After the massive success of the Ice Bucket Challenge, charities are looking for other ways to raise money hoping for the next big thing. What could be better than using your mobile phone?
Charity Miles is using exercise to do seamless donations. It's a great idea, just donate by working out like you always do and as you work out, a sponser donates money. Very transparent, you pick your mode of exercise and work toward a donation goal. It's 10¢ per mile for bikers; 25¢ per mile for walkers and runners. There are lots of charities to choose from and you can select different charities for different activities if you want just by stopping and starting within the app.
What do you think so far?
After cursory look at the app I thought, nice idea but you have to keep your phone with you and it uses GPS to calculate distances. Battery drain plus since it's winter so I'm not outside much so not so great. Then I took another look because this really is a unique app. Swipe over to the right more and there are indoor options that use the accelerometer. Awesome. This opens to door to any activity that uses the accelerometer. When I checked the app it measured bouncing on my ball and squats so if you do any stationary workouts they will count. Cool. (And I hope you appreciated the 30 squats I did for checking the app)
How does the donation part work? Kind of like ad support. When you start a workout a sponsor pops up on the screen. Once you've completed a minimum 100 step workout for a charity you can appreciate the sponsorship by Tweeting or Facebook-ing.
I ended up way more impressed with Charity Miles than I thought I would be from the reading around on the web. They have put a lot of work into having a global range of charities, finding sponsors and enabling donations from activities a lot of people do regularly. Anywhere you track your steps you can be earning money for a charity of your choice. How great is that!
What do you think so far?After cursory look at the app I thought, nice idea but you have to keep your phone with you and it uses GPS to calculate distances. Battery drain plus since it's winter so I'm not outside much so not so great. Then I took another look because this really is a unique app. Swipe over to the right more and there are indoor options that use the accelerometer. Awesome. This opens to door to any activity that uses the accelerometer. When I checked the app it measured bouncing on my ball and squats so if you do any stationary workouts they will count. Cool. (And I hope you appreciated the 30 squats I did for checking the app)
How does the donation part work? Kind of like ad support. When you start a workout a sponsor pops up on the screen. Once you've completed a minimum 100 step workout for a charity you can appreciate the sponsorship by Tweeting or Facebook-ing.I ended up way more impressed with Charity Miles than I thought I would be from the reading around on the web. They have put a lot of work into having a global range of charities, finding sponsors and enabling donations from activities a lot of people do regularly. Anywhere you track your steps you can be earning money for a charity of your choice. How great is that!
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