The Little Square That Refused to Die

QR codes were declared dead. Then COVID arrived, and overnight, the technology everyone had written off became the most scanned thing on the planet. For charities, the story is only just getting interesting.

In 2018, a marketing student sat down to write his dissertation. His subject? QR codes, and specifically, why nobody was using them anymore. His conclusion, backed by evidence and entirely reasonable at the time, was that QR codes were old news. A curio. Technology that had had its moment and missed it.

Two years later, the world changed overnight. And those little black and white squares were suddenly on every restaurant table, every shop window, every government health notice in the country.

That student was James, now part of the Cymba team, and one of the reasons we think so much about how technology and fundraising intersect. His story is a good one. But it’s also a useful lens for understanding why QR codes matter for charities right now.

Born in a car factory. Ignored for decades.

The QR code was invented in 1994 by Masahiro Hara, an engineer at Japanese company Denso Wave. The goal was practical and unglamorous: a better way to track car parts on a manufacturing line. Traditional barcodes could only hold a small amount of data; the new Quick Response code could hold significantly more, and could be scanned from any angle.

For years, it stayed that way. When smartphones arrived, there was a brief moment of excitement. Surely QR codes would take off? They didn’t. The problem was friction. To scan a QR code, you needed a separate app, find it, download it, open it, and then scan. By which point, most people had given up and typed the URL instead.

The quiet revolution nobody noticed

 

Here’s what actually changed, and this is the part of the story that tends to get overlooked. In 2017, Apple quietly built native QR code scanning directly into the iPhone camera app. No separate app required. Point, scan, done. Android followed in 2018 with Google Lens. The single biggest barrier to QR adoption had been removed, and almost nobody noticed.

The technology was ready. The phones were ready. The friction was gone. What was missing was a reason to use it. Then, on 11th March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic.

Within weeks, restaurants had ditched paper menus. NHS Test and Trace was built around QR codes. Every sector that needed to move people through spaces without physical contact turned to the same solution. Usage grew by more than 750% in the 18 months that followed. And crucially, the behaviour stuck. Unlike so many pandemic habits that faded when restrictions lifted, QR codes didn’t disappear. The phoenix had risen, and it wasn’t going back.

What this means for charities

 

For fundraisers, the QR code revival is genuinely exciting. Think about the moments when someone feels moved to give. A powerful speaker at an event. A charity collection point in a church or community hall. A street fundraiser who makes a genuine connection. These are the moments of impulse and emotion that drive donations, and historically, they’ve been the hardest to convert.

Cash is declining. Card readers require infrastructure. Websites require someone to remember a URL later, when the feeling has passed.

A QR code solves all of that. Point a phone camera, no app needed, and within seconds, a donor is on a giving page, on their own device. The moment of generosity doesn’t get lost. It gets captured.

The best fundraising tools are the ones that get out of the way. A QR code asks almost nothing of a donor, and gives a charity everything

The places charities aren’t using them yet

Events are the obvious application, and many charities are already there. But the opportunity goes further. Collection tins and buckets with a QR code alongside them, for people who don’t carry cash. Thank-you letters with a code that takes a donor straight to an impact update. Church service sheets. Community noticeboards. Charity shop windows. Street posters. Anywhere a person might pause, feel something, and be ready to act.

There’s also something worth saying about accessibility.  A QR code doesn’t require someone to remember a URL, spell a charity’s name correctly, or navigate from a homepage. It takes them exactly where you want them to go, in one step. For older donors who may not be confident online, simplicity matters enormously.

The little square didn’t die. It was just waiting for its moment

James was right in 2018. QR codes were old tech, overlooked and underused. What he couldn’t have known was that the smartphone was about to make them effortless, and the world was about to make them essential.

The charities best placed to take advantage are the ones that have already built digital giving infrastructure into everything they do. A QR code on every piece of print. A mobile giving journey that works the moment someone scans. Not a nice-to-have, a standard part of how they operate. Because when the moment comes, planned or otherwise, you want to be ready.

Want to see how QR codes can start a dialogue with new or existing supporters? 

At Cymba, we build mobile giving journeys that use QR codes, SMS, WhatsApp and RCS to capture donations at exactly the right moment. If you’d like to see what that looks like for your cause, we’d love to show you.