Rumelifeneri Campus Student Center as knows as Ömer
Student Center a.k.a Ömer Photo by Cenk Kabahasanoğlu.

Fund Raising Activities at Koç University

In the U.S., donations are an important part of university funding. At Koç University, most of the financial support comes from the Vehbi Koç Foundation and student tuition fees. Our university president wanted to make education more sustainable by increasing donations.

There was already a donation website (https://bagis.ku.edu.tr), but it had problems. It was very limited, had technical issues, and was developed by an external company.

The goal of the new project was clear:

  1. The system should be hosted on our own server and managed by our team.
  2. We needed to consider new payment systems in case the current one needed replacement.
  3. We wanted to offer more donation options, like giving a gift on a special day.
  4. Donors should be able to choose the donation amount.
  5. Donations could be made as regular donations or by sending gift certificates (in both print and digital formats).
  6. The main feature of the project is “Name Your Seat,” where a donor’s name appears on a seat in the university’s auditorium.
We used two payment systems: Iyzico and Param, for different needs. Iyzico has two options:
  1. Credit card storage method (we don’t store card details; it's done through a certified payment provider)
  2. Subscription method (this is managed by Iyzico and allows monthly donations)

Each method has pros and cons. The card storage method is easier for us to manage, but we cannot change the donation amount. The subscription method allows the donor to manage their donations but needs more support from our team.

In the first stage of the project, we moved the system to our own server. But the original code was very hard to manage, so we had to improve it. Also, the university changed its website design, so we updated the donation website’s design too. We also changed the technology from PHP to .Net.

In the second phase, we added the gift certificate feature. Donors can now donate on behalf of someone for special days like New Year or International Women’s Day.

As mentioned, “Name Your Seat” is the main part of this project. We spoke with different ticketing companies, but after some test projects, we decided to build our own system. This lets the donor choose a seat from a map, just like buying a ticket, and name it.

All these new features needed extra tools on the admin panel to track and manage donations. So we also built a back-office system. Even though there was an old system, we had to build everything again from scratch to meet our needs.

Thanks to this project, the number of donations increased (I’m sorry, I can’t share the numbers 😊), and donors now have more options to choose from.

Conclusion

This donation system project has helped Koç University modernize and expand its fundraising activities. With a stronger technical foundation, secure and flexible payment gateways like Iyzico and Param, and creative options like gift certificates and "Name Your Seat," we made it easier and more attractive for people to donate. It not only improved user experience but also supported the university’s long-term goals for financial sustainability and community engagement.
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