I’ve recently launched a website to gather donations for some sponsored cycling events that I’m doing in 2009, on behalf of the Royal National Institute of Blind People Northern Ireland (RNIB NI). You can read more about what I’m doing and the work I’m supporting on my cycling blog Rain Miles Count Double or on the new Sponsor John! website itself.
http://sponsorjohn.com
The site is built on the Codeigniter web application framework, using PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5.0. A valid XHTML / CSS based layout is built around the 960 Grid System. jQuery is used to add some form validation and visual flair, using the ColorBox plugin for modal popups and information panels, CycleLite for an image carousel and SimpleTip for popup tooltips. Popups, tooltips and the email newsletter subscription form are implemented using AJAX requests for a seamless interface.
Online donations are handled by integrating with PayPal’s Web Payments service. PayPal handle the “checkout” procedure and retain all payment card information themselves for security. The Sponsor John application is notified when a payment is received by an “Instant Payment Notification” callback request from PayPal’s systems. I’ve implemented a simple PHP Instant Payment Notification processor as a Codeigniter action which parses these IPN requests and adds the donation amount and name to a list to be displayed on the front page of the sponsorjohn.com site.
Sponsors can include a link to their personal or business website with their donation and have that link displayed on the sponsorjohn.com front page. In an effort to encourage more donations they are listed in order of amount donated and time of donation, so those who make the largest, earliest contributions appear higher up the list!
I’ve set what I think is a modest and achievable goal of raising £500 over the next six or seven months. It’s only been online a few days and sponsorjohn.com has already gathered some attention and set me on the way to achieving that goal!
Sponsor John was built in a couple of weeks worth of evenings, leaning on Belfast designer Lee Munroe’s “8 Tips To Design A Charity Website” article for inspiration. I think the final design is a touch too cartoon like, but otherwise I’m happy with the project.
Visit sponsorjohn.com and donate a few pounds for a good cause!
John Girvin is an experienced a software engineer and web developer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He draws on over 14 years of hard won, real world experience of different projects, clients and working environments.
John is currently working with the Art Technology Group (ATG), developing J2EE based, market leading e-commerce technology.
If you liked this article, why not subscribe to the RSS feed for more?