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December 5, 2007

Buy A Virtual Gift And Fight Malaria

Michael Arrington

23 comments »

Causes is one of the most popular Facebook Applications, with over 300,000 active users. The service, which leverages virality to spread the word about worthy causes, aggregates 40,000 causes that benefit 13,000 nonprofits worldwide. In many ways, it’s a pyramid scheme for good.

Now founders Sean Parker and Joe Green are leveraging another phenomenon to increase participation even further: virtual gifts. Facebook has been selling them since February this year. A number of unofficial virtual gift applications created by third parties have also launched on Facebook. Clearly, they are here to stay. Facebook says 24 million of them have been given away through the official application alone (although many of them were free).

But now you can give a gift that says a little more than “I spent a dollar on you.” With Gifts from Causes, you can give a $10 - $200 gift to a friend. Each virtual gift (see image below) benefits a different charity. 100% of the proceeds (minus only credit card fees) go directly to the charity.

$10 gives two blankets to people in a disaster area. Or one insecticide-treaded bed net to a child in Africa to fight Malaria. Or a soccer ball to a poor child. etc. So the next time you want to send your boyfriend a rose, think about spending $15 instead and sending him a teddy bear. In the real world, a sick child will receive a real teddy bear, thanks to your generosity.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Buy A Virtual Gift And Fight Malaria  »TechAddress

    December 5th, 2007 at 7:30 pm

  2. Profy.Com

    December 6th, 2007 at 8:06 am

  3. Doing Real Good with Virtual Goods « Virtual Goods Insider

    March 27th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

Comments

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  1. 113.com

    December 5th, 2007 at 6:41 pm

    Good idea.

  2. jonathan

    December 5th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    this could work. will work better if they keep the prices low, like $1 = a bottle of water, or $1 = plant a tree.

  3. Allen Stern

    December 5th, 2007 at 6:59 pm

    seems like a great idea to me - which charities do the monies go to? how can we be sure it’s used specifically for a teddy bear?

    maybe sally struthers is available for an infomercial

  4. Amy

    December 5th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    I think it’s a really cool idea, people are buying their friends pretend gifts so why not spend that money and give someone who really needs something something. There is, of course, the problem Allen Mentioned above, how do you know that money is really being allocated to the correct place?

  5. yongfook

    December 5th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    this is an excellent idea, but I can’t fathom the logistics behind it. If I buy a friend a mosquito net, does that money *actually* go towards a mosquito net or does it go into a big pool of donations that are then given to an appropriate charity to do with as they please (which may or may not involve buying mosquito nets). Either way benefits the people who need it though, I was just curious.

  6. Allen Stern

    December 5th, 2007 at 7:24 pm

    dangit - it missed my sarcasm html around the sally struthers.. it was just a joke folks :)

  7. David Mackey

    December 5th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    This is a great idea. Love it.

  8. Dheeraj Sultanian

    December 5th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

    Why not replace it with “Your friend just made a donation to The Human Fund in your name” - (Seinfeld Reference) - it will be just as effective in terms of helping people - 60-90% of all money raised by charities goes into administration and further fundraising - this will simply not help people. Period.

  9. Morgan

    December 5th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    Maybe if it were DDT instead of a damn net, maybe then. This is just a waste of money. There’s a reason the rest of the world has less problems with malaria– DDT. Thanks for nothing Rachel Carsonand environmentalists, your scare tactics cost tens or hundreds of thousands of lives a year. Dark-skinned lives, granted, so maybe that makes it better to withhold the same technologies that helped our civilization.

    http://www.eco-imperialism.com.....php3?id=68

  10. jason

    December 5th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

    I almost shed a tear Michael, that was a very pussy write-up, but I commend you for the great cause. I just bought a malaria net.

  11. Rob

    December 5th, 2007 at 10:24 pm

    Nice Mike.

  12. David Litsky

    December 5th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    Causes is a great application, glad to see you have a soul Arrington :)

  13. CAR

    December 5th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

    good cause, but bad concept, who the hell wants a 15$ virtual teddy bear, $200 computer, that is insulting, why not just give the damn money and feel good, to say you get a virtual gift is just insulting and retarted. i’d rather have a high five, or a call from family i’m donating to.

  14. 42mb.com

    December 5th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

    Good concept.

  15. Ben Rattray

    December 6th, 2007 at 12:13 am

    I’m sorry to pile on with the love here, but this is a truly awesome product executed extremely well. And that says a lot coming from me, since our company (Change.org) is a “competitor” to Project Agape, the company that created the Causes app.

    (I realize it’s sort of odd to consider yourself a competitor when you’re both trying to advance social good - hence the quotes.)

    Anyway, kudos for a great job - I hope it takes off during the holidays.

  16. chrisco

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:55 am

    What an amazing idea… It should get copied and cloned everywhere. I mean, if a-hole politicians and their rich lobbyist and corporate friends only care about themselves, this gives us poor people yet another way to do some good and start turning turning this world around and into a positive cycle instead of the negative one that Bush and others have set in motion. Keep it up and spread the word, guys! Now if you can come up with something that can get people to pull together and support EACH OTHER instead of just themselves.

  17. Chris R.

    December 6th, 2007 at 3:12 am

    When I first glanced at the title, I first thought it said “fight the mafia”, then I saw fight malaria, and I became disinterested.

  18. I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog

    December 6th, 2007 at 3:52 am

    Personally, I find the idea of donating to charity on others’ behalf and then presenting it to them as a gift abhorrent, and I feel deeply sorry for anyone who has to thank someone for such a ‘gift’, particularly children. If you want to donate to charity, donate in your own name, and leave other people’s charity up to them.

    Still, I can’t deny it’s an extremely popular way of avoiding having to think about what someone actually wants or needs, and this goes rather well with Facebook’s ‘virtual gifts’ thing.

  19. Keith

    December 6th, 2007 at 5:51 am

    Causes isn’t a non-profit. They pocket a percentage of every donation as a “management” fee. The percentage is small, but multiplied by a very large quantity of transactions, it is significant.

    There is something inherently evil about getting rich off of the charity of others. Maybe the end justifies the means, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an open seat in hell waiting for the owners.

  20. Steve Ballmer

    December 6th, 2007 at 7:49 am

    Good causes, you people should give more!

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