The charitable industry has been a dinosaur when it comes to embracing the mobile era, but Boston-based start-up Causemo believes it can change that.
Fresh off a $4-million funding round and with a consumer app under development, Causemo wants to become the digital one-stop shop for charitable campaigns and the people who donate to them.
āCause organizations are having a tough time getting millennials, as well as Generation X and Generation Y where they primarily transact today, which is on their smartphones and tablets,ā Causemo cofounder Nick Bogovich said. āWhat weāre trying to do is address that problem.ā
Bogovich is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a software developer by trade, who is serving as Causemoās chief marketing officer, recruited by fellow cofounder Bret Siarkowski, his former colleague at GSN Games. Key backers include serial entrepreneur Dave Furneaux, who is also Causemoās CEO, and television pundit Dr. Keith Ablow, a founding member of their board.
To Bogovich and his cofounders, the current process of donating money on a mobile device is fraught with friction. Pulling out a credit card and filling in a bunch of fields on a contact form is like a giant chore for people who prefer autocompletes and automatic sign-ins. That process is further muddled by the fact that charities are the last to invest in mobile-responsive web sites.
āThroughout the year, there are all different types of causes that people would love to support and businesses would love to support, and weāre trying to remove those barriers to lead to more charitable activity,ā Bogovich said.
Last year more than $358 billion was donated to nonprofit organizations in the US, according to Giving USA, the annual snapshot of American philanthropy. However, only 6.7 percent of the money was raised online, according to the 2014 Charitable Giving Report by Blackbaud, a provider of software and services for nonprofits.
With all the feel-good Twitter hashtag campaigns and viral campaigns like the ALS Ice Bucket challenge, the growth potential for online fundraising is real and almost entirely untapped. With so many start-ups solving problems you didnāt know you had, Causemo stands out: a novel solution for an authentic conundrum that also might do some good.
Causemoās vision is to offer companies an easy way to run cause campaigns. Itās already amassed a list of 20 partnersāincluding Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Childrenās Miracle Network Hospitals, City Year and Save the Children. The start-up is negotiating a high-profile partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, and is planning to make its mark on Giving Tuesday, the day after Cyber Monday, Bogovich said.
Making outreach unobtrusive is key to the Causemo philosophy, Bogovich said. For instance, if someone is reading a news article about the earthquake in Nepal, Causemo would serve an ad that simply asks for the readerās e-mail address if they want to help. And Causemo would follow up at a later time, rather than making the consumer interrupt what theyāre doing to donate.
An upcoming app, under development, will house a comprehensive giving profile for the user and integrate with social networks, reaching younger consumers where they receive information and providing an easy way to track and share personal charitable activity, Bogovich said.
Weāve seen the impact of scalable micro-donations in everything from political campaigns to crowdfunding. I wouldnāt be surprised if by 2016, Causemo is that platform for the philanthropic industry as a whole.