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"What started as a highly addictive pastime for early adopters to alert their friends of their whereabouts and compete for virtual mayorship of their corner coffee shop, is steadily evolving into a global vehicle for individuals and businesses to garner social capital. With tech evangelists and small businesses exploring the potential power of Foursquare and other location enabled services, it was only a matter of time before change makers in the non-profit and social enterprise ecosystem \u201Cchecked-in\u201D and began finding innovative methods to rally support for their causes.\n1. Rewarding Volunteer Loyalty\n\n\n\n\nJust as the first Foursquare Mayor of Spud Brothers was rewarded with a free meal for customer loyalty, an activist who frequents a particular venue could be compensated with donations, supplies, or community outreach support.  \nRestaurants that monitor customer regularity based on Foursquare data could give free meals to local food banks.  Drug stores could issue over the counter medication and toiletries to homeless shelters.  Nightclubs that hold open mic nights could allow their mayors to get up on stage and deliver calls to action.  Non-profit leaders could hold meetings at local watering holes that track Foursquare usage in exchange for outdoor signage promoting their cause.  The possibilities are endless.   \n2. Turn Check Ins Into Dollars\n\n\n\n\nTurning social media participation into tangible currency has proven to be a popular trend in the last year.  Created to spread cancer awareness and draw attention from users and potential corporate sponsors, Twitter hashtags such as #BeatCancer and #BlameDrewsCancer penetrated the social stratosphere.  Location based application creators are following suit and making socially responsible participation easy for users.   \nLast month, Foursquare teamed up with New York Tech Gives Back and Pepsi to raise funds for Campinteractive, a non-profit organization that provides inner city youth with technical training and outdoor recreational programs.  From December 6 to 13, Pepsi donated $0.04 to Campinteractive for every check in point added to the Foursquare leaderboard.  \nA new mobile application called CauseWorld is baking that idea by issuing \u201Ckarma points\u201D to users when they check in at local businesses affiliated with the service.  Large brands such as Kraft and Citi, which are carried at those locations, turn the points into dollars and allow customers to choose a cause among a list of nine different charities.  \n3. Crowdsourcing Crisis Information\n\n\n\n\nThe open source project Ushahidi, which was originally designed to track post-election accounts of violence in Kenya, uses user-generated reports and Google Maps to monitor crime, devastation, and peace and relief efforts around the world.  \nThe Ushahidi website currently has an option on its front page for users to submit real-time reports and track information connected to relief efforts in Haiti.\nWhile the first generation of the Ushahidi platform has been used predominantly in Africa, it\u2019s recently spread to the United States.  Atlanta Crime Maps, for example, traces criminal offenses in the Atlanta metro area.   \nNon-profit consultant Beth Kanter contributed to this article.\nMore social good resources from Mashable:\n- 3 Powerful Social Good Trends in 2010- 4 Social Good Trends of 2009- Why Social Media Is Vital to Corporate Social Responsibility- 5 Essential Tips for Promoting Your Charity Using Social Media- 20 Ways to Change the World in Only 15 Minutes a Day\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, HelleM"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/01/18/location-based-social-good/>