{"id":989944,"date":"2026-09-18T10:03:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T10:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/?page_id=989944"},"modified":"2026-09-18T15:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:12:25","slug":"lse-2627-4-back-a-buddy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/lse-2627-4-back-a-buddy","title":{"rendered":"LSE-2627-4-Back a Buddy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"vgblk-rw-wrapper limit-wrapper\">\n<h2>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/lse-2627-welcome\/\" target=\"_self\">\n\t\t\tWelcome\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/h2>\n<h2>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/lse-2627-meet-up\/\" target=\"_self\">\n\t\t\tPartner Organisations\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/h2>\n<h2>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/lse-2627-media-data\/\" target=\"_self\">\n\t\t\tUseful Resources\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/h2>\n<h2>\n\t\t\t4. Back a Buddy\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/plugins\/beaver-builder-lite-version\/img\/pixel.png\" alt=\"\" itemprop=\"image\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\"  \/>\n\t\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Back a Buddy interview\" width=\"1260\" height=\"709\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ceFHtp8Kilk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\t\n\t<p>Back a Buddy is Africa&#8217;s largest crowdfunding platform for donations. Patrick Schofield, its founder, has a long history of involvement in South African start-ups and fund raising, having founded Thundafund, a rewards-based crowdfunding platform, and Tip for Change, which lets people without smartphones receive payments through a QR code on a physical card. Back a Buddy now raises over R13 million a month, or about US$24 million this year, from roughly 400,000 donors.<\/p>\n<p>More than 8,000 campaigns launch each month, 95% of them in South Africa. Over half are for medical care, followed by education and sport, disaster relief and poverty alleviation. The platform has doubled in size every year since a new version launched two years ago. It charges no platform fee and relies on voluntary tips. Tips bring in only about 10% less than the old fixed fee, but far more money now flows through.<\/p>\n<p>Only 10% of users raise funds, the other 90% come to donate. So more than half the team works on keeping donors engaged. They send each campaign&#8217;s donors updates showing what their money achieved, and over 65% of recipients open them. Back a Buddy is keen for an LSE team to research into whether these updates reduce anxiety and depression, strengthen community ties and lead to more giving. Giving to African causes from abroad is also still hard and expensive, with some transfer services charging 20%.<\/p>\n<p>Back a Buddy is building &#8220;the rails of generosity&#8221; across Africa. The goal is for anyone on the continent to raise funds, and for anyone worldwide, including the diaspora, to give. Working with payment providers like Flutterwave, it also aims to cut transfer costs to about 3.5%, and use AI agents to collect evidence of impact, so donors can trust the platform.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"  itemprop=\"url\" title=\"LogoReciprocity\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/LogoReciprocity.png\" alt=\"LogoReciprocity\" itemprop=\"image\" height=\"65\" width=\"109\" data-link-type=\"url\" title=\"LogoReciprocity\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\"  sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/LogoReciprocity.png 109w, https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/LogoReciprocity-18x12.png 18w\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"  itemprop=\"url\" title=\"LSE\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/LSE.png\" alt=\"LSE\" itemprop=\"image\" height=\"225\" width=\"225\" data-link-type=\"url\" title=\"LSE\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\"  sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/LSE.png 225w, https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/LSE-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/LSE-12x12.png 12w\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n<\/div><!-- .vgblk-rw-wrapper -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome Partner Organisations Useful Resources 4. Back a Buddy Back a Buddy is Africa&#8217;s largest crowdfunding platform for donations. Patrick Schofield, its founder, has a long history of involvement in South African start-ups and fund raising, having founded Thundafund, a rewards-based crowdfunding platform, and Tip for Change, which lets people without smartphones receive payments through&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-blank.php","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-989944","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/989944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989944"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/989944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989965,"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/989944\/revisions\/989965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reciprocity.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}