MVNO veteran PlatinumTel is launching a new carrier brand called GIV Mobile Wednesday, separating it from the pack not by offering unlimited data, selling app-specific plans or implementing bandwidth sharing features. Instead GIV is playing the role of charitable fund-raiser. You don’t just sign up for a voice and data plan. You sign up for one or more charities such as the American Red Cross or the Alzheimer’s Association. GIV claims it will donate 8 percent of your bill to those selected charities each month, or up to $50 per year per customer.

Of course, it might seem easier to cut a check for $50 to your charity choice rather than build your mobile service around the idea of giving. But GIV seems to targeting the same segment of the population that latches onto to charity vanity credit cards, which donate a small portion of every purchase to a customer’s organization of choice, rather than award points or miles. By allowing customers to divide their giving between multiple charities GIV acts a bit like a donation box; it aggregates a bunch of tiny gifts from individual consumers into one big check.

The MVNO is offering customers dozens of initial charities to choose from, ranging from animal welfare groups to environmental causes to disease research (you can see a full list here). Every six months GIV will take submissions from its customers for new charities, and then those same customers will vote to name one new organization to its roster each period.

As for the actual mobile service, GIV looks like many of the new breed of smartphone-centric prepaid MVNOs popping up. It offers two plans both of which have unlimited voice and text, both of which use T-Mobile’s network. The $40 plan includes 250 MB of monthly HSPA+ data before speeds are throttled, while the $50 plan includes 2 GB of data. There’s still new word on what phones GIV will sell starting tomorrow, but it will support any GSM phone that works on T-Mobile’s network for customers who just buy a SIM card.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Even homeless magazines

Now even an edition of a social-enterprise magazine, designed to give homeless people an income, is cutting back on print.

UK pedestrians are used to seeing high street The Big Issue sellers, who keep a portion of the cover price for each title they sell. Now The Big Issue In The North, a Manchester-based edition, will also ask its homeless to sell a printed card containing a code that can be redeemed for a PC or mobile version of the magazine (via announcement).

Update: The Big Issue In The North tells paidContent the digital cards will be launched alongside, not instead of, the ongoing paper edition.

Big Issue vendors buy copies from their publisher at £1, sell them for £2 and pocket the rest themselves. Going digital risks leaving those vendors with nothing to sell and no income. So the title will not allow direct-to-consumer subscriptions on devices. Either way, the link between the seller and immediacy of the content they sell is lost.

The Big Issue In The North circulation has halved in six years. FT reports: “now there is an advertising squeeze because of public sector cuts. The publication covers its costs and print and distribution is a big part of those.”

The Big Issue‘s nationwide UK edition introduced a digital edition back in 2009 via the Yudu digital store, which said it would examine ways to share digital content revenue with homeless sellers.

Car dealers

Honda Europe will stop printing showroom brochures and switch to issuing marketing on USBs by 2014 to save money, customer operations director Phil Dix told Tuesday’s Informa Telecoms & Media Industry Outlook conference in London.

Retailers

UK high street retailer Argos will now be “repositioned from a catalogue-led business to a digitally-led business” with “a leaner and more flexible cost base” in an e-commerce “digital future”, its owner Home Retail Group said on Wednesday.

That will involve “leading the market growth of digital commerce through online, mobile and tablet, and offering customers more products with the fastest, most convenient fulfilment options”. Argos has a growing online ordering business with click-to-collect, but has also retained its classical mode – at-home and in-store magazines which customers peruse to find required items.

Traditionally, not all of Argos’ customers were necessarily prevalent owners of the kinds of gadgets through which e-commerce is done, so this move now is significant, suggesting the time is right to move mail order retail from publication-supported to search-oriented for the masses.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Sector RoadMap: Social customer service in 2013
• Public, private or hybrid? How to move to the cloud
• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout

It’s a very simple idea: If a photographer has taken a fine-art-quality snap somewhere around the world, they can upload it to Photocircle for consideration, choose the markup they’d like put on it and the percentage of that markup they’d like to see donated to charity.

Photocircle then sells the prints, and customers are given a list of three projects close to where the shot was taken. Once they’ve bought, the company hands over the donation — and gives an additional six percent of the base price to the project as well.

