What if every time you took an Uber, you gave to charity without spending extra money?
That’s the idea behind Buttons for Good, a hack developed at TechCrunch’s Hackathon at Disrupt New York.
Button co-founders Chris Maddern and Stephen Milbank used their expertise in mobile links to build the site. They were joined by employees Tyler Nappy and Patrick Lewis.
Maddern said they were inspired by Ebates, which gives users money earned from referral traffic. But with Buttons for Good, all of the proceeds go to a nonprofit.
“We take that same dynamic and let you contribute that back to charity,” said Milbank.
It not only works with Uber, but a range of commerce platforms, including Jet.com, Groupon, Hotels.com and Delivery.com. They selected Planned Parenthood for today’s charity and plan to include the ACLU, Kiva and Black Lives Matter.
Milbank explained that in the future, people will be able to select which causes they want to support. They are open to suggestions for charities.
The hack was built using the Button public SDK. Nappy said he normally goes to hackathons to help people integrate Button technology, but “this time we decided to take a different approach and actually participate.”
The teams had 24 hours to build their hacks. Milbank said they were working “into the late night” to execute their idea.
The hackathon is the first event at this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt at Pier 36 in New York.