iGive

A local startup tries to bring philanthropy into the wireless age.

by Maureen Coulter

Mark Stehle Daniel Taylor and Beth Eisenberg, of iugo, which designs mobile phone applications that make it easier to give to charity.

[ new ideas ]

When I was a student living at Temple and I ventured off my bike cop-saturated campus into the surrounding neighborhood, I was struck by the state of the recreation areas — they looked more like prison yards than playgrounds. In the parks of my suburban youth, we played roller hockey in a well-maintained cul-de-sac and tumbled around a "kids' castle" in our central playground. I'd think, "Why can't kids in North Philly enjoy the same carefree playtime that I did?" But the moment would pass, I'd forget about it and I'd end up at home watching Entourage On Demand.

Now, a new Philadelphia-based company is trying to seize that guilt-ridden/altruistic instant when someone is at her most charitable, and enable her to actually give to charity. For the past year, iugo — which means "to connect" in Latin — has been developing applications that you can download onto your iPhone or BlackBerry, and, with a single click, donate to the organization of your choice precisely when the spirit moves you. And you can give as little as the cost of the latest Lady Gaga single on iTunes.

"A slogan we have at iugo is, 'Why are you going to give at this point?'" says Beth Eisenberg, the VP of Business Development. Walking past a dilapidated park, I might donate a few bucks to KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit dedicated to building playgrounds, before I start thinking about lunch, and "plight of humanity" tumbles down my list of priorities.

The concept was hatched in the brain of Daniel Taylor, a Philadelphia businessman who helped install the first distance-learning and IP-based LAN/WAN systems for the city. Taylor wanted to marry Obama-style guerrilla fundraising (small amounts of cash from a whole lot of people) with the increasingly ubiquitous iPhone to help nonprofits reach new donors.

"Last summer I started seeing the giant download numbers for apps out of the Apple iTunes store, and I thought 'Maybe this app store could be used to do something better than just goofy cigarette-lighter apps,'" says Taylor, who now serves as the company's president and "chief visionary." According to iugo's Web site, 21 million iPhones and11 million iPod touch deviceshave been sold to date. More than a billion applications have been downloaded thus far from the iTunes app store, and 1.9 million more are downloaded on a daily basis.

Taylor wanted to connect those mobile app enthusiasts to charitable organizations. With corporate sponsorships drying up and large individual donors selling their seventh vacation homes to weather the financial crisis, nonprofits need to find new sources of funding. Increasingly, they are turning to the demographic that updates its Twitter status every 27 minutes.

Taylor recruited a team of passionate and colorful local people to advance the company's mission. Eight years ago, Eisenberg (a friend of mine) was wallowing in the welfare system, writing bad checks. People used to bring her lunch just to help out. Eventually, she was able to get her life back on track, landing a job as a hairdresser and signing up for classes at Rutgers University. "So many people had helped me along the way, and I wanted to help others," she says.

Taylor was one of Eisenberg's clients. Last September, during a wash and trim, he gushed to her about the new company he was forming. It would use the platform of an iPhone application to make charitable donations as spontaneous as handing that Snickers bar you're holding to the guy panhandling on the street corner.

She wanted to help. A few days later, Taylor hired her as a temporary consultant. At the time Eisenberg was studying sociology at Rutgers and had no formal business background, but still managed to land six accounts with prospective partner organizations. Now she's trying to recruit outfits like Alex's Lemonade Stand and the Condom Project.

In addition to raising enough capital to pay for the initial operating costs of a startup (travel, conferences, sponsorships, salaries), iugo has formed partnerships with 12 nonprofits and tech companies. The nonprofits pay a one-time assembly fee, and then $250 to $500 a month for their customized applications, which people can download to their handhelds for free.

Thus far, only a couple of these applications are up and available for download. On her phone, Eisenberg shows me the app for the Children's Miracle Network, which raises funds for children's hospitals. It includes a photo gallery, a video and a "Click to Donate" button, from which a person can use either PayPal or her phone bill to contribute. People are more likely to donate this way than through their phone's Web browser, Eisenberg says, because the user experience is simple, intimate and fast. (The app also has a "Shop" button, where you can register a credit card and donate a percentage of purchases with certain companies to your cause.)

Neither iugo nor CMN has sent out a press release advertising the existence of the app, but it has already been downloaded 600 times in six weeks. Aubrey Cichelli, director of public relations for CMN, says iugo is helping her organization "reach a different audience. The population of Apple store users is huge."

All that said, iugo faces some challenges in making its technology a common medium. Many nonprofits, Eisenberg says, are slow-moving machines; they've been raising money with mailings and newsletters for decades. Habitat for Humanity, for instance, told iugo it wasn't ready to splurge on newfangled technologies, stating in a letter: "At this time we are just not ready.I know we may miss the excitement of first to market, but Habitat is very conservative and we are just dipping our toe in the social media world." The ALS Association, which provides funds for research and supports those suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease, also decided against working with iugo. And before considering collaboration, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation wanted the company of four partners and three tech people to fork over a quarter-million dollars just to use its logo on the brand page (iugo declined).

If iugo doesn't catch on now, with more than a billion mobile applications and the perpetual creation of new and better ones every day, the company could get lost in the shuffle. Still, there are good signs. Eisenberg says she spoke with heads from United Way a few months ago about developing an application for them and received a lukewarm response. She then showed me a recent Twitter feed in which United Way bubbles, "Did u know that @givingiseasy (iugo's account) is developing iPhone & Blackberry apps 2 help ppl give 2 & volunteer w/their fav. charity?! How cool!" While iugo and UW don't yet have a contract, Eisenberg thinks they'll eventually come out to play.

(editorial@citypaper.net)