That’s what AngelPoints, Andy Mercy’s company, does well, which is why I invited him to do a Cause Capitalism interview.

Andy founded AngelPoints after stumbling into a volunteer experience at work and being underwhelmed by the standard of Internet applications that attempted to manage community and employee programs. He saw a market need to help companies track their social responsibility initiatives and felt he had enough personal experience to fill it.

Andy has managed to build a platform that speaks to a company’s needs, as well as to an individual’s passion for engagement, contribution and development. AngelPoints has grown into an all-inclusive employee CSR and sustainability platform that helps employees and companies–like Toyota and JetBlue–track their impact in real-time, communicate (and compete!) across departments, donate, volunteer and collect rewards.

In our conversation, we talk about the impetus for AngelPoints, behavioral triggers and the role of storytelling. Click the player to listen or right-click and download the MP3.

Download audio file (Cause-Capitalism_Andy-Mercy.mp3)

Want to support Andy’s work? You can thank him on Twitter like this.

My goal is to see more people growing more social businesses. Most of you are entrepreneurs, business owners and intrapreneurs working hard to create change. But some of you are looking for your (next) opportunity to do just that. This collection of job lists is for you. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s quality.

Staffing your own social venture? Post job openings in the comments below or email me and I’ll help you find someone whose passion and pragmatism match yours.

Fancy another resource? Add it in the comments.

1. Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship (BCCC)

2. Business for Social Responsibility (BSR)

3. Care2 Job Finder

4. Change.org

5. CommonGood

6. Justmeans

7. NetImpact (You need a membership to access the list, but it’s well worth the nominal fee.)

8. Next Billion

9. Simply Hired (Sustainability listings)

10. SocialEdge

11. Social Investment Forum

12. Social Venture Network

13. Sustainable Industries

14. Weinreb Group

Nonprofit Specific
15. Opportunity Knocks

16. Idealist

Additional Resource
Ellen Weinreb is terrific. She connects the right people with the right sustainability opportunities. She gave some great tips for job seekers and companies looking to hire in an interview she gave last year.

• Measurement
  Impact (the object of measurement) is the reason I write this blog. Although I grasp the framework of measurement and evaluation, I want to better understand how to predetermine, capture and evaluate social impact.
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• Technology in emerging markets
  Mobile technology in itself can change (or produce) education, health, entrepreneurship, financial access and governance.  When I attended the Mobile Health Summit in D.C. several months ago I was struck by the myriad applications for mobile technology and the intersections between sectors (Changamka in Kenya allows and incents pregnant women to make monthly micro-deposits to a health account to cover labor and post-natal care, ultimately improving the health of mothers and newborns and teaching the process and benefit of saving). .
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• Companies that make consumers better (drive positive consumer behavior)
  Last week Ikea stopped selling incandescent light bulbs. Consumers will either switch to energy-efficient bulbs or buy their bulbs somewhere else. And Ikea is okay with that. .
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• Hybrid business models
  Is there a set of principles that can be applied (or strategies that can be avoided) to create a sustainable hybrid business? What’s the long-term financial viability and social impact of hybrid companies, and does it vary if they are public or private? .
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• Learning from you
  I shared some of the areas I care about. What about you? What information and resources do you need to build a better company with stronger impact? I‘m setting up my interview schedule now for the next couple of months. Who do you want to hear from?  What industries or companies do you want insight into?

Photo credit: Andercismo

Scandal in-the-making, customer-pleaser, tax write-off, nonprofit cash cow or game-changer?  Which hyphenated phrase will best describe Nordstrom’s new concept store, which will donate all net profits to charity?

I was interviewed recently by American Public Media’s Marketplace on the Nordstrom concept store, set to open in Soho next fall, and on the growing appeal of retail philanthropy. A recent study from Cone found that 83% of consumers “want more of the products, services and retailers they use to benefit causes.” Seems Nordstrom read the report. But I hope they studied it because the concept is rife with potential, public sand traps. Little information has been released (or decided), but here’s what we do know from Nordstrom spokeswoman Pamela Lopez:  The store won’t have Nordstrom’s name on it, use its shopping bags or take Nordstrom credit cards, but will function as a wholly owned subsidiary.  The concept is based on the retailer’s “general spirit of philanthropy.” Nordstrom hasn’t yet identified how it will pick its nonprofit partners or solidified a merchandising strategy. If I were leading this initiative for Nordstrom, here are 10 guidelines I’d follow:

• Define your mission. General spirit of philanthropy is not enough. Who do you want to benefit and what ultimate result do you want to achieve–both in impacting funding recipients and Nordstrom as a company?

• Be obsessively transparent with employees and consumers. Be upfront about how you are selecting nonprofit partners, what the partnership involves (for example, are partners expected to market on your behalf?), how much money is going to which nonprofits based on what amount of sales, how the nonprofits are using the funds and how constituents are impacted.

