Y Combinator-incubated startup SwipeGood, which allows you to donate to charity each time you buy, has raised $500,000 in new funding from Bebo co-founder Michael Birch, the recently launched Start Fund, Y Combinator, Ron Bouganim, MR Rangaswami (Sandhill Group), and Frederik Fleck (Richmond View Ventures).
Once you enroll your credit/debit card with SwipeGood, every purchase you make gets rounded up to the nearest dollar. So for a $50.50 purchase of groceries, $0.50 will be given to charity. At the end of the month, SwipeGood will send your total donation amount to the charity or cause of your choice.
To participate in SwipeGood, consumers have to enroll their credit card and the service will track your purchases, similar to the way Blippy works. Currently, the service integrates with American Expres, Citibank, Chase, Wells Fargo and others. The startup makes money by taking 5% of the donation.
Since launching in November, the startup has partnered with hundreds of charities, including Charity Water, Room to Read and Invisible Children. The startup also allows charities to create their own branded charity pages, which they can promote to their members to encourage them to donate via Swipegood. Co-founder Steli Eft tells us that branded pages have shown better conversions than monthly subscriptions.
I’ve always wanted to use the Bank Of America Keep The Change Program, but don’t hold accounts with the bank. Now that SwipeGood supports most major banks, it seems like a no brainer to join the service and do a little good with each credit card swipe.
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