Social Good Japan Co., Ltd. — new platform launch story

ℹ︎ For confidentiality, company names, project names and system images have been replaced with pseudonyms and mock-ups.

Turn intention into a circle of support.

GiveCircle is a charity crowdfunding platform connecting social projects from individuals and NPOs with the supporters who want to back them.

Campaign pages anyone can build, payment you can trust and automated donation management — built in-house from scratch in 10 months. This is the story of that launch.

Read the build story Try the demo View overview

Total raised

¥800M+

Projects listed

1,500+

Total supporters

90,000+

Receipt

Issued automatically

Children & education

An after-school place for every child

Kodomo Mirai Net (NPO)

82% ¥4.12M / ¥5M

312 supporters9 days left

Back this project

CLIENT

About the client

Social Good Japan builds the mechanism that holds social contribution up.

Social Good Japan runs a charity crowdfunding business that connects the intentions held by individuals, NPOs and welfare organisations to support from society at large, covering projects from children's causes and healthcare to the environment, disaster recovery, local culture and international cooperation.

Creators build a campaign page without specialist knowledge; supporters pay and keep giving with confidence. Donations are tallied and reconciled automatically, and everything from issuing receipts to paying creators is carried end to end — a foundation of trust was what they needed.

¥800M+

Total raised

6 fields

Categories covered

Nationwide

Supporter area

How support reaches its destination

STEP 01

Launching & publication review

Individuals and NPOs build the page; operators review it

STEP 02

Discover & back

A supporter finds a project and picks a reward

STEP 03

Payment & tallying

Pay by card or bank; donations reconciled automatically

STEP 04

Reporting & payout

Receipts issued automatically and creators paid out

CHALLENGE

The design problems to solve

Designing a foundation people trust, from scratch. Four problems.

How to lower the barrier to launching

If people cannot build a campaign page that conveys their intention without specialist knowledge, Creators do not come。

How to guarantee confidence in payment

Without varied payment options and encryption, right before backing, Drop-off happens often.

How to automate donation management

Tallying, reconciling and issuing receipts by hand means that as volume grows, Operations break down.

How to widen the circle of support

Without comments and social sharing, the empathy does not lead to the next act of support。

ARCHITECTURE

The architecture we built together

Four areas, built in-house from scratch.

Launching, backing, paying and reporting were brought onto one platform. Together with Social Good Japan we designed from scratch an architecture where anyone can launch without specialist knowledge, supporters get varied and safe payment options, and operators get automated donation management.

EXECUTION

10 months

Duration

70 man-months

Total effort

Area ①

Launch & publish

Challenge

Users without specialist knowledge cannot build a campaign page

Solution

A step-by-step editor + an operator review flow

Draft, review and live made visible through state management

Area ②

Back & pay

Challenge

Few payment options and doubts about safety cause drop-off

Solution

Payment gateway integration for card and bank

Encrypted payment and reward-based giving as standard

Area ③

Donations & reporting

Challenge

Manual tallying, reconciling and receipts stretch the team thin

Solution

Automatic tally batch + automatic receipt PDFs

Payout and reporting turned into a workflow

Area ④

Community

Challenge

Empathy does not become the next act of support

Solution

Comments and reactions + social sharing paths

Real-time notifications make the circle of support visible

Frontend

Next.js

React

Redux

Backend

NestJS

MySQL

Socket.IO

Infra

AWS S3

Puppeteer Bull Queue

IMPACT

The value the platform creates

A foundation where intention becomes action.

A foundation anyone can launch on

Anyone can turn their intention into a campaign page, without specialist knowledge.

An experience you can back with confidence

Varied, safe payment and receipts encourage continued giving.

Operations that never stall

Tallying, reconciling and paying out donations automated, keeping operations light.

A widening circle of support

Comments and sharing turn empathy into the next act of support.

STAKEHOLDER

Creators

Individuals & NPOs

Typically

Outsourced to an agency, at high cost

With GiveCircle,

Build and submit the page yourself

Business impact

The barrier to launching drops sharply

STAKEHOLDER

Supporters

Individuals & organisations

Typically

Few payment options, so people drop off

With GiveCircle,

Back safely by card or bank transfer

Business impact

The completion rate of backing rises

STAKEHOLDER

Operators

Secretariat

Typically

Manual tallying, reconciling and issuing

With GiveCircle,

Automatic tallying & receipt PDFs

Business impact

Operating effort cut sharply

STAKEHOLDER

Society

Beneficiaries

Typically

Even causes support rarely reaches

With GiveCircle,

Support circulates across many causes

Business impact

Social impact widens

DEMO

Three points of view, through a working demo.

Try the supporter, creator and operator experiences right in the browser.

FLAGSHIP

Supporter flow

Find a project, pick a reward and go through payment and receipt issuance.

Launch demo →

Creator dashboard

Manage your projects and create and submit a new one in four steps.

Launch demo →

Operator console

Read the KPIs, review publication requests and manage donations, receipts and payouts.

Launch demo →