“There are other websites for photography, but there’s none with our concept,” founder Thomas Heinrich told me on Tuesday, the day of the launch. “You’d think someone would be doing it already, but we’re the first ones.”

Not all the projects are in the so-called developing world — one, for example, aims to give the less-well-off in Berlin a chance to take in culture they might otherwise miss. But the bulk are in places like North Africa, India and Latin America.

What kind of projects are we talking? Relief supplies for Sudanese refugees. Deprived children in Haiti. Health education in Cambodia.

The photographers need to give at least 30 percent of their revenues to the projects, but according to Heinrich, many of those who signed up during the closed beta have chosen to give as much as 70 percent.

Photocircle is quite keen on transparency, and some of those it’s partnered with are pretty high-profile, notably the UNHCR refugee agency and Plan International, the children’s development organization.

Early funding for the scheme comes from the European Social Fund, the Berlin Senate and the Beuth Technical University. According to Heinrich, Photocircle does want to be profitable at some point, but that’s not the main consideration. “We consider ourselves a social business,” he said.

It’s nice to hear the term used in that context for a change.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Google and the Ghost of Silicon Valley Past
• Will cloud computing push the BRIC market to the front?
• Facebook’s tactical retreat on privacy

CEO and co-founder Matt Brezina said Sincerely is starting with three non-profits, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, buildOn, and Thirst Relief International, but plans to expand the program to more. According to Brezina, Sincerely’s mission has always been to make the act of card giving more thoughtful. So far that thoughtfulness has taken the form of customization – allowing customers to insert their own photos, images and sentiments into the cards they send. Attaching a charitable donation to those cards is the next logical step, Brezina said.

Each non-profit has multiple card templates within the Sincerely Ink store, each of which can be customized with a giver’s own photos and messages. The cards run either $10 or $20, but 70 percent of that cost is giving directly to the non-profit selected. As with Sincerely’s regular cards, which start at $1.69 $1.99 for U.S. addresses, the San Francisco startup prints out each card and mails it to its intended recipient.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Survey: How apps can solve photo management
• Sector RoadMap: Social customer service in 2013
• Podcast: Mobile winners and losers in 2012 and what to expect in 2013

Donate directly

One way to contribute is by donating directly to organizations dedicated to fighting pancreatic cancer. The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is a good example. It’s a not-for-profit that funds research, government advocacy, patient services and community outreach through funds it collects. President and CEO Julie Fleshman shared her condolences for the loss of Jobs, as well as a call to action in an open letter.

Johns Hopkins Medicine also has a dedicated pancreatic cancer research center, to which you can donate directly. Eighty percent of any donation made to Johns Hopkins goes directly to support the science and education efforts combating pancreatic cancer. The remaining 20 percent goes to Hopkins for infrastructure support to keep the organization running.

Donate indirectly through developers

Some developers have introduced plans to forward proceeds from the sale of their software to help fund the fight against pancreatic cancer. Realmac Software is one such company. For Thursday, Oct. 6 and Friday, Oct. 7, all proceeds resulting from the sale of RapidWeaver, Analog, Courier or LittleSnapper will go to Pancreatic Cancer U.K. All are great-looking apps that also work very well, including Analog, the latest addition, which allows you to quickly and easily add Instagram-style effects to your photos in Mac OS X. All are available in the Mac App Store.

Marco Arment, developer of Instapaper, is also donating all revenue from the sale of his app Oct. 6 ($4.99, iOS Universal) to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The app lets you save text-heavy articles from the web in a streamlined format for offline reading on your iPhone or iPad.

Volunteer your time

November is actually National Pancreatic Awareness Month in the U.S., and you can participate by volunteering to help. Signing up in the U.S. is easy through the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network’s dedicated site about the awareness event in November. The network will hook you up with your local affiliate, who’ll then provide more specific information about how you can help.

There’s also a bill before Congress to help devise a national strategy for fighting pancreatic cancer, which you can help along by contacting your local elected officials.

