Israeli start-up aims to revolutionize mobile-based charitable giving

PocketCause partnered with national foundations in the US, Canada, the UK and Israel in developing the application.

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
Updated: FEBRUARY 5, 2016 00:37
Apple's iPhone 6 (R) and iPhone 6 Plus. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Apple's iPhone 6 (R) and iPhone 6 Plus.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
PocketCause Ltd., an Israeli start-up launched this week by the founders of IsraelGives.org, one of the main websites for charitable giving to Israel, announced the release of the first “mobile network for social good.”
The new app aims to make it easy to connect to social causes, see and support friends’ causes, and donate through a smartphone to any nonprofit organization in the world.
“By allowing donors to give in one-click, and to easily connect to all of the causes they care about right from their phones, PocketCause aims to revolutionize the way that people throughout the world give to charity,” said Jonathan Ben-Dor, CEO of PocketCause and founder of IsraelGives.
According to Ben-Dor, while 2015 saw an overall rise in mobile giving in the US, for example, donations through phones fell far behind its potential.
“US nonprofit organizations lost $6.5 billion in donations in 2015, because Americans continue to resist donating through mobile devices,” he said. “Most Americans being asked to donate receive that request on their mobile device.
But Americans are 64-percent less likely to make a donation on their smartphone than on a desktop computer. The result is that more Americans than ever before are choosing not to give to charity.”
To fill this gap, PocketCause partnered with national foundations in the US, Canada, the UK and Israel in developing the application.
The application provides a streaming feed of updates from all of the social causes that a user cares about. Users can follow and share, see the causes that their friends are sharing and supporting, securely store their payment method through the app and donate in one-click to over 2 million nonprofit organizations.
PocketCause utilizes gamification and rewards to incentivize users to support and promote the causes they care about. It allows users to track how many donations they influenced others to make, and see their ranking among PocketCause users worldwide.
“Israeli start-ups have developed ideas and products that have changed the way that people throughout the world do things. What our start-up scene has yet to do is to truly impact the social sector. PocketCause plans to revolutionize the way that people connect to their social causes and change the way that people give to charity,” Ben-Dor said.