I am trying to implement a donation system for a website/app that isn't going to generate any money.
Once a person donates to the project, I was thinking I could give them a badge/icon that would be displayed in their profile. It would visually look similar to Twitter verified icon. On hover, it could say something like "this person has donated to support this project".
This badge would be shown for 1 year since the user donated. It might have multiple colors that show approximate amount user has donated. However, it would still stay low-key in UI design and not be in-your-face.
Would this be a good idea? I am afraid this might create some sort of unequally between users. What are other possible pitfalls?