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Allyson Kapin 3 min read

Spendrise: New Platform Helps You Spur Change Where You Shop

Running the Women Startup Challenge and our social change web agency, Rad Campaign I get pitched a lot of different products. I recently discovered Spendrise, a platform for creating positive change spendriselogo.pngeverywhere you spend money. Here's how it works.

1. Start a Pledge
You support a Spendrise campaign by pledging to spend money if the business makes a positive change that you believe in. The change could be asking the business to go solar, to provide sick days to its employees, or any number of ideas! It's free to pledge, and your purchase only happens if the campaign succeeds.

2. Share the Pledge
The more people that pledge to spend to see the pledge implemented, the more likely a business agrees to make the change. Spread the word and see the pledges grow!

3. Pledge Fulfilled
The campaign creator brings all the pledges to the business to decide. If the business accepts, your pledge becomes a giftcard, and your dollars helped make real change! If not, no worries, your pledge expires and you keep your money.

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I think this is an interesting platform to do business accountability campaigns. For example, there's an upcoming campaign on Spendrise where people can crowdsource support to urge Starbucks to pledge to use recyclable cups. I bet you did not realize that Starbucks uses 4 billion paper cups a year, but none of them are recyclable. If this pledge was crowdsourced it would be a win for advocates/consumers and Starbucks. Consumers would decrease their landfill pollution and Starbucks would earn more business from consumers who pledged to support them for implementing this important business practice.

What campaigns would you like to see on Spendrise?
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Allyson Kapin

Allyson has been named one of "Top Tech Titans" by the Washingtonian, one of the Most Influential Women In Tech by Fast Company, and one of the top 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter by Forbes for her leadership role in technology and social media. As Founding Partner of Rad Campaign, she leads the firm's client and online strategic services. For over a decade Allyson has helped non-profit organizations and political campaigns create dynamic and award-winning websites and online marketing and recruitment campaigns. She works side-by-side with her clients to meet their web needs and maximize their online effectiveness to create real world impact.

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