Microfinance? There’s an App for That.
Before you check out, "check in" with CauseWorld to earn karmas for ACCION USA.
Calling all iPhone and Android users! Thanks to the generosity of Citi, ACCION USA is now one of just 28 featured charities on the CauseWorld smartphone application. In a twist on the location-based social networking craze (think foursquare), CauseWorld’s over 300,000 users collect karmas by using their phones to “check-in” at retail stores, or to scan the bar codes of common retail products. Users then donate to the cause of their choice these karmas, which become (you guessed it) cold hard cash for their favorite charity.
Just think, you can enable a microloan to a hardworking microentrepreneur right here in the U.S. with every trip down the supermarket aisle. (Go for the Crest Whitestrips. Biggest karma for your buck.) All you need to get started is the free app, which is available for download at CauseWorld.com.
You can read more about CauseWorld on the New York Times’ “Bits” technology blog, The Wall Street Journal, and a bunch of other places. Thanks again to Citi and CauseWorld for supporting ACCION USA and U.S. microentrepreneurs.
TwitGift.ly The Virtual Gift that Keeps Giving
Giving virtual gifts is a staple of online friendship. Who doesn’t love getting for their Facebook birthday a cake full of candles that will never burn out or drip wax on the frosting? Or giving a diamond engagement ring to your best friend/Facebook wife? Now you can give a virtual gift and change somebody’s life at the same time!
TwiftGift.ly, a virtual gift website, has added gifts that support charities to their collection of fun, goofy, and thoughtful presents. For a $5 donation you get a fistful of cash to give to friends. All proceeds go to ACCION USA, which will leverage your money to make an entrepreneur’s dreams come true.
Five Things to Do with a Fistful of Cash
- Tell a small business owner about our financing by sending them an ACCION USA gift
- Give your friend virtual birthday money (comes with $5 of good karma)
- Explain charity to your child via the virtual gift and your $5 donation to ACCION USA
- Tell a story and say: And then I found $5!
- Play poker: the winner gets virtual cash and we make the money into microloans
I challenge you to make a sea of cash on the Internet that will become a sea change for our entrepreneurs. You can send this gift via Twitter, Facebook, email, and all your social networks. If you and nine friends give a virtual gift this weekend instead of getting a $5 milkshake then we are halfway to helping a private school bus driver buy a car seat for the children. How many businesses can you help? The sky’s the limit.
And who doesn’t want a fistful of cash?
And I Would Ride 3,000 Miles
SpinVox CEO Christina Domecq
If you’ve ever driven cross-country, you know there’s a lot of time to think. Perhaps in your musings you’ve wondered how long the trip might have taken had you made it on your trusty ten-speed. Would you ever have guessed eight days? That’s the record that Christina Domecq, founder and CEO of SpinVox, and racing partner Ian Rolls will be looking to break this weekend when they complete the Race Across America (RAAM), the “world’s toughest bike race.”
RAAM is one of the oldest and most respected endurance sporting events in the world. It’s longer than the Tour de France, climbs over 100,000 feet, and is run 24/7. It also raises more than $1,000,000 every year for charitable causes. This year, Christina and Ian’s team, SpinVox Adventurers, will be riding to raise $500,000 for ACCION USA to support our work with lower-income microentrepreneurs.
“As an entrepreneur who has created a trio of businesses in the last ten years I know the struggles that many business owners face in building a company from the ground up,” says Ms. Domecq. (SpinVox is Christina’s latest entrepreneurial adventure; the company has pioneered a way to convert voicemails into mobile phone SMS text messages and emails. We’re so happy she’s discovered ACCION USA!)
Check out Christina and Ian’s blog, spoken via SpinVox!
You can make a pledge to Team SpinVox’s campaign at www.accion.org/spinvox. Or just post a comment below and cheer on Christina and Ian to the finish. Go Team SpinVox Adventurers!
Tags: Donors, microfinance, spinvox