QR codes are back, but are they back for good? Find out how your charity and fundraisers can use QR codes...

2021-03-21 | Fundraising

The QR in QR codes stands for ‘Quick Response’. Believe it or not, QR codes have been around for nearly 30 years, they were first introduced in Japan in 1994. However, limitations in technology meant that at this time it was only used in production processes starting in the automotive industry, but soon moving to other industries to help manage their Merchandise.

In 2010 with the popularity of smartphones allowing easy access to QR code reading apps and easier access to the internet, QR codes started to become popular in marketing materials and promotions. However, this was far from effortless, people had to download a separate app to scan the barcode and that became a barrier and defeated the point of it being a ‘Quick response’ code. Sure enough QR codes slowly fizzled out.

Jump to 2020 – 2021 and phones now have built-in QR code readers within the camera, no need for users to spend time looking for and downloading an app. Over the last year QR codes have made a real come back and for many people, it’s the first time they have been introduced to them, but it became the new normal to scan a QR code as you entered a salon, restaurant, shop as all generations embraced the NHS track and trace service.

With the reintroduction of QR codes during the pandemic, we ran a poll on Twitter in March 2021 for 24 hours to ask if people believed QR codes are back for good or not. 76% said they were here to stay.

We believe they are here to stay too, so we invested a lot of time researching to find out how QR codes can be used by charities and their fundraisers for fundraising, and we came up with a great use for them that we have now developed into our Fundraising Pack Creator.

In our Fundraising Pack Creator we have a challenger back sign for the fundraiser to pin to their t-shirt we already featured the URL to the fundraisers giving page for people to type the web address and donate. However, this is very long-winded so we now feature a QR code too so people can ‘quickly’ scan and donate even if the fundraiser is moving.

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QR Codes, Posters, Back Sign