The Challenge
My Help Ukraine foundation needed a platform that speaks to a global audience — literally. Seven languages including Arabic with right-to-left layout. Donors should be able to give through whichever payment method they prefer, from credit cards to cryptocurrency. The content team needed to manage projects, blog posts, reports, and team profiles without developer involvement.
But one of the biggest challenges was getting the design right. The foundation's stakeholders had strong but different visions for how the site should look and feel. Rather than forcing a single direction through endless revision cycles, we needed a way to let the client experience multiple design options and choose with confidence.
Our Approach
We built 5 complete, fully functional design variants — Patriotic Official, Flag Forward, Modern Minimal, Dark Premium, and Warm Human — each a distinct visual identity sharing the same CMS backend. The client could browse every page in every style and pick the one that resonated. No mockup debates, no "imagine it with different colors" — real, clickable sites.
Under the hood, Payload CMS serves as the headless backend with 13 collections modeling the foundation's full domain. next-intl handles 7-language routing with proper RTL support for Arabic.
Key decisions:
- ●5 design variants from one CMS — the client picks their favorite, but switching later is trivial since all designs share the same content layer
- ●Project-based fundraising — each campaign tracks target vs. raised amounts, with donations linked to specific projects
- ●5 payment processors — Stripe, Monobank, NOWPayments (crypto), SWIFT bank transfer, and PayPal, all webhook-confirmed
- ●Role-based admin access — Admin, ContentManager, and FinancialManager roles with collection-level permissions
Next.js 15
App Router with ISR for content updates and edge functions
Payload CMS 3.79
Headless CMS with 13 collections and Lexical rich text
next-intl
7-language routing with RTL support and locale-aware links
Vercel Postgres + Blob
Managed database and media storage with CDN caching
Key Features
- ●7-language support (Ukrainian, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Arabic RTL, Japanese) with fallback chains
- ●5 payment processors operating simultaneously — donor chooses preferred method at checkout
- ●Project-based fundraising with live progress tracking (target vs. raised amounts)
- ●Composable content blocks — 10 block types that content managers drag into pages
- ●Role-based access — Admin, ContentManager, FinancialManager with collection-level permissions
- ●Comprehensive testing — E2E with Playwright, integration with Vitest
- ●Multi-design routes for A/B testing different site presentations from the same CMS
Outcome
An enterprise-grade charity platform that accepts donations in multiple currencies through five different payment methods, serves content in seven languages, and lets a non-technical team manage everything from fundraising campaigns to impact reports. The multi-design architecture means marketing can test different presentations without engineering involvement.