The Connection launches innovative app to streamline donations for the homeless

Homelessness charity The Connection at St Martin’s is launching a new innovative app ‘Donate Locate’ that is set to change the way we help the homeless.

The app allows users to donate a small amount – £1, £3 or £5 – to the charity when you see a homeless person, whilst at the same time recording their location on a hotspot map (via the phone’s GPS) enabling the Connection’s outreach team to locate the homeless person.

Creative direct marketing agency Soul is behind the app concept and independent mobile marketing agency Movement is responsible for the app build.

Beki Winter, street outreach manager of The Connection, said: “Soul has a real understanding of our work and has been deeply involved in everything we do and stand for. After seeing the Donate Locate app concept, we instantly felt it was right for us. It not only allows our outreach teams to help locate homeless people, it also empowers people so they can do something to help a rough sleeper away from the streets without giving money directly, which in the majority of cases does more harm than good. ”

Shaun Moran, founding partner and creative director of Soul, said: “Donate Locate represents Soul’s philosophy; it started with people, not technology. The concept for the app came about when discussing the issue of begging and the dilemma people face when deciding whether to give some spare change to a homeless person – what will it be spent on? With this in mind, we discussed various ways of helping homeless people you see without giving them money directly; this thinking informs our Donate Locate app. The app the untimely benefits three audiences – the user, the outreach worker and the homeless person.”

Original article published 25 March 2015 in Charity Digital News