lasting relationships with charities. They can also find new initiatives to be more engaged with their community. 

Charities are unable to connect with active donors, sustain donation transparency, and communicate impact.

Small charities, who make up 80% of the charitable sector, don’t have the time or resources to get and maintain donors; can’t maintain connections, leading to high attrition rates; have difficulty growing; and ultimately struggle to provide services. 

Consequently, donors are left confused, cannot contribute in as meaningful a way, and cannot rely on charity credibility. According to a survey we conducted in the Kitchener-Waterloo community, barriers to donating included not finding reliable charities (39%) and a lack of transparent use of donations (42%). Thus, recipients are left without a reliable source of assistance and the community suffers. 

Currently, there is no platform that provides a social media directed to donors, digestible financial transparency, or constant feedback. Charities have voiced their many concerns about the upcoming decline in donations. According to Imagine Canada, more than a third of donors will give less, with COVID-19 putting a rift between charities and donors. 

Although small, these charities are the backbone of the charitable sector and play a significant role in the community. With Canada having 86,000 registered charities and up to 100,000 non-registered charities, the charitable sector contributes more to the GDP than the retail sector.

Aiuto Solutions is catered towards micro to medium sized charities (10 - 250 employees). According to the Canadian Charity Law, there are around 86,000 registered charities. These charities contribute to approximately 8.5% of Canada’s GDP, which is greater than the retail sector. 

Additionally, from interviews conducted with professionals from Chartwell Retirement Homes, the YWCA, and the Women’s Crisis Services, small charities have limited outreach to donors, making it difficult to accomplish their goals and help their communities. Moreover, according to Canada Helps, over 90% of registered charities have less than 10 paid full-time staff, making this app vital for communities across Canada. 

In a survey conducted by the Aiuto Team in the Waterloo Region, with 58% of donors under 25 and 42% of donors of ages 36-65, it was determined that: 

1. The largest barriers when donating are:

   1. Transparent use of donation (42%)

   2. Charity credibility (39%)

   3. Lack of online options (18%) 

2. 100% of donors find it is important to donate to local initiatives. 

3. 82% of donors would use a platform like Aiuto.

Starting in 2020, we have been partnering with Schlegel Villages and Chartwell Retirement to provide personalized gifts to elderly residents who have been isolated due to COVID-19. Last year, we were able to provide 50 gifts as a proof of concept, using Google tools to create a first iteration of our future app.

We then had feedback interviews with the participating nursing homes and conducted a survey with donors who used the "app". 

Nursing homes highlighted the importance of the design not causing added stress on them, which our design accomplished. The surveys indicated that donors need help finding reliable charities (39%) and understanding exactly how their donations are being (42%). This helped us prioritize what features to include in our app.

We interviewed Women's Crisis Services, the YWCA, and the Canadian Red Cross. The Red Cross Senior Director of Customer Experience found that it is difficult to make online presence do completely different things - most charities focus their social media on forming recipient relationships, while communication with donors is secondary.

With this, we then created a prototype and performed usability tests with members of the community to ensure that the needs of both donors and charities were met, changing the design as necessary. 

We've since developed the app and used it on a larger scale to provide personalized gifts to 150 residents, with involvement from local stores, volunteers, University of Waterloo, and the community.

The issues highlighted above have not yet been solved by our competitors - this is where Aiuto Solutions comes in. 

Aiuto Solutions’ competitors were determined through the Aiuto donor survey, interviews with charities, and external market research. 

In the survey, the charity’s website, GoFundMe, and events were the most used resources for donating. In our interviews, charities reported that they were not building enough donor relationships with these resources. 

Aiuto Solutions has identified 4 categories of competition, with an example company for each:

Lists: provide a list of reliable charities and links to their pages. 

• Ex: Government of Canada

Charity Hubs: show a list of reliable charities and provide online donating. 

• Ex: Canada Helps

Crowdfunding: allow individuals to raise funds from a large number of people.

• Ex: GoFundMe

Donor Tracking Software: track donor data and provide online donating.  

• Ex: DonorPerfect 

Aiuto Solutions takes the best of all four worlds. We allow charities to focus all donor activities in one application, saving costs and improving efficiency. Unlike competitors, Aiuto Solutions allows donors to see where their contributions are going, leading to strong charity-donor relations. 

We are an organization that is building and testing our service and business model. Through our pilots conducted in the community, we have achieved proof of concept, design insight and iteration, and the beginnings of a business structure. To date, we have raised over $3000 in donations by donors on our app. For this test, we partnered with 2 organizations, who paid for the service. 

Before entering the market, we would like to test our service with multiple charities in the KW Region who have access to donors, develop a concrete revenue model, and create an app prepared for production and scaling. Our solution is constantly developing in response to the needs of our users. We are also forming partnerships with other organizations in community outreach and technology. 

Aiuto Solutions is a process that relies on our web app, combining features in a new way to improve the donor-charity relationship. The current product version contains the most important features to deliver value: transparency and social networking. 

