The Brief

Berkhamsted Castle Trust approached Rufus Design to build a bespoke fundraising platform to support their Save Castle Fields campaign. This is a drive to raise £500,000 to secure 14,000+ plots of historic green land in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire from residential development.

The concept was simple but technically ambitious (we loved it): allow supporters to sponsor individual 3×3 metre plots of land, see their space appear on a live interactive map, and receive a unique What3Words address for their plot. The platform needed to handle everything from online payments to offline donations, gift certificates, community pot contributions, all while maintaining GDPR compliance and data integrity.

The Challenge

Unlike off-the-shelf fundraising tools, this project required a fully custom solution capable of:

  • Mapping and allocating over 14,000 individual land plots using a precise GPS boundary polygon
  • Processing live payments and automatically allocating plots on confirmation
  • Assigning a unique What3Words address to every sponsored space
  • Importing historical donors from a legacy spreadsheet and backfilling their What3Words locations
  • Supporting gift donations with downloadable PDF certificates
  • Allowing the trust to record offline and community donations
  • Maintaining a community pot for donations, automatically converting accumulated funds into community spaces

What We Built

Interactive Fundraising Map

Built on Leaflet.js with a custom boundary polygon defining the Castle Fields site, the map displays every plot in real time. Plots are colour-coded by tier — Supporter (green), Champion (amber), Ambassador (purple), and Community (teal). They update live as donations are processed. Each plot is clickable, showing the donor's name, personal message, What3Words address, and share links.

Payment Integration

A fully custom Checkout flow handles all online payments. Plot allocation happens exclusively via a webhook on payment confirmation, ensuring no spaces are reserved until funds are received. The system supports standard donations, gift donations on behalf of third parties, and community pot contributions for amounts under £39.

What3Words Integration

Every sponsored plot is automatically assigned a What3Words address from the underlying plot grid data. These addresses are pushed as merge fields, included on downloadable PDF certificates, and displayed throughout the confirmation journey.

Email Marketing Automation

Donor data is synced in real time on payment confirmation, including custom merge fields for plot count, tier status, What3Words location, share URL, and certificate URL. Donors are automatically tagged by tier and consent preferences, with journey triggers held until the campaign's official launch email send.

Gift Certificate System

Donors can purchase spaces as gifts for others. After checkout, a downloadable PDF certificate is generated client-side using Canvas and jsPDF, featuring the recipient's name, What3Words address, tier badge, and a satellite map of their plot. A dedicated page allows recipients to regenerate and download their certificate at any time via a unique url.

Admin Portal

A password-protected and 2FA supported admin portal