• Invest in the causes longterm, either by continuing to support existing Nordstrom charities and partners, or committing to a new long-term investment. Long-term partnerships help define what the company stands for, enable a greater a social impact and make it easier for a company to measure this impact.

• It’s not enough to just give nonprofits money. Really, it’s not. Nordstrom would do well to treat these organizations as partners, not charity recipients. There’s much more at stake with this experiment in ultimate retail philanthropy than funds raised and a branding victory for the retailer. Treating nonprofit partners as equals entails greater cooperation, satisfaction, creativity and impact. Avoid the common pitfall of thinking that whomever holds the money calls all the shots.

• Lead with impact, not branding or splash. Go back to your mission; who are you aiming to serve and how? If all you want is a marketing campaign to attract Gen Y women, this is absolutely the wrong strategy. A quick way to turn off consumers and taint your brand is to use customers as a pawn in a high-on-glitz-low-on-impact campaign. Be transparent and proactive in your messaging, your goals and your shortcomings.

• Involve employees. Employees are your greatest brand advocate (as well as the first to smell a rat). Beyond being transparent with employees about the numbers, connect them to larger mission and develop opportunities for them to own and create parts of it.  Per Cone, 93% of employees involved in their company’s social or environmental commitments say they’re proud of their company’s values (vs. 68% of employees who don’t take part in social or environmental activities)..

• Connect customers to a cause beyond the purchase.  Sixty-one percent of consumers take the time to learn the details of a cause-related campaign before deciding to support it.  So teach consumers the root cause of the problem and viable solutions through labels, marketing material, store signage, events, interactions with nonprofit leaders and constituents of the cause and volunteer opportunities (72% of consumers want an opportunity to volunteer for a cause in addition to supporting it through a purchase).

• No markups. Donating 5% or 100% of profits to a cause doesn’t legitimate price markups. Sell the merchandise at a standard price and build the donation into the other elements of your business model. I’m not saying this is easy, but it’s important that you don’t charge consumers for the experience of giving or for supporting your corporate philanthropy.

• Don’t exploit the cause. The cause is your partner, your friend, significant of the impact you want to have. Don’t play fast and cheap with it, by which I mean no pictures of abandoned dogs and ravaged children. Find ways to communicate the urgency of their needs with dignity.

• Report on impact. Seventy-five percent of consumers want to hear more about the impact of corporate/nonprofit partnerships. How much money was raised and who did it help? How many people were served? How were they specifically affected?  The desire for feedback means you’ve successfully involved the customer in the cause. They feel personally connected to it and are interested to know how what they stood behind made a difference to someone. As a company or nonprofit, this is the best part.

Benevity Social Ventures and Obopay recently launched a text-to-donate service that aims to simplify and incentivize mobile giving. Software company Benevity (I’ve profiled iStock Photo’s use of the Benevity platform to power micro-donations) partnered with mobile payment provider Obopay to create a service with enough incentives that it might create the tipping point.

Here’s the potential for companies:

• It can easily be integrated into a cause marketing or loyalty campaign. When deciding between Prego and Ragu, I can follow a prompt on Prego’s label that encourages me to make a donation (then share it on social media) and then offers me a coupon or product incentive.
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• It enables companies and nonprofits to partner on full-feature campaigns that go beyond a mobile-only component because it integrates with Benevity’s suite of services that support mico-donations, employee giving and cause-related campaigns. A typical challenge of mobile fundraising is that it’s offered as a stand-alone program, which limits its appeal to consumers, as well as companies and nonprofits.
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• Companies can create a branded portfolio of causes, grouped by locality or issue (e.g., a FedEx portfolio of Memphis-based charities or a national portfolio of youth literacy organizations).
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• It provides branded tax receipts. After a user gives, she receives a tax receipt referencing the company associated with the campaign, which gives the company greater visibility for its initiatives. When Prego or FedEx offers me a meaningful opportunity to engage with and support a cause and then sends me a receipt with their name on it, it’s one more point of (positive) brand interaction.
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• Companies can match donated funds, which incentivizes consumer giving and bolsters the philanthropic (and branded) impact of a company’s giving. It also makes it worthwhile for nonprofits to direct donors to partner retailers, since these retailers can easily match a donation.
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• Companies can partner with any registered nonprofit, regardless of size. The service doesn’t require formal on-boarding for nonprofits and doesn’t exclude small-shop charities.

For consumers, many of whom want ways to engage a cause beyond a traditional cause marketing point-of-purchase donation, it’s an easy and immediate way to directly support an issue and to track giving impact. Companies can also track, and then reward, consumers’ donations through the company’s portfolio of causes.

Many of the incentives the text-to-donate service offers companies double as consumer/donor incentives: matching donations, convenience and more immediate impact (unlike existing mobile donation services, the donor doesn’t have to receive and pay her phone bill to trigger the fund transfer).

Benevity and Obopay’s service is hitting the sweet spot of mobile commerce, mobile marketing and cause marketing, a place where Foursquare and other geo-location programs have visited, but haven’t fully yet claimed.