Cause Loyalty

There were several excellent reasons to attend the DEMOParty in Boston on Tuesday. You could go for the start ups in attendance, or to meet venture capitalists. You could go to meet the people you have been networking with online in person. Whatever your reason for attendance, there is no denying the best part of the event were the conversations.

Elevator pitches were running rampant in some parts of the room, but if you paid attention it was the side conversations that piqued my interest. Hearing what people used, what they were fascinated by and how they used different social media sites and applications to enrich their lives was fascinating.

One of many companies that came up time and again in various conversations was Cause Loyalty. From the company we site:

CauseLoyalty offers a loyalty marketing program to community-minded merchants and a fundraising platform to nonprofit organizations, simply by leveraging the everyday buying power of their passionate supporters.

That mission statement sounds almost banal on paper, but the company seems to have lit a spark in the Web 2.0 community. The buzz about Cause Loyalty was fierce. What people seemed to like about it was how it tapped into a nonprofit's existing network of supporters to drive interest and funds to favorite causes, via shopping. Who doesn't love shopping for a good cause?

Nonprofits working with Cause Loyalty have a variety of options to use in generating funds through sales, including a credit card program called the Affinity program, Visa rewards, and more. The one percent fund raising percentage generated by Affinity card use may not sound like much on paper, but it can make a huge difference to a nonprofit.

The two programs offered by Cause Loyalty are Schoolpop (fundraising for schools) and OneCause for nonprofits outside of education. The Cause Loyalty network offers a structured system for nonprofits to use to find ways to generate funds – it's a win-win for everyone.