In our social entrepreneurship series, The World at Work, Mashable interviews the faces behind the startups and projects that are working to make a global impact.
These companies have harnessed technology to empower people all over the world, whether it’s rewarding volunteers with prizes or empowering travelers to deliver much-needed aid while visiting developing countries. While the companies are diverse, they are all on a mission to change our lives for the better and improve society.
Here’s a roundup of featured projects from the past week, including exclusive video interviews with the founders of these innovative startups. To read more and watch the videos, click through to the full story, and follow the series to learn about more breakthrough companies.
Big Idea: A gamification-based mobile app that rewards volunteers’ hard work with discounts or other deals at local businesses.
Why It’s Working: It’s Foursquare for altruism! Volunteers love getting discounts at local shops, and the owners of those shops love the image boost they get from partnering with good causes.
The premise behind Cause.it is simple: Users earn points by volunteering at local food banks, animal shelters or other similar organizations. Those points can then be redeemed for discounts or free goodies from nearby small businesses, who earn an image boost through partnership with philanthropic groups. Cause.it makes money by charging those groups a small monthly fee to engage with volunteers directly on the platform.
The idea, Cause.it co-founders Gagan Dhillon and Andrew Blejde told Mashable, is to link the local commerce with doing good work for the community.
“There’s a lot of these movements going on,” says Dhillon. “People want to shop at places that make an impact in their community.”
Cause.it takes the connection a step further by providing comprehensive metrics to business owners that detail which organizations their particular customers are supporting. That way, the brand knows which philanthropic groups to partner with on Cause.it for maximum effect. Store owners can also donate directly to a group via Cause.it, further strengthening their bond with a certain organization.
“If I’m going to local cafe every day, and I care about animals, then my local cafe can start targeting its activity toward animals,” says Dhillon. “It’s not a revolutionary idea, but I haven’t seen many companies providing that data. There are chains that we’ve talked to that care about a cause, and [Cause.it] is a great way to let people know about that.”
Dhillon adds that he doesn’t see the platform as a competitor to other gamification-based platforms, such as Foursquare, because it is doing a fundamentally different thing.
“Foursquare is a tool to discover commerce, we’re discovering causes and connecting them to commerce,” says Dhillon. “In fact, I think there’s ways we could connect with [Foursquare] down the line.”
The co-founders have been supporting one another’s “crazy projects” ever since their high school days. Dhillon says that he found himself interning at a non-profit software company and he soon realized there was an unfilled niche: mobile software. He and Blejde went to work brainstorming an idea to fill that space.
“I always had an interest in mobile,” says Dhillon. “And we started thinking about how we could make something that was engaging and rewarding for volunteers. We came up with this platform where users can connect to new causes and earn points.”
Dhillon and Blejde launched Cause.it two months ago in Indiana. So far, they’ve amassed more than 2,000 users — a success that has prompted the pair to work towards expanding the platform.
“Indiana is a good test market, but we’ve known that to really push it out in the tech scene, we’re going have to introduce it to big markets and expand,” Dhillon says. “We’ll be launching in Los Angeles this month.”
