NEW LIFE: Making it easier to donate to charity has evolved into a new business opportunity for a former engineer
IT WAS his passion for sport that inspired Niall Devine to take part in a sponsored cycle which in turn led to his leaving telecommunications for a very different career.
The qualified electronic engineer realised that there had to be an easier way to fundraise for sponsored events for charity and he came up with a format that evolved into mycharity.ie.
An avid sportsman, Devine played rugby for years, as well as tennis and badminton and was a keen cyclist.
He worked in sales engineering for several years before joining telecommunications company, Nortel, where he spent seven years in technical and sales roles. While working with Nortel that he became involved with the National Council for the Blind's cycling fundraising initiative, Blazing Saddles.
He was involved in a number of sponsored cycles for Blazing Saddles in Ireland before taking part in a major 600-mile cycle across the US in 1999.
He recalls: "We had to raise about £5,000 at the time for the cycle which was a major challenge for anybody to do, especially through sponsorship cards. We had to go to people to ask them for the money and deal with a lot of cash and cheques which all had to be lodged. I knew there had to be an easier way to do it and I formulated the idea for direct online donations to charity."
It was a few years later before Devine began to seriously research the idea of online donation to charity as a business idea. He found there was a definite need for such a system from the charities and decided to set up mycharity.ie.
The majority of events mycharity.ie hosts are sporting events such as marathons, triathlons, treks, walks, swims and sky dives.
Devine worked on the website on a part-time basis until April 2006 while still working with Nortel and watched the level of activity on the site slowly start to grow. Having seen the potential for the business, he decided to leave Nortel in June 2007. "It was a massive change in career but it has been absolutely fantastic. I always wanted to work for myself; it was just a question of finding the right idea. I have a huge interest in sport and having control over my own time allows me to indulge this interest."
On the down side, Devine has had to get used to no longer having the security of being paid a generous monthly salary by a company but he says the pluses of his new career far outweigh the minuses. He now has a full-time website developer and sales/administration person working with him which leaves him free to work on meeting targets.
"Our aim is to get 10 new charities a month on board. I spend a lot of time working with the developer on new services and features to attract new charities. We have almost charities so far and we are getting about 35,000 visitors a month at the moment," he says.
In 2006, 3,000 people donated to a charity of their choice through mycharity.ie and last year this jumped to 17,000. By the end of the year, Devine estimates that 30,000 will have donated to charity via the site.
"The main thing we do and definitely the most powerful is that we give charities the ability to do their fund-raising online. We create a fund-raising page online and all the person looking for sponsorship needs to do is send out an e-mail to all his/her friends. It's much easier and less time-consuming than physically taking sponsorship cards around to all their family and friends."
Devine points out that people are much more generous with credit card sponsorship than they are with cash donations. The typical fundraiser on mycharity.ie raises two-three times the amount raised with sponsorship cards, he claims.
Obviously, Devine has to make an income for himself from the website. He does this through charging each charity the sum of €500 plus VAT per year to register on the site - a fee he maintains is very low relative to most costs.
The company also deducts 3 per cent from each transaction, most of which he says goes to paying credit card charges with the company keeping about 0.5 per cent.
He says he also gives the charities that register a moneyback guarantee - if they do not make at least €500 back, he will refund them the difference.
He remarks: "I don't miss a thing about my old career. I had a great time at Nortel and I wouldn't change any of it. My only regret is that I did not get the idea to do this sooner. I absolutely love what I do. Telecoms is a fairly aggressive cut and thrust sort of industry and it's a pleasure to deal with my client base of charities.
"There can be frustrations because most charities are run by committee so things can take a long time to happen. It's nice to know at the end of the day that a couple of hundred thousand euro is being put through charities every day because of the organisation and company I have built."
Although he tends to work regular office hours, Devine's new role allows him the flexibility to indulge his love of sport. He goes to the gym four or five times a week and coaches a hockey team, both for fitness and love of the game.
He also still gets involved with sponsored events himself with the proceeds, of course, going to one of the charities on his website. He has a particular allegiance to Blind Sports Ireland, a small charity associated with the National Council for the Blind that was the first to come on board with mycharity.ie and he does the Wicklow 100 for them every summer.
Devine welcomes the forthcoming Charities Bill for Ireland which he says will help to regulate all charities and strengthen the public's confidence in charitable organisations.
