jjason-nn / hack-the-change-2022

Code The Change Hack The Change Hackathon 2022 | Equa

Equa

Giving back made easy.

Inspiration

We all want to contribute to the greater good, and donating to charities is a fantastic way of doing so, but through our own experience, we have found that it is not an easy process. Donating to a charity requires a fair amount of research, where you have to find causes that align with your own interests, as well as making sure that the charities are reputable and legitimate. With the creation of Equa, this procedure becomes quick and easy for anyone using it.

What it does

Equa is a Chrome Extension and web app that facilitates the process of selecting and donating to a charity of one's choice. When registering and signing up on the web application, Equa will ask you to select causes that you are interested in, choose a monthly donation goal, fill out your payment information, and that's it! After registration, users can view their dashboard to track their donations and progress on their monthly goal. In addition to this, users can browse an explore page where Equa has curated a list of reputable charities according to your interests. When shopping online, our extension will pop-up on the checkout page, giving you the option to donate to a list of charities made for you. Equa's goal is to streamline the donation process, making it an extension to your daily life.

How we built it

We built Equa using Express.js and Firebase for the backend and a React & Javascript for the frontend. The extension was built using the Plasmo framework and we took advantage of Stripe's powerful API to handle donations without any user interaction. We designed the UI/UX during the early stages of planning using Figma, which created models and different visualizations of our interface.

We also hosted our server on AWS E2C and deployed our frontend on Netlify.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we ran into was the styling of the components. Even though most of us have experience with CSS, it was definitely one of the most difficult tasks since we tried to adhere to our original design in Figma as much as possible. Additionally, it is our first time creating a chrome extension and it was difficult to get the extension to communicate back and fourth with the web dashboard and the database.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1. Creating an accessible design
2. Collaborating by working in person with each other
3. Learn how to make a chrome extension within a short timeline
4. Creating a positive work environment
5. Coding for social good!

What we learned

1. Build a full stack program implementing React, Figma, Firebase, Javascript, Express and Plasmo
2. How to create a high-quality product in a short time frame through prototyping

What's next for Equa

1. We wish to seek out more partners that will match donations and more reputable charities, both local and international.
2. We would like to add a raffle feature that will encourage users to make donations, a user would receive entries for a monthly raffle for every $25 donated.