This isn’t a comprehensive look at your options for helping by any means, but it is a good starting point. Of course, it’s always a good idea to donate to or volunteer with the American Cancer Society (or your local national equivalent), too. Let us know if you have any other ways to help.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• What Google’s Honeycomb Means for Apple and Microsoft

All sales of any of the company’s software between 10:00 a.m., March 17 and 10:00 a.m., March 18 (PDT) will be donated directly to a mix of the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Mercy Corps based in Portland, Ore. That includes both sales on Panic’s own site and sales made through the Mac App Store, and absolutely 100 percent of proceeds will be donated.

By purchasing any of Panic’s applications today, not only are you getting some great software, but you’ll also be helping out a country in need of a helping hand at the moment. In Panic founder Cabel Sasser’s own words:

You might be sick of it — being told to donate to a charity. If you’re like me, donating to a charity is an abstract, disconnected affair. So, we thought we’d make it a little more tangible, allowing you to help Japan directly while getting Panic software with one swift click.

Sasser also explains that there’s a very personal reason why Panic wants to do what it can to help:

Nobuhiro, who runs Panic Japan, packed up his wife and two kids in his home town of Kashiwa, and, after finding gas, drove them to Nagoya, far from the looming threat of a legitimate nuclear disaster. Kenichi, our icon genius, was, amazingly, right here in Portland when everything hit, and he watched it unfold stunned and disconnected: just the latest Bruckheimer production in a tiny streaming video window. He’s now on his way back to Nagoya. And while part of me wonders if he’s headed in the wrong direction, when he e-mailed me the latest ultrasound sent from his pregnant wife (it’s a boy!), I knew he was right.

If you’ve been waiting to buy any of Panic’s applications, there’s no better time than right now. Even if you only buy something small such as CandyBar, you’ll be doing your bit to help out. Why not take the opportunity to download any applications you already own, but from the Mac App Store, to make updating and installation on multiple computers easier?

Have you heard of any other generous developers helping the Japan relief effort? Let us know in the comments.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• One year later: Fukushima and the Japan cleantech opportunity
• How do developers ride the Siri wave?
• Connectivity means making the machine disappear

Raise the Village puts you in charge of managing and customizing a village, as its name implies. Unlike other virtual community management sims, however, the village in this app represents a real one in Uganda (Kapir Atiira, specifically). You purchase items in-game through Apple’s in-app purchasing iOS feature to improve the virtual village, and then the company behind the app uses those funds to purchase the same items in the real world for use in the actual Ugandan community. The relationship isn’t one-to-one, and uses a group-for-one giving model, but player choices influence real-world decisions.

Users (game players?) then get updates like photos of the items being delivered, and information about the village’s progress. Of course, the virtual village in your game changes as you build improvements and buy upgrades as well.

The freemium model is powerful, and makes a lot of money for iPhone developers. To see it being put to use for charitable purposes is refreshing in many ways, and I don’t begrudge these Ugandan communities any monetary benefit they might stand to gain from the use of the Raise the Village app. But all that said, the app strikes me as very weird, and risks crossing a line I’m not sure I’m comfortable going over just yet.

Think about it: You’re basically “playing” a real village. Unlike in the vast majority of video games to date (meaning all, really), the effects of your decisions in-game have an effect on real human beings living in a real community. It’s not at the point yet where you have as direct an effect as you might if you were playing a real-world version of The Sims, for example (you can’t control your villager’s actions), but your choices aren’t without consequence. When asked about how direct a player’s impact is on real-world infrastructure build in the Ugandan village,  New Charity Era, L3C Director of American Operations Tracy Shank provided this response:

The items that we deliver are those that are purchased using our in-game currency: Florin. And those purchases directly represent what we will deliver, so it is the gamer’s choice on what he or she would like to have delivered to the villagers on his or her behalf. To go into more detail, most of the buildings within the game are free, becoming available at different levels for village points. It is the processes and items within those buildings that are purchasable. For instance, if you put a crop farm in your village, you can grow/harvest a multitude of crops needed by the villagers such as beans or maize.

So while you can’t determine whether or not a farm or building gets built, you do have a role in deciding what goes on at those facilities. According to Shank, ”[a]ll of the items were chosen based on a needs-assessment of the villagers and the game is optimized for users to make balanced giving decisions,” so it’s less of an ethical briar patch than it might be if you and other players were determining what gets built and what doesn’t. Still, users take on a degree of responsibility not often seen in the role of charitable donor, let alone that of gamer.

