Thanks for bring 4SQ to light. I think 4SQ has enormous potential for nonprofits and businesses to work hand-in-hand to get people off their rear to make a difference.

There are a few people who say "I volunteer at such-and-such," or "I spend this many hours with X nonprofit." That's great but do they really? In a time when "doing good" and volunteering is the new black, 4SQ has the potential of tracking volunteer service time by your 4SQ status. Plus, the person will have bragging rights in their 4SQ community.

I'm starting a new business, Bcausemedia, which will help small businesses connect with small nonprofits in a local area. Part of our model is "Service4Service." For every hour the business owner volunteers at their partnered nonprofit, they get an hour of free service from Bcausemedia, and so forth. 4SQ and Service4Service will help me track the business owner's volunteer time and they will have bragging rights to show their customers that they practice with they preach.

I'm very excited and look forward to the growth and popularity of FourSquare because I think it will get people moving and become active socially face-to-face, rather than behind a computer all day (sorry iPhone we're breaking up).

Noland Hoshino

Joe gave 6 *solid* ideas on the potential of 4sq for cause mktg, especially #3 and #6. He and @leadsinger are definitely right – 4sq will work best in *urban* areas. As someone who runs a biz in *rural* America, I know what of I speak.

Although the rural market is a huge market, it's still largely one which is internet-illiterate. For example, my biz was the first in its' industry to have a website (waaaaaaaay back, back, back in '94) yet every week there are at least 2-3 callers who ask if I have a website. So what do they do with their iphones then? Well, they sure won't be visiting 4sq anytime soon

This could work really well for you, especially when we work with local TV shows like Phantom Gourmet, which reviews local restaurants (see post on this site). In addition to selling pinups at iParty, Ocean State Job Lots, Upper Crust, etc. that raises my nonprofit money, we could promote the check-in feature on Foursquare via Phantom and have some fun with it.

I don't see building Foursquare into our existing programs as a big challenge. As a matter of fact I see it as a great asset because the companies we work with want social media right now and Foursquare is a perfect fit for us and them. An added benefit is that we wouldn't be selling it as a standalone tool for retailers. We mixing it with other offline items.

The timing is actually very good for us because as you might have seen on my blog we're launching Six Figure Cause Marketing and taking our services to other nonprofits and companies across the country. So there's the opportunity to bring Foursquare with us.

Where cause marketing is Foursquare should be the online platform of choice.

Just wanted to weigh in on this… we LOVE this idea and have had already conversations with some folks on how we can make this happen sooner rather than later within foursquare.

My two favs are #1 (points translate into charitable donations) and #4 (badges for do-gooders), problem is we've had a hard time finding corporate sponsors that would be willing to donate / participate We'd be open to doing some kind of sponsorship program with foursquare – e.g. in exchange for sponsorship / brand placement, the sponsor would donates $$$ for every checkin to a charitable cause).

If there's anyone out there in BlogLand who knows of corporate folks who's be interested in making this happen across one, or more (or all?) of our foursquare cities, please put us in touch: specials[at]foursquare[dotcom]

Thanks (and we'll make this happen eventually!)

- @dens
co-founder, foursquare