By adding requests to their profile, charities display where and how much money is being allocated throughout their cause. From these requests, a total donation goal is displayed. Donors use this to inform on their donation, which can be made through the app, contributing to the charity's donation goal. To keep donors engaged, charities post updates and images. Donors can pin charities they are interested in to keep up with their request and posting activity.

The development of our web app uses databases, API's, and 3rd party donation software.

So far, our solution has served 150 people in the community. Our web app has had 75 users (donors), including the 2 organizations who took part in our gift drive. This was with direct assistance from the Aiuto Solutions team (donor outreach, wrapping, delivering, etc.). 

In the next year, we plan to use our solution to serve 300 people in the community. This would involve having 200+ users on the web app (donors), including 4+ organizations. 

In addition, we will pivot to charities using our web app with less hands-on assistance from us, in order to reach more donors and increase efficiency. This will allow Aiuto Solutions to focus on developing the web app and providing an effective process to everyone involved. 

Principally, we are looking to increase community involvement.

Firstly, we will support those in need. This includes reminding seniors that people are thinking of them through particularly lonely times in the year. By supporting other charities, we want to increase the number of people getting help, while maintaining quality. 

Secondly, small charities will get a platform to connect with those who want to help. We want to increase their donor database and allow them to communicate impact, to develop loyal donors. This allows them to have a strong foundation for their initiatives. 

At the same time, donors can find reliable and active organizations. The ability to see the impact of their donations makes the process satisfying and worthwhile.  

Finally, small businesses will be included in community initiatives. This will allow small businesses to get their name out there and create a strong reputation for themselves. 

By involving many different groups, we will connect those who want to help with those in need. 

• We plan on directly serving 200 isolated seniors, in December 2022.

• We plan on indirectly serving 100+ members of the community over spring and summer of 2022. 

• We plan to gain 100 users per event. 

• We plan to retain 30% of users for further events. 

• We want minimal additional work for charities - by staying in active communication and performing regular debriefs - to ensure the process is easy. 

• Unsolicited goodwill, measurable in social media, email, survey responses (as seen last year). 
  

• We want commitment from local stores. We are already seeing increasing commitment from restaurants, small chocolate/games stores, Starbucks, and more. 

• In the long term, we plan on expanding to other topics and events relevant to the community.

Technical:

• Need further knowledge in web development, effective integrated development environments, etc. 

Financial:

• Need to acquire further grants and sponsorships to support business expenses:  
  • Web app hosting and upkeep 
  • Marketing to donors 
  • Event expenses 
  • Business fees (banking, site fees, etc.)

Market:

• Our personal ability to reach donors is limited. That is why we will work with more established organizations. 

Business:

• Currently, the team is a partnership. We would need to expand our team to manage lower-level (time-consuming) tasks. 

Aiuto Solutions was started in 2020 in Waterloo Ontario, Canada by Ellen Brisley and Leya Oommen. Ellen’s family was unable to visit her grandfather, due to COVID-19 restrictions. She saw first-hand how isolated those in long-term care were, especially during the holidays. Thus came the idea to facilitate donations to care homes in Waterloo. We realized this was applicable to all charitable causes and highly customizable. Consequently, Aiuto Solutions was born. 

We have worked together for 5 years and have been friends for 8. This has allowed us to form a strong partnership: We both contribute to all aspects of the project, can listen to each other and provide constructive criticism, and uplift each other when one of us has doubts. 

We are both interested in and have taken school and self-taught computer science courses. We have both acquired business and technical experience from 4 years of the Technovation Coding Competition, where we received mentorship from a tech startup founder and programming industry professionals.

Ellen is involved in the musical and theatre community, volunteers regularly, is in the IB Program, has worked in a health-tech startup, and loves the entrepreneurial environment in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Leya is involved in Indian classical dance, teaches coding, is in the AP Program, and is interested in biostatistical research. 

Shopify:

• Access to Shopify resources + mentoring support  

Meridian 

• Free access to a banking account

Kairos Logic:

• Funded and assisted web development 

Old Navy:

•  Direct donations and donor outreach

Chartwell Retirement Residences and Schlegel Villages: 

• "Charities" for our initial test runs
• Debriefing interviews, design and user input

We have been opening ourselves up to the tech-entrepreneurship world for the last 4 years, especially through the Technovation Girls Coding Competition. As two girls entering the industry, we have been able to talk to strong women leaders from all sectors, such as startup founders, engineers, software developers, and CFO's. We want to use Aiuto Solutions and what we learn from it to strengthen our impact in the tech industry. 

With The HP Girls Save the World Prize, we would join an accelerator program to establish structure and mentorship to our business. With this growth would come an increase in expenses, which could involve incorporating, marketing, branding, and growing the team.  

We have been opening ourselves up to the tech-entrepreneurship world for the last 4 years, especially through the Technovation Girls Coding Competition. As two girls entering the industry, we have been able to talk to strong women leaders from all sectors, such as startup founders, engineers, software developers, and CFO's. We want to use Aiuto Solutions and what we learn from it to strengthen our impact in the tech industry. 

With The Pozen Social Innovation Prize, we would join an accelerator program to establish structure and mentorship to our business. With this growth would come an increase in expenses, which could involve incorporating, marketing, branding, and growing the team.