Gamification has been a huge trend this year, and it continues to influence all aspects of business. Seeing it appear in such a literal fashion in the not-for-profit sector isn’t surprising, but is “gaming” with a community’s future something we’re really comfortable with at this point? Isn’t this at least objectifying, and at worst, demeaning, the actual Ugandans involved? Shank doesn’t think so. Rather than playing with people, she sees it as “playing for people through a company dedicated to bringing villages (Kapir Atiira first) [...] to a sustainable level.”

Maybe I’m overreacting, but I think this has ethical implications that go well beyond those generally associated with your standard casual gaming fare, regardless of how direct an influence you have as a player. What do you think?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• What Enterprise Software Vendors Could Learn from the Consumer Space
• A Modern Media Manifesto for the Digital-First Era
• Rogue Devices: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 1

The past three years of Desert Bus have earned a total of $233,677 for the Child’s Play gamer charity initiative benefiting children’s hospitals, making it the charity’s single largest single donor. Now in its fourth year, the team has already received over $6,000 for this drive — before even getting started.

The rules are simple: A member of the Loading Ready Run team plays Desert Bus, a gag video game created by Penn & Teller to simulate the experience of driving from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. It takes eight hours of continuous unpausable play to complete the trip and earn one point. The more donations, the longer LRR plays.

The action is tracked with two different livestreams hosted by Ustream: One of the game in action, one of the driver playing it. The latter stream usually includes other members of the Loading Ready Run team keeping the driver company and encouraging those following the action in a live chartroom to keep donating.

Last year’s trip lasted five days and 16 hours, with drivers playing four hour shifts, and this year the challenge has increased, with each of the five drivers (James Turner, Jeremy Petter, Morgan vanHumbeck, Bill Watt and Kathleen De Vere) playing in 24-hour long shifts. The anticipation is that only the first driver might have to take a second shift — however, according to LRR co-founder Graham Stark, via phone, everyone involved has taken the next week off from their various responsibilities. “Regardless of how long we go, we’ll need the rest of the week to sleep,” Stark said.

To support their efforts, special guests call in to the Loading Ready Run headquarters to cheer on the team: Past years have included surprise calls from Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day, and this year Zero Punctuation creator Yahtzee and Xbox Director of Policy and Enforcement Steptoe are among the scheduled call-ins. Loading Ready Run has also brought approximately 20 sponsors onto the project: Some of which supply prizes for auction, some of which, like site host ServInt and internet provider Shaw, keep the online action going.

LRR co-founder Graham Stark, via phone, credited those sponsorships to the video game-obsessed site The Escapist, for which LRR produces a variety of web series. “They’ve given us amazing support on their site, and helped us contact the bigger gaming sponsors,” Stark said. Rock Band creators Harmonix this year, for example, have donated copies of Rock Band 2 and 3, as well as a signed guitar, for auction.

Thanks to a formula which sets increasingly larger donation milestones as the donation total increases, the Desert Bus saga will eventually end. But even before the launch, the team has already committed to 90 hours of drive time — so it may be a long time indeed before the ride ends.

Is there a point where this project isn’t scalable anymore? Stark isn’t sure. “We thought that the second year, and then we doubled the amount we earned the third year,” he said. “We’re Canadian, we’re very reserved, so if we can do half as well as we did last year, it’ll already be a major success. I don’t know if there’s an upper limit, but we’re going to keep doing this until we find out.”

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required):

• By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series
• Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable
• How Online Video Is Shaping the Next Round of Retrans Fights

For example, five years ago, I wanted to help those affected by the floods caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, since I have some connections with New Orleans. In my pre-web career, I worked in radio, and was privileged to manage community radio station WWOZ for a short time over twenty years ago. Although I only lived in New Orleans for a few months, I fell in love with the city’s unique music and culture.

So in the aftermath of the storms, I contacted WWOZ’s webmaster, who had evacuated to another city, and asked what I could do to help. At his request, I put together a temporary website that allowed station staff, musicians, and the community to share messages from wherever they were. This was in the days before Facebook, Twitter and the like.

I also developed a similar website, which is no longer active, to foster community communication during the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. And I’ve developed websites for political candidates and causes I believe in.

