shopkick's CauseWorld Users Donate More Than $1 Million to 30 Charities Simply by Checking Into Stores and Restaurants

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- shopkick, Inc. today announced that users of its CauseWorld mobile application have crossed the threshold of more than $1 million in charity donations since its December 2009 release. CauseWorld is a free app that allows smartphone users to earn "karma points" for charity by "checking-in" via GPS to retail stores and restaurants.  What was meant to be a trial application for shopkick's focus on "mobile meets retail," became its own mobile consumer phenomenon.

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Through partnerships with top international charities and with monetary support from Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble and Sears, CauseWorld allows users to collect karmas throughout their regular day's activities, and then donate them to take real world charitable actions like planting trees, feeding families in America or providing clean water to people in developing countries. 

"CauseWorld was a trial app we built to see if people will do more than just talk and text with their phones when they're out shopping – and the result has been astonishing.  We had millions of check-ins in just the first weeks. In Manhattan there isn't a block left where users have not checked into a store or restaurant with CauseWorld*," said shopkick Co-Founder and CEO Cyriac Roeding. "It has grown so much faster than other location-based application because the check-in actually means something: every check-in changes the world.  We transferred that insight into our flagship shopkick app that recently launched – only now you can choose whether to donate to charity or keep the rewards for yourself."

CauseWorld, available for both iPhone and Android, became the fastest-growing location-based retail application with 550,000 downloads in its first 5 months. Because of the app's rapid adoption, Citigroup re-upped its support in the program with another $350,000 – and recently became an investor in shopkick's B Round funding, led by Greylock.

"The shopkick team has an amazing ability to create customer-centric applications on the intersection of mobile and retail that users enjoy and benefit from, and we get great brand pull-through for helping enable the experience users love," said Debby Hopkins, Chairman, Venture Capital Initiatives and Chief Innovation Officer, Citi. "To be a part of helping CauseWorld reach this impactful milestone is a proud moment for Citi – but it's even better to know we've helped move the missions forward for so many meaningful charities. We're excited to see what the coming years bring to this partnership. "

Collectively CauseWorld has helped users to:

• Provide clean water for 80,000 people for a month in Sudan
• Offset 5.7 million pounds of carbon
• Provide 336,000 meals to people in the U.S.
• Plant 95,000 trees
• Donate 36,000 books for children
• Provide 46,000 pounds of food for hungry chimps
• Provide 47 million liters of clean water in developing countries
• Rescue and rehabilitate over 190 animals that were victims of animal cruelty
• Supply netbooks to two classrooms in Southern California, one in Chicago, and one in Virginia

"Our SMART project identifies migrant laborer and street children who work along the Thai-Cambodian border and often end up trafficked victims in Cambodia. We then link them up with services such as shelter care and rehabilitation, trauma counseling, skills training, educational scholarships, and even small business grants so they can escape abuse and exploitation for good," said Erika Keaveney, Executive Director, Lotus Outreach International. "On behalf of Lotus Outreach and the thousands of vulnerable people reached by the SMART program each and every year, THANK YOU!"

No purchase is necessary at the stores to earn karmas. Charities partnering with the CauseWorld app include: American Red Cross, American Humane Association, Carbonfund.org, Feeding America, Heroes at Home, LiveStrong by Lance Armstrong, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc., Prevent Child Abuse America, and Room to Read. For the full list of participating charities, or to submit a charity for inclusion, visit the CauseWorld Causes page at http://www.CauseWorld.com/causes.html.

The CauseWorld application is available for free from the App Store on iPhone http://www.itunes.com/AppStore/ and from the Android Market on any Android phone.

*see attached graphic

About shopkick (www.shopkick.com)

shopkick is a new Palo Alto-based startup funded by Kleiner Perkins's iFund, Greylock Partners and Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and investor in Facebook and Zynga. shopkick, Inc. brings the power of the mobile internet to the retail experience. shopkick launched its mobile application CauseWorld in the United States in December 2009, in partnership with Citi, Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble, which became the fastest-growing location-based retail app in the App Store within weeks.  In August 2010, shopkick launched its flagship service by the same name, the first mobile application that hands rewards and offers to consumers simply for walking into stores and malls. In partnership with Best Buy, Macy's, American Eagle, Sports Authority and SIMON Malls, the largest mall operator in the United States, shopkick introduced its free iPhone application, and immediately reached national coverage by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, ABC, NBC, CNBC, Fox, CNN, TechCrunch, Business Insider and most other major news outlets.  

SOURCE shopkick