Challenge

Founded in 1910, the Mexican Red Cross provides emergency medical services and humanitarian aid to people in need across Mexico. Over the past century, it has responded to numerous incidents, including natural disasters, armed confrontations, and outbreaks of disease. Today, the organisation also provides ambulance services, paramedic and nursing schools, and many other day-to-day services that serve vulnerable populations and alleviate suffering.

As an independent non-profit organisation, the Mexican Red Cross relies on donations, which it has collected for decades primarily through in-person fundraising drives. In 2024, the organisation recognised that donors’ habits were changing, and the Mexican Red Cross’s fundraising potential would be limited if it stuck to cash-only donations. The organisation knew it needed to modernise to drive more donations.

“For us, adding digital donations makes a very important difference because we want to give greater accessibility to people and provide a range of tools so that they can choose to donate in the way that’s easiest for them,” said Diego Luisillo, director of business strategy and innovation for the Mexican Red Cross.

Leaders of the Mexican Red Cross determined that adopting new technology to add online payment capabilities would introduce significant new fundraising opportunities. They sought a payment solution that could facilitate convenient, secure online and mobile donations, with a clear view of transaction data for increased transparency and reduced accounting workload. Finally, with limited staff and technical resources to dedicate to the project, the organisation needed a solution that would be simple to implement.

Solution

The Mexican Red Cross turned to Stripe to transform its payment capabilities with easy-to-implement solutions. It integrated Stripe Payments to support online and mobile payments, including a variety of payment methods and currencies. This payments infrastructure would enable the Mexican Red Cross to collect donations easily and efficiently from donors anywhere in the world – without the need for staff or volunteers to physically be present with a donation box in hand.

“Stripe has been a very important technological partner for the Red Cross because it has allowed us to focus on what the Red Cross really needs to be doing, which is benefiting and serving the population,” said Luisillo. “Stripe has given us the solutions to process payments in an automatic way, without involving human resources, so we can focus our human resources on safeguarding and helping society.”

The organisation integrated Payments to process online donations and Stripe Billing to support recurring payments, such as student tuition at its paramedic and nursing schools. The organisation implemented the Optimized Checkout Suite, which includes Payment Links to create a simple-to-use payment page with a payment link that can be embedded or shared anywhere – including on websites, via email, and on social media.

For a fast, easy checkout experience, the organisation added Link, Stripe’s accelerated checkout that auto-fills donors’ payment and address details. The Mexican Red Cross also added Apple Pay and plans to add another digital wallet, Google Pay, and local payment methods, including OXXO and SPEI. With dynamic payment methods, available through the Optimized Checkout Suite, the organisation will be able to easily add these additional payment methods without additional engineering work.

Through its Stripe integration, the Mexican Red Cross also gained access to the Stripe Dashboard, where successful payments are automatically logged for clear, detailed, real-time data tracking. Together, these capabilities helped take the non-profit from an analogue, cash-based donation process to a powerful modern payment system.

Results

Online and mobile payments are enabled in two weeks

The Mexican Red Cross integrated Stripe in two weeks without any code, through a small team of Red Cross staffers who weren’t software engineers or developers. “The most surprising thing for us was the speed with which we were able to integrate this technology in an organisation that was zero-technology – how we did it so fast, so simply, and most importantly, with practically zero investment,” said César Chávez García, general coordinator of the Mexican Red Cross in the state of Mexico and director of the Red Cross Central Hospital in Mexico City.

By adding online and mobile payment capabilities, the organisation can cast a much wider net, raising awareness and seeking donations from people both near and far from incident sites. In addition, the organisation’s fundraising efforts are no longer limited by time, location, and staffing – it can seize the moment and collect donations whenever a donor sees the need and feels compelled to give online. With Payment Links, the non-profit can post and share a donation link across popular social media platforms such as WhatsApp, where it estimates it could reach an audience of 20.8 million potential donors. The non-profit expects these new capabilities to provide immense opportunities for increased fundraising.

By creating a simple checkout that offers a variety of popular payment methods, the Mexican Red Cross has also made it easier than ever for donors to give. Within six months of launch, 5% of the organisation’s online payments were made with Apple Pay.

Stripe Dashboard provides real-time tracking and increased data transparency

With its Stripe account, the Mexican Red Cross gained automated, real-time payment tracking that its teams can access easily and across locations. The non-profit anticipates this feature will make its accounting processes more efficient and help its teams gain better visibility into data across the organisation to improve decision-making.

National organisation successfully onboards more than 500 local chapters onto a unified payment platform

Implementing Stripe marked a significant milestone for the Mexican Red Cross, an organisation that had done little technological innovation in the past several decades. After its initial Stripe launch, the non-profit expanded its use of Stripe, implementing Stripe Connect to provide its more than 500 local chapters with online payment capabilities.

Stripe Specialized Partner, Pai, collaborated with the Mexican Red Cross on the Connect integration and designed a custom solution using Connect and Billing to automate and refine the non-profit’s donation collection process across locations. With Connect, each donation is automatically dispersed to the donor’s selected local Red Cross chapter in Mexico, mitigating the need for manual fund distributions and significantly reducing the time and costs associated with managing funds. Pai provided technical support and guidance throughout the implementation, ensuring a timely and successful launch.

“For 54 years, we had innovated absolutely nothing in technology,” said García. “Today we have done it not only locally in two states, but the intention of the national headquarters is to replicate it throughout the country.”

About Pai

Based in Mexico, Pai helps businesses improve their payment systems. They offer custom development and technology consulting to help clients improve digital payment acceptance and ensure optimal transaction success for a great customer experience. Pai is a Stripe Service Implementation and Stripe Billing Specialized Partner. Learn more about Pai.