You guys bring up some good points, but I think there’s a key point that both of you are missing: CauseWorld is turning REGULAR marketing budgets (as opposed to traditional philanthropy budgets) into charity. For example, Kraft’s philanthropy foundations didn’t even seem to be involved in this – it’s the marketing and innovation guys in the firm that are pushing this forward in the press. Why? Because the brands get engagements with thousands of users with their brands. Instead of a nice press release for a $100K charity contribution, they get personal engagements and brand value for each ten karmas. How cool is that for a brand? It’s a win for the user and for charities and the brand. Instead spending money only on traditional marketing, they go through CauseWorld to get marketing AND give to charities. That alone can shift more dollars to be spent on nonprofits because nonprofits will get access to part of the marketing budget in addition to the current philanthropy budget.

And for users, we get to choose which organization gets the karmas. It’s not a chore for me to decide where the money goes- I’m happy I get to be involved. That is how it SHOULD be decided where the money goes. What do we get right now from traditional marketing? Nothing. Well, maybe you’ll get a jingle stuck in your head for a few days.

Also, CauseWorld added the Red Cross for helping with Haiti Relief days after the tragedy occurred. You can’t claim this was a “pre-selected” cause- and it looks like more are getting added soon.

It’s not a lot of work for me to click on the app when I’m waiting in line and collect the karmas. It’s certainly adds more value to the world than some of the other apps I have. And I seriously doubt either Kraft or Citibank would let shopkick keep any donations- you can’t write it off otherwise

Just my two cents.

“I have the app. It will be deleted soon…Each time you successfully use the app, all you “earn” is the right to choose which of the pre-selected charities will get 10 cents of already-donated money. The money is already donated, so your efforts don’t do anything to increase corporate giving.”

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This was an initial concern of mine also. Still don’t know how I feel about this part. This is usually the catch though for the usual “when you make a purchase the company will make a donation to whoever”. If you hear or see the fine print the company usually states a certain cap to their donation and a certain date that the drive will end.

I always assumed that if not enough people got involved for the company to hit it’s cap then that company would only say donate $9,000 of the $10,000 they were offering.

Basically the companies saying here’s $10,000 to use in 30 days, if no one donates it then the company keeps whats not used.

Again, totally assuming this, but whatever. If you don’t like it don’t use it. If you do then do it.

Each time you successfully use the app, all you “earn” is the right to choose which of the pre-selected charities will get 10 cents of already-donated money. The money is already donated, so your efforts don’t do anything to increase corporate giving.

I believe that the app is mostly a front to help Kleiner Perkins and Shopkick service test their technology and gather data for marketing the Shopkick service.

Each store “check-in” gets you 10 karmas, which, when donated, are worth 1 cent each. It takes additional effort to then “donate” the karmas. You can’t “check in” to another store for another 5 minutes.

As for the argument that success of the CauseWorld app would encourage corporations to give more, call me skeptical at best. Corps tend to budget their charity dollars first, and then decide how and where to distribute them.

If CauseWorld was really about giving, it wouldn’t waste so much user time for so little benefit to charitable causes.