CharityRight Case Study: How We Built a Charity's Entire Tech Stack
How QuikCue built CharityRight's entire technology stack: website, donation checkout, automated comms, analytics, and operational infrastructure.
CharityRight is a UK charity delivering education, water, and emergency relief programmes internationally. They needed a complete technology stack — built for a charity that moves fast on a small budget.
The Challenge
CharityRight came to us with:
- A WordPress site that was slow, insecure, and hard to update
- No automated communications — every SMS, email, and WhatsApp was manual
- No real-time analytics — the team couldn't see donation data without asking the accountant
- Multiple payment processors with no unified view
- No CRM — donor data lived in spreadsheets
What We Built
1. Modern Website
Replaced WordPress with a custom Laravel-based site:
- Sub-2-second load times (from 6+ seconds)
- SEO-optimised with structured data
- Mobile-first design
- Integrated donation checkout (no redirect to third-party)
2. Custom Donation Checkout
A bespoke donation flow built for conversion:
- Stripe + GoCardless integration
- Gift Aid capture at point of donation
- Recurring giving setup in 2 clicks
- Programme-specific giving (education, water, emergency)
- QR code and link sharing for offline-to-online giving
3. Automated Communications
Built on n8n + WAHA (WhatsApp API):
- Automatic thank-you messages (WhatsApp + email) within 60 seconds of donation
- Weekly summary reports to trustees (auto-generated)
- Ramadan campaign drip sequences
- Payment failure notifications and retry nudges
4. Analytics Dashboard
Self-hosted Metabase connected to the donation database:
- Real-time donation dashboard
- Campaign performance comparison
- Donor retention metrics
- Gift Aid tracking and reporting
- Accessible to all trustees (not just the tech person)
5. Self-Hosted Infrastructure
All services running on a single VPS (our self-hosting approach):
- Docker Swarm for service orchestration
- Traefik for routing and SSL (Traefik guide)
- Automated backups to off-site storage
- Total infrastructure cost: ~£30/month
Results
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Page load time | 6.2s | 1.4s |
| Donation conversion rate | 2.1% | 4.8% |
| Admin hours on comms (weekly) | 8 hours | 0 hours (automated) |
| Time to access financial data | 2-3 days | Instant (dashboard) |
| Monthly infrastructure cost | £200+ | £30 |
Want This For Your Charity?
We build complete tech stacks for charities — from donation pages to AI-powered operations. Every system custom-built for your needs, hosted on infrastructure you control.
We build autonomous systems for charities.
Pledge collection, payment processing, WhatsApp automation, analytics dashboards, and the infrastructure that lets a small team do the work of fifty. Free tools. Fractional technology leadership. No fluff.
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