I love this cause marketing promotion from a UK housing charity that brings together eight Edinburgh thrift shops with the leading location-based service, Foursquare.

It capitalizes on a physical location. Shelter Scotland helps people with all sorts of housing problems from homelessness to poor living conditions. 16 percent of Shelter’s annual donations come from its two dozen thrift shops throughout Scotland. Not all nonprofits are destinations for shoppers or visitors. But the ones that are should follow Shelter’s lead and tap Foursquare, which just isn’t for nonprofits that are cultural institutions and museums. What about thrift-store giant Goodwill or a busy historical attraction like the Freedom Trail in Boston? Foursquare should be part of their [cause] marketing too.

Shelter jumped in with both feet. They launched the program in eight stores to start and created a great video to educate supporters about the campaign and how to use Foursquare. Shelter isn’t assuming anything. They’re building a Foursquare promotion one user at a time and are not giving people a reason to say no (e.g. “I’ve never heard of Foursquare.” “I don’t know how to use it.”)

Shelter also developed real benefits for users that regularly checked-in to their stores. They’re offering a buy two, get one free special for both newbies and for loyal customers on every sixth check-in.

I also like how Foursquare users can earn cool badges from a noted designer. Shelter even created a unique badge for each store. Those who collect all eight will be entered into a contest to win prints of the designs.

The folks at Shelter really gave this promotion some forethought and didn’t skimp on the details.

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The promotion has room to grow. Shelter is off to a great start and can develop the promotion in  a couple ways. The charity has a number of corporate partnerships they could add to the promotion. In exchange for a co-marketing opportunity on Shelter’s Foursquare page a company could make a donation for each check-in. The real opportunity, however, is for Shelter to create Foursquare promotions for businesses–preferably ones with lots of locations–and include a cause marketing component that will benefit the charity. Companies would profit from Shelter’s expertise and the housing chartiy would profit from sharing it.

Shelter was smart to focus on smartphone users. Now’s not the the time to question the merits of mobile. Trust me, its future is as bright as the printing press! However, Shelter shouldn’t stop with Foursquare. What about SMS? Those who read me regularly know that SMS is my new cause marketing darling so bear with me. Adoption rates for location-based services such as Foursquare are low and growing slowly. Adding a text component to Shelter’s mobile promotion might make sense.

Use SMS for reach–because it’s the ring that everyone answers–and then a QR code, landing page, application such as Foursquare for a richer media experience. SMS is the messenger that will tell mobile users that supporting Shelter Scotland and earning rewards for themselves is just a check-in away.

The latest cause marketing program from Foursquare is looking a lot like last year’s. Maybe the folks at Foursquare should watch the movie Groundhog Day.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s all for a great cause, but location-based services like can be used for much more than action-triggered donations.

What if Foursquare could combine a special offer with a mobile payment so that shoppers could check-in an give.

Take the example above of Sports Authority and Boarding for Breast Cancer. If a consumer checks in at a Sport Authority they would get a message that says:

Sports Authority is supporting Boarding for Breast Cancer. Donate a dollar through Foursquare and we’ll match your donation up to a total donation of $10,000.

Here comes the cool part. The consumer can donate to the cause directly through Foursquare with the touch of a button. No more asking at the register for shoppers to support a cause. No more paper pinups filling landfills after programs are over.

The store can promote the program, of course, and employees can act as facilitators for it, but there would be no ask at the register and no pinups. It would be passive cause marketing, but better because donating is quick and easy.

I’m also assuming that some stores will be good places for this as some brands will put shoppers in the giving vein. Donate a dollar when you check-in to Whole Foods to support organic farms. Support fair-trade coffee bean farmers when you check-in to Starbucks. Save puppies from the pound when you check-in to your local pet store.

The missing piece is the payment system that would allow shoppers to make an immediate donation. I asked this question at Quora and got some interesting responses on some services like Gifi and FaceCash that might work. The challenge is that none of these are widely adopted enough that retailers or consumers would use them for a cause marketing program.

Another option is text giving. But it means users leaving the Foursquare app, and to my knowledge you can’t donate just a buck via text and the fees would eat up a good portion of the donation.

The idea of checking in on Foursquare and making a donation could work in a lot of other settings beside stores.

Check in to Yellowstone National Park on Foursquare and you’re asked to donate a buck to the park. Or maybe it’s just when you check-in to certain sites within the park like Old Faithful. You could do the same thing with museums, historical sites and colleges.

And there’s no reason why companies cannot be involved in these asks with co-branding, incentives and offers of their own.

I like what’s been done for causes thus far on Foursquare. But things are starting to get old. It’s time to check-in to another venue.