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Paul So, one of my colleagues from George Mason University, has taken some time off from teaching Physics and started an art gallery that focuses on providing practical training to up-and-coming artists. What is interesting is that this gallery aims to improve both the artist’s technique as well as promote a successful career by giving an overview of the business and economics side of things. As the Hamiltonian Artists gallery is a 503(c) non-profit organization, it made sense to create some sort of donation system to supplement other means of income and make the gallery more sustainable.

Since the donation system is a pretty small project, June and I volunteered our time to write the code and integrate it into the existing website. After reviewing my options, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy Google makes it to integrate their checkout system. The first feature that makes Google Checkout attractive to non-profits is that all processing fees are waived “through at least the end of 2008“. I have a feeling that Google added this to protect themselves down the road, however, they will probably keep waiving the transaction fees. The next attractive feature is the availability of example code in various programming languages. I ended up using PHP, however, most other server-side languages are also supported. Finally, the Google Checkout Sandbox makes it really easy to check that your integration system works as expected before any money is transferred. Over all, I was very pleased with the ease of integration and the support provided by Google.

Coding of the system, which includes some hierarchy, has gone pretty smoothly and has taken about 15-20 hours total. The whole system will be reviewed by the intended management users tomorrow and then the last tweaks and polish will be applied. Hopefully everything will be up-and running in a week or two so that the donations can start to come in.

[ Picture is of the construction going on in the Hamiltonian Artists building. ]

 
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