{"id":1317,"date":"2010-11-05T14:02:15","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T21:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2011-02-09T15:41:45","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T22:41:45","slug":"foursquare-for-nonprofits-getting-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/foursquare-for-nonprofits-getting-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Foursquare for Nonprofits: Getting Started"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iPhone<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a guest post by Joe Waters, the Director of Cause Marketing at Boston Medical Center. He’s written extensively about how nonprofits can use location-based social networks, such as Foursquare, to promote their cause.<\/p>\n

Enter Joe…<\/p>\n

The beauty of location-based services like Foursquare<\/strong> is that nonprofits of all types and sizes can leverage their social marketing benefits.<\/p>\n

Here’s how causes are checking-in for success.<\/p>\n

Nonprofit branding<\/strong>. The geo-location element of these services is a great way to put your nonprofit on the map. Start by checking into your nonprofit every day as a form of organizational branding. But take it one step further. The tips and shout-out features on Foursquare let you include interesting details about your cause. For example, I could check-in at the hospital I work at and post: “Heading over to our Prescriptive Food Pantry, the only one of its kind in the country.”<\/p>\n

Volunteer management<\/strong>. Our annual Halloween event last month had 400 volunteers, many of whom were smartphone-toting college kids eager to give back. We had an extra edge with volunteers that checked-in on Foursquare. Not only did we know where they were, but we could call and text them instructions and questions.<\/p>\n

Cause marketing<\/strong>. The Paypal<\/strong>, Microsoft<\/strong> partnership with Foursquare<\/a> and Save the Children<\/strong> earlier this year at the SXSW Interactive Conference<\/strong> was a great example of location-based cause marketing. Here’s another. Recruit a corporate partner to make a donation to your cause every time a user checks-in to their store or restaurant. Another option is to reward check-ins with a badge.<\/p>\n

Event promotion and recruitment<\/strong>. Walks, runs, rides and other types of -athons can use Foursquare too. The cause marketer in me is drawn to how corporate sponsors can promote -athons to shoppers when they check-in. “Join Home Depot employees and customers at the Walk for Cancer this Saturday!”<\/p>\n

Shopping fund raiser<\/strong>. If your nonprofit is in or near a shopping district, you can recruit a group of stores and restaurants to offer a weekend discount to Foursquare users. The lucky shopper saves 10% when they check-in and the store makes a donation to your cause.<\/p>\n

These are just a few ideas for using Foursquare. How do you plan on using Foursquare to support your cause?<\/p>\n

Joe Waters is Director of Cause Marketing for a Boston hospital. He blogs on cause marketing and social media at Selfishgiving.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a guest post by Joe Waters, the Director of Cause Marketing at Boston Medical Center. He’s written extensively about how nonprofits can use location-based social networks, such as Foursquare, to promote their cause. Enter Joe… The beauty of location-based services like Foursquare is that nonprofits of all types and sizes can leverage their … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Foursquare for Nonprofits: Getting Started”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31,4],"tags":[38,35,36,37],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonprofit","category-social-media","tag-cause-marketing","tag-foursquare","tag-nonprofits","tag-social-media-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BBCq-lf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1329,"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dragonflyeffect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}