• by Lauren Kade , November 25, 2013

A few months ago, Google launched a new Android app, One Today, which shows users different nonprofit projects each day and asks for $1 donations. As nonprofits look for new alternative giving options and the importance of micro-donations grows, One Today is a great, free, and easy option!

How it Works

Each day, a different nonprofit project is featured with information about the specific project and how the user's micro-donation can help. Over time, as the app learns the user's preferences, it will feature projects it thinks the user is most interested in.

Each user is only allowed to donate $1 per project per day, which is then added to a balance, and the user is asked to periodically pay the balance. As a nonprofit, you receive 98.1% of each dollar donated (there is a 1.9% payment processing fee), and all the donations are unrestricted funds. Google has partnered with Network for Good to actually send nonprofits payments. Each nonprofit will receive the donations on the 15^th of the following month, unless you receive less than $10, in which case those donations will roll over to the next month. You can specify in Network for Good how you would like to receive the payments, otherwise they will send a check to your organization's address.

In addition to the $1 per project per day donation, users can challenge their friends to donate by offering to match each of their $1 donations (up to a limit set by Google based on the user's donation history). This is a great way for users to tap into their social networks and raise money for projects they're passionate about!

How to Join

Though it's not officially listed as a product under the Google for Nonprofits program, you enroll in One Today through the enrollments page in your Google for Nonprofits account. Once you enroll, you'll set up your charity profile and create your first project.

Creating a Project

To create your first project, you need a name, image, description of the project, compelling fact about the problem you're trying to help, and an example of how the user's donation will make a difference. The best projects on One Today include a tangible way that $1 will make a difference. For example, $1 will give a hungry child four meals in World Food Program's project or $1 will provide one week of school for 30 students in BRAC's project. Since each user can only donate $1 to each project on any given day, the more tangible you can make it for their specific donation the better. 

Like all fundraising, including a great photo of the smiling child or "cuddly" polar bear that they're going to help is also important. (Note: Google reserves the right to mark projects as "sensitive" if they include dramatic images such as neglected animals or starving children. Projects marked as sensitive will only be seen by users who specifically opt-in to such projects.) 

Other restrictions include:

• Do not use your organization's name, dollar signs, dates, or exclamation marks in the project name.

• Don't use photos with text overlays, or multiple photos edited together.

• Do not describe what your organization does in general. You have the opportunity to do that in your nonprofit description, so your project description should be more specific to the task at hand.

• Don't include any URLs.

• Do not directly ask for help or money. One Today is already asking the users to help; you're just providing a description of the project they can help.

You can create multiple projects in your account, as long as each project is unique. Once you set up each project, you can schedule them to go live on certain dates and end on certain dates. Each project will run until it meets the fundraising goal you set, or until it reaches the termination date.