Aseel: Aid distribution to 500k individuals through Medusa

Aseel, a venture-backed impact platform, has transformed humanitarian aid distribution from a manual and convoluted system into an efficient and transparent process for both beneficiaries and donors. Through their Medusa-powered Do Good platform, private and institutional donors, such as large-scale international NGOs, gain access to advanced features like real-time delivery tracking, donation subscriptions, custom aid packages, and more, ensuring a seamless end-to-end experience.

Since launch, Aseel has facilitated aid distribution to over 500,000 individuals and processed packages for over 80,000 families through 7,000 individual donors and 9 institutions. The platform has been featured in Reuters, Time Magazine, NPR, Al Jazeera, and more, and has received prestigious accolades such as the Andrew Rice Award and won the XtremeTech Challenge.

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The Medusa and Aseel teams are filling the gaps that will end up democratizing marketplaces once and for all. Medusa is building the core infrastructure with 100% flexibility to customize based on what is actually required on the ground, and Aseel is building the infrastructure for some of the world's most underserved communities with the same underlying code.

Nasrat Khalid

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CEO & Founder, Aseel

Supporting families in need with directed aid distribution

Aseel operates two platforms, both of which are aimed at supporting families in need:

• Do Good: Allows donors to buy aid packages and contribute to aid campaigns.
• Buy Good: Connects local artisans with buyers through Aseel’s marketplace.

On the Do Good platform, individuals and institutions can choose between contributing to aid campaigns or purchasing aid packages directed to individuals in need.

After purchasing an aid package, donors can track its delivery using Aseel’s unique Omid ID, assigned to each beneficiary. This ID links the order to the recipient, and upon delivery, donors receive proof via a photo or confirmation of receipt—more on that later.

The Aid distribution flow

1. Donors choose a campaign or aid package for their donation.
2. Donors can choose a beneficiary or let Aseel assign one.
3. Aseel distributes the aid package to its network of volunteers.
4. Volunteers deliver the aid package.
5. Donors track the delivery of their aid in the Aseel App.
6. Beneficiaries receive the aid.
7. Donors receive proof of delivery using video, photo, or document.

Building custom features in half the time

When building the Do Good platform, Aseel initially used Magento but faced issues when implementing the features they needed. Magento's architecture, built mostly for traditional ecommerce, was hard to reshape to aid distribution, forcing them to build complex workarounds.

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We needed something beyond traditional e-commerce - a full donation system with custom modules and workflows. This was simply not possible on our existing Magento platform.

Karim Amiry

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Backend Developer, Aseel

Medusa offered a more flexible alternative. The pre-built commerce modules gave them core logic like carts, customers, and order handling, while they could build custom workflows for aid delivery and subscriptions. For example, Medusa allowed Aseel to create custom data models specifically for aid distribution rather than forcing aid packages into a traditional product model.

As they began working with the platform, the team quickly recognized a significant uplift in their development velocity, enabling them to build custom features with remarkable speed.

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Building custom features takes half the time with Medusa compared to what they normally would when building from scratch.

Karim Amiry

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Backend Developer, Aseel

Managing aid delivery for both private donors and institutions

The Do Good platform handles both individual and institutional donors. Building on top of Medusa's Admin API, Aseel created separate interfaces for private donors and institutions with three separate dashboards where:

• Private individuals can manage their aid orders and track the delivery process.
• Institutions can track aid, control available funds, distribute aid in bulk, and more.
• Aseel team manages elements like aid packages, campaigns, donors, and subscriptions.

The custom dashboards include specialized pages for tracking deliveries, handling beneficiaries, setting up subscriptions, and more. Institutions manage their donations through role-based access control, where employees can allocate budgets to specific beneficiaries or campaigns for select beneficiary groups or aid causes.

Subscription payments

In addition to one-time aid purchases, donors can subscribe to monthly aid delivery. The Aseel team built a custom subscription system using Medusa’s Scheduled Jobs and payment integrations.

When a donor starts a subscription, the Customer Module is linked to a subscription table and creates a payment token for future transactions. Medusa’s job scheduler then runs every 24 hours and checks for due payments in the subscription table. If a customer cancels their subscription, their token is removed from the subscription table.

Using Omid ID to manage aid delivery

After purchasing aid packages, donors can track who receives the aid using Aseels Omid IDs. The Omid ID is a unique ID assigned to each beneficiary that tracks their location, contact information, aid received, and current needs.

Donors can either register a beneficiary with an Omid ID assigned to them or let Aseel decide who will receive aid based on a priority algorithm that considers the beneficiary's needs and previous aid.

When a donor orders an aid package, the following happens:

1. Donors can create a new beneficiary or let Aseel assign the aid.
2. Aseel assigns aid to the Omid ID with the most urgent need based on the priority algorithm.
3. Aseel’s Order Module creates an order and associates it with the Omid ID.
4. Payment is handled through Medusa’s Payment Module.
5. A custom workflow tracks the aid as it is delivered to the beneficiary.
6. A volunteer uploads proof of delivery to the Admin.
7. The order status is updated, and the donor is notified and gets proof of delivery.
8. The beneficiary profile is updated with aid level and needs.
9. The priority algorithm is updated for future aid distribution.

What comes next

Aseel built a unique commerce experience to support its Aid Distribution. With Medusa, the team significantly shortened the implementation timeline for many of its custom features. Based on the experiences from the Do Good Platform, the team now plans to migrate its Buy Good marketplace from Magento to Medusa 2.0.

In the long run, Aseel aims to become the purpose platform, empowering not only large institutions and diaspora groups but individuals worldwide to discover and pursue their purpose.

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Building on its current Do Good/Humanitarian and Buy Good/Livelihood initiatives, Aseel envisions expanding its reach to enable people everywhere to join the fight for the defining challenges of our time.

Nasrat Khalid

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Founder & CEO, Aseel

To learn more about how you could build your own unique commerce experiences with Medusa, reach out below.