Foursquare in practise for nonprofits
In the interest of practising what I preach, I’d like to share with you a project I’ve implemented at work involving Foursquare.
RSPCA Australia has a scheme called Choose Wisely:
Choose Wisely businesses serve humanely produced eggs, chicken or pork (or all three) at a Gold, Silver or Bronze level, depending on whether they use them in all or some of their products.
As the participating businesses are restaurants and cafes, I thought it was a perfect way we could experiment with location-based services.
If you’re in Australia, you can search for “rspca choose wisely” in Foursquare and find the nearest businesses near you that participate. I’ve put in a request with Foursquare to see if we can have a special badge for venue check-ins, but I haven’t heard back yet.
So – community feedback time – what do you think?
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it’s a really good idea but it needs lots more venues involved… hopefully more get on board
It’s a brilliant idea. The concept would only work with large organisations, you couldn’t do it for a small op shop for example. However, there’s scope to say build a network of op shops that may benefit (although I’m not sure how well op shops get on with each other!)
I can see there’s scope also for places that would have good access for people with disabilities, gay friendly venues, kosher restaurants and so on..
It’s certainly harder when you’re working with an industry body rather than a business itself. Have been thinking through the potential applications ourself with a similar client recently. We suspected Facebook would eventually dominate the space via their iPhone app, so avoided building anything specific to a single emerging platform such as Foursquare.
That being said, your own application sounds neat. Foursquare is all about repeat patronage so you’ve just got to find the area of your business that fits and assess how to motivate customers to check in.
Like this idea Lozz. Was thinking something similar just two days ago (synchronicity…?). Would work well if you could get a few NGOs together that had projects/campaigns based on sustainable/free trade/ethical purchasing.
My idea, to help build communities and encourage greater participation, is a cross between your idea and what foursquare have done with Harvard http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/01/harvard-and-foursquare/ with schools/unis/networks/towns.
People would get points/badges for making ethical purchases and attending related events/activities and also for helping others to increase their scores (increasing individual and network/regional scores). Would have a mix of online and offline opportunities to score and collect rewards (which is essential).
Would probably take about a year to put together and roll out properly but by then more people would be on foursquare and have smart phones so could be good timing. Can also replicate internationally so good for NGOs like Greenpeace, Oxfam, Amnesty, WWF etc.
Anyway, just an idea…