Fast Talk: How Pledge4Good Is Like A Virtual Dunk Tank

Meet Vikram Bellapravalu, whose site pegs small donations to minor feats. Let the push-ups commence!

Vikram Bellapravalu is a cofounder of pledge4good, a startup that allows users to peg small donations to minor feats. Instead of hitting up your friends for $50 or $100 when you run that marathon, why not get them to pledge $1 every time you make a smaller achievement, like a couple miles on the treadmill. In its belief that small donations can have a large effect, pledge4good is something like a miniaturized version of Kickstarter, only organized around feats and charities rather than a product. It’s an idea that’s in the air more generally; the branding agency Mono recently ran a campaign for Virgin called Do Whatever It Takes, which similarly coupled donations to homeless youth with feats small and large.

I gather pledge4good comes out of your experience as a compulsive gambler.

I’m the guy who on the golf course will want to throw a couple of quarters onto every single hole, or if I’m out with friends, will find some fun way to find who pays for dinner. It’s not about money at all, it’s about the competition. My dad’s a large fundraiser for an organization in Phoenix, and their biggest fundraiser in the State of Arizona is a golf tournament each year. He said, why can’t I do something throughout the year where someone gives $5 per birdie to an organization?

Maybe I’m just a bad person, but if I achieve something difficult, my first impulse is to probably to reward myself, rather than to give to charity.

At the same time, it’s a nice way for people to talk about the things they care about, and to brag about accomplishments in a semi-socially acceptable manner. Do you want to hear a guy saying he got five birdies on Facebook? But if he couches it in different terms--“Hey, I got these five birdies, but it will benefit this organization," we think that’s fun and powerful. We also require you to pledge a small amount yourself. We want to keep you honest. We don’t want you ...

[Source: Fast Company]