Challenge

Since 2002, Booster has been on a mission to make it easy for schools to raise money for new equipment, facility upgrades, extracurricular activities, or any other initiatives that rely on donations. The heart of its service is MyBooster, a custom online fundraising platform designed to be both simple for the teachers, parents, or students organizing a fundraiser to use, as well as convenient for donors.

In 2023, Booster learned that its online payment processor was shutting down. Booster had only six months to find and implement a new payment solution for MyBooster. “Most fundraisers have moved away from physical currency in favor of collecting online donations. It really is the cash register for the platform,” said Richard Floyd, Booster’s senior product manager.

With such a tight time frame, Booster prioritized ease of implementation during its search for a new online payment solution. Booster operates with a lean tech team, which meant it needed a combination of out-of-the-box features and strong documentation to help its developers easily integrate the technology into Booster’s platform. It also sought strong developer support since it had experienced difficulties with its previous provider, which would often take days to respond to a ticket.

Booster was also looking for a solution that could support its future growth plans. The ideal provider would offer a strong selection of additional features and capabilities beyond Booster’s immediate needs so that the company wouldn’t have to look for an additional provider as it expanded its fundraising options.

Looking beyond the up-front integration, Booster wanted a solution that could handle many of the onboarding and compliance tasks related to registering schools for the MyBooster platform. For example, failed payouts were a frequent problem because customers often entered incorrect bank account information when setting up fundraising pages, requiring Booster team members to track down the correct details. Booster needed to reduce that problem to free up its internal resources.

Finally, since Booster is constantly studying results from its fundraising campaigns to improve its services, it needed a payment provider that could offer detailed payments data to help analyze the characteristics of a truly successful campaign.

Solution

Booster chose Stripe Connect as the new payment solution for its online fundraising platform. The extensive, detailed documentation offered by Stripe was a key factor in the decision because it allowed Booster engineers to conduct an in-depth proof of concept before beginning a full implementation. “By the time the ink dried on the contract, we already had confidence that Stripe was going to be able to do what we needed it to do,” said Floyd.

While Booster’s team managed most of the implementation by themselves, they received assistance from Stripe’s professional services team when they had integration questions that might threaten their timeline. “There were a couple [of] really key things that they were able to point out that unblocked us massively,” Floyd said. “There’s a knowledge built up among Stripe professional services that most companies aren’t going to have.”

The MyBooster platform allows customers to set up a unique fundraising page for their entire school or individual classrooms, as well as for each student helping to raise money. Connect’s APIs supported that model by easily linking multiple fundraising pages to one connected account, which would hold and distribute funds raised during the overall campaign.

Booster also chose Stripe’s Payment Element, which allowed the team to embed a payment processing UI directly into the company’s existing donation checkout flow. The Payment Element’s customizable appearance preserved donors’ payment experience by supporting Booster’s two current payment methods—credit cards and Apple Pay—while offering extensive options to allow Booster to add new payment methods in the future.

Once Booster was ready to transition schools to the new system, the company chose Stripe-hosted onboarding to collect the customers’ banking information. Booster also selected Stripe Financial Connections to instantly verify that information and ensure that schools could receive their donations without delay.

Finally, Booster implemented Stripe Data Pipeline to provide payments data to help the company improve its platform. For example, with Stripe data, Booster can see how average donation size varies by customer, region, and other factors—all of which helps shape future decision-making.

Results

Proof of concept completed in three weeks and full integration completed in three months

The accessibility of Stripe technology and detailed documentation for developers supported Booster’s tight timeline. “Conducting a proof of concept was way easier with Stripe than with others,” Floyd said. “I feel like we had to beg and plead for access to a sandbox from other providers.”

After confirming that Connect would work with its platform, Booster began development on the integration in October and launched the first pilot customer in mid-November. Starting January 1, 2024, nearly all of its customers were using Stripe to accept and distribute donations for their fundraisers.

Stripe offers capabilities to support future enhancements

Stripe Connect and the Payment Element provided both an immediate solution for Booster’s payments needs and room to grow with the company’s plans for the future. For example, Booster plans to offer donors more payment choices, including Google Pay and Cash App. With the Payment Element, the company will be able to turn those options on through a no-code Dashboard. The Payment Element also makes it easy to schedule recurring donations and use bank debits, which are ideal for automatic payments.

Booster is looking at adding Link, a Stripe checkout solution that autofills customers’ payment information to accelerate checkouts and increase conversion. With the Payment Element, Booster will be able to turn on Link at any time with no additional coding.

Nearly 2,000 school accounts onboarded in three weeks

By completing the transition to Connect before the traditional ramp-up in school fundraising drives after the first of the year, Booster was able to onboard nearly 2,000 accounts in three weeks. By April of 2024, it had doubled that figure to 4,000 connected accounts.

Floyd added that Stripe-hosted onboarding gave schools more confidence in the security of their sensitive information. “We see some of the hesitation that comes with entering bank information, especially with people who aren’t used to working with platforms like Stripe,” said Floyd. “Being able to point to Stripe’s website and say, ‘This is a company that's used by all these other name brands that they recognize’ helped give our users confidence that their data was safe.”

Failed payouts nearly eliminated by Financial Connections

Before Stripe, failed payouts to schools due to incorrect bank information represented one of Booster’s most common technical challenges. Now, the issue has been almost eliminated.

Data Pipeline supports Booster’s data-driven approach

Easy integration of Data Pipeline allowed Booster to sync all Stripe data within 12 hours. Now, Booster can use that data to improve its platform and help schools raise as much as they can. For example, insights from Data Pipeline can help inform the advice Booster provides to clients, such as recommending the most effective suggested donation amounts.