Collect and raise money online with Leetchi

Today I’m reviewing Leetchi, an online money collection website. It’s dead handy – well worth a read.

On more than one occasion during my working life I’ve found myself in that awkward situation known as the ‘present collection’.

It goes something like this:

An envelope and a card are working their way around the office. It’s a collection for someone in accounts that you’ve only met a couple of times. You want to contribute but when you look in your purse you realise you only have seven pence or a ten pound note. Obviously you’re not putting the note in – you barely know the woman and besides, no one hears the note go in, so you won’t get the kudos.

So, do you:

A) Just pretend to put cash in and rattle the envelope a bit to make a noise

B) Put in the seven pence to be seen to be adding something and hope that no one sees the actual coins

C) Just casually sign the card and pass it on

Of course there is the option to say that you don’t have any cash on you and add some later, but how feasible is that? Normally in this sort of situation the envelope has just appeared on your desk and no one really knows where it came from or where it’s going to end up. It just sorts of travels mysteriously from desk to desk until suddenly Janice has a new baby bouncer to take on maternity leave. No one really understands how.

A new online tool – Leetchi.com – just made this awkward money collection thing a whole lot easier. 

How Leetchi works

Leetchi allows you to raise money online for a birthday gift, party, leaving do or community or charitable project, by setting you up a personal money raising page. Wherever you might need to collect money from multiple people, Leetchi can help.

You start by selecting your category and giving your pot a name. I set one up for my birthday, just in case anyone fancies chipping in for a gift, you know, no pressure. (It’s not until April but it’s good to be prepared.) I registered via Facebook and the whole thing took under a minute.

Customise your Leetchi page

You then have the option to personalise your page. You can customise the URL, change the collection dates and make your collection private or public. The photo can be edited too, and you can write your own description to encourage people to donate or just to give them a bit information about what you’re collecting for.

There’s a great feature too that allows you to customise the donation options. Set a target, suggest a donation amount (this is always tricky, so I think it’s nice to have a suggestion), and choose to keep contributors anonymous if you want to take the pressure off. You can then send invites via email or share your link on social media. This is mine. (You don’t really have to give me money, I’m just showing you what it looks like.)

Leetchi is free to set up and once you’ve finished your collection you can spend it for free at Amazon, or have it transferred to a bank account. There is a fee charged on transfers – 2.9% or 4% depending on how much you have collected. Leetchi is apparently the cheapest online money collection tool though, so the fees are competitive. There are plans for lots more partner sites in the pipeline where you will be able to spend your money with no fees at all, making it particularly suited to collections for gifts.

The whole process, including the customisation, only took me about five minutes. If you’re organising any sort of collection, whether it’s charity sponsorship, a present, or contributions to a joint holiday, then Leetchi is definitely worth looking into.

(And in answer to my original question, I’m probably a B. Which are you?)