This past weekend marked the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s destructive landfall in New Orleans, Louisiana. While the flooding caused by the hurricane was horrific, the events brought out the best in humanitarians – many of whom leveraged the power of the Web to help raise money and gather supplies for relief efforts. Half a decade later, the Web has become a power platform through which to donate to charitable organizations, and one company – Endorse for a Cause (EFAC) – hopes their platform can take this trend to a whole new social level.
At it’s core, Endorse for a Cause is a platform where individuals can donate money to their favorite charities. EFAC allows users to shop online for their favorite products and push brand recommendations out to their social graph. When your friends make purchases based on your recommendations, EFAC gets a portion of that sale and your favorite charity gets paid.
EFAC is essentially an affiliate advertising network that gives a majority (70%) of its profits to charity. With the popularity of social sharing on the Web and the rise of recommendation services, EFAC seems to be a perfect fit for the Web-savvy shopper looking to help raise money for a good cause.
The privately-funded startup is launching with 10 high-profile charities, including the American Red Cross, the Humane Society of the United States and Kiva.org. Other charities will be added to the site over time based on demand from user voting. Users can also earn points, badges and prizes based on their activity – a tenant of today’s social Web that has been proven to drive deep engagement.
The company hopes to raise further private equity later this year and intends on using the money to develop mobile applications for both the iPhone and Android devices.
