The iPhone has a devoted following throughout a diverse cross-section of society, largely for its many practical applications that cost mere pennies to own. And now it’s becoming a staging platform for social entrepreneurs and philanthropists to do good all around the world.
For starters, there’s the CauseWorld application that allows you to check into stores within your vicinity, gain karma points for your virtual visit, and turn those karma points into sponsor donations where you choose the recipient from a list of about 25 social, animal welfare, and environmental causes. You can even do this from the comfort of your home for nearby stores, and without buying a thing. Although the number of points you earn may be higher if you actually walk into one of the sponsor stores, and scan barcodes on designated products with your iPhone camera while there.
The other philanthropic application that’s gaining popularity is TippingBucket. The premise here is that a social startup project of TippingBucket’s choosing is promoted for a certain time period, say two weeks, with a particular funding goal, say five thousand dollars. As the clock counts down, individuals donate at least a dollar – yes, one little dollar – and the tally is updated with each drop in the bucket. When the deadline is up, one of two things happens. If the bucket has been tipped enough to raise the full funding goal, the pledged money is collected by PayPal or credit card and goes directly to the project. If the bucket remains partially empty, none of the transactions are processed, and TippingBucket begins again with another project. The current project is aimed at raising money for harvesting solar energy to power electricity and provide heat for Bolivian children in freezing schoolhouses 13,000 feet above sea level. By the way, if you don’t have an iPhone and want to participate, you can go to www.tippingbucket.org and experience the thrill of donating mere pennies at the chance of making a huge difference in someone’s life. Never has there been a more worthwhile reason to surf the net or play on the iPhone each and every day. ~ Samara Iodice
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