Of course, professionals need to set limits. My three-person company generally produces one pro bono website per year. Once we agree to take on such a project, we go through the same process we use to specify a scope of work for paid projects. It’s imperative to make sure that clients understand that there’s only so much uncompensated work we can do.

Unfortunately, the tax deductibility of in-kind donations is limited; check with your accountant for details. Nevertheless, my colleagues agree that donating our skills and time is an important part of what we do.

How have you used your professional skills to assist your community?

Photo courtesy NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Aside from the issues of wealth redistribution, questions of just how much money can achieve, and so on, Gates’s declaration has made many ordinary people reconsider their position on charity. We might not all be Bill Gates, but that doesn’t stop us from wanting to enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from altruism — from doing good things, or making some small sacrifice, for something we believe in.

For the web worker trapped at a desk for at least 40 hours a week, it might seem like the only real option is to give money to an NGO. But there are many ways to fulfill your altruistic inclinations.

Donating Cash

The web makes it easy to donate cash to charity either as part of a one-off emergency campaign, or in an ongoing arrangement.

But the web also makes it easy to research causes, NGOs, issues and so on. Let’s face it: between social media and news sources, it’s not hard to find bad news these days — and often, as in the case of the current flooding in Pakistan, the news reports will include a call to action for those who want to give money to help those suffering.

If you’re more keen on commitment, though, you might be looking for good news — seeking information on the successes of an NGO that you can happily back for the long haul. Again, research is the key. For example, as someone who’s interested in the environment, I find reports on NewScientist will often mention the NGO responsible for new research, preservation activities and so on, which makes it a good starting point for research on these kinds of organizations.

Perhaps you’ll decide to give a portion of your income to charity each year. If your income fluctuates, you might consider donating a portion of whatever you earn each month to a cause you believe in. This will give you financial flexibility, but will also allow you to spread your giving to help different groups on a month-by-month basis.

Donating Items

Between outdated — but still fully functional — computers, peripherals and devices, textbooks and educational materials, your dust-attracting CD collection and your wardrobe, every web worker has something they can donate to a cause within their own community. Even in my tiny town we have thrift stores, frequent fundraisers, and community education programs that could use one of these old computers I have lying around.

Donating items is a good way to help out within your own community. But you can make the web work for you in this regard, too. If you’re an eBay fiend, for example, and love the thrill of auctioning off your old stuff, perhaps you’ll consider giving a portion of the cash you make from those sales to a local charity.

Donating Time

Most of the employers I’ve worked for have invited staff to get involved in charity work. Some offer a day or two of leave to each person each year for this very purpose; others form teams to participate in corporate sports fundraisers and similar events.

Of course, those working for themselves have free reign to dedicate whatever time they like to a charity. Whether it’s local or  global, your chosen NGO will likely have some programs in which you can participate for a day, or a day a month, and so on.

Donating time can be a good way to meet people who are interested in the same issues as you, and to get the satisfaction of making a practical contribution to something you believe in. It can also take you to other countries, to experience a different way of life. I know of a social media manager who’s currently doing a two-month stint working for a charity in Africa. She needed no special skills — just a willingness to give.

Again, research is key. Follow your favorite causes on social media, or sign up to their newsletters, and you’ll be kept abreast of all the activities you can contribute to. Greenpeace has a very well integrated approach to communicating news, information and opportunities to interested donors.

Donating Expertise

Yes, you might use your web design talents to reskin the website of your local community house, but the web provides plenty of options for you to donate expertise. Some offer you the chance to relocate for a period of time — weeks, months, a year — to use your skills to assist an NGO, local community group, or charity organization’s development.

This can be a really satisfying way to spend a period of your working life. As well as exposing yourself to different cultures, it can give you the opportunity to contribute what you may believe are your greatest capabilities, and to really get behind a cause in what may feel like the most constructive way.

The web can help you to research your options, as well as the issues and cultures you may consider contributing to. Obviously, these kinds of opportunities take a lot of commitment, so you’ll want to know what you’re up for before you begin.

How do you contribute to the causes that you believe in? And how do you find new opportunities to give?

Image by stock.xchng user sundstrom.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution