While Politics4All was the only political technology at the demo pit of TechCrunch50, CauseCast.org was one of the socially minded technologies that got to grace the stage as one of TechCrunch's top 50 startups and compete for the prize.

The philanthropic 2.0 technology began its presentation as most philanthropic presentations do, with a celebrity. In this case it was a video presentation with Jenny McCarthy talking about her autism organization Generation Rescue, one of CauseCast.org's first customers (the video can be seen on the front page of Causecast.org's website.

Causecast's mission is to be an entertaining and empowering place where people can learn about various causes. Or as founder Ryan Scott put it, "a one stop shop where you can come and learn, get inspired and inspire others to participate.

Scott came up with the concept shortly after selling his "Web 1.0" company and, feeling the need to give back, discovered that all these great causes had really bad websites. "As I was working with them," Scott told the audience, "I learned that obviously they were constrained with cash but more importantly if they do spend a lot of time on their website they can actually get dinged for spending to much on overhead."

So CauseCast.org is really about brining the power of Web 2.0 to organizations who just cannot put the money or man power to such a job.

A Causes page may look typical to those of us who spend all day playing with flashy Wen 2.0 startups... but to some of these non-profits its quite revolutionary. Cause pages come with actionable video (which gets you involved while the video is playing) and donation forms with your saved information. Blogs, news, event updates can of course also be aggregated into the page as well as photo's and video.

Individual participation is also tracked via personal profiles, which is unique to any attempted non-profit web 2.0 feet I have ever seen.

And, of course, there is a CauseCast widget which individuals can embed into their already existing social network to draw people to the cause of their choice and show off how they are helping change the world. The widgets Scott showed on stage actually look kind of cool and are of course highlighted with the celebrity or leader associated with said cause. Via the widget you can see all things you see on CauseCast such as, how much money has been raised and who is supporting such and such a cause.

And here is where CauseCast's business model comes in. Included with the widgets is not only the celebrity that supports the non-profit but also a brand. So you see both the celebrity and the brand that support a cause. Scott thinks this is a magic combination, especially for the brand.

According Scott, "social responsibility is really important for companies, in fact they are freaking out about it." Scott quotes a recent "unnamed" survey that says two brands being equal, 90 percent of people asked would actually switch from one brand to another if one of them supports a cause and one of them does not."

Right now the widget seems pretty generic, not related to a specific cause and only available for either your blog or Myspace but I am sure that will change with time.

While Scott hopes that people will flock to CauseCast to support causes another incentive to join is to accumulate the cleverly dubbed Kudo Points. You do not get Kudo points only for giving money. Users collect Kudo points by being active in the CauseCast Community. Simply publicly support a cause, sign a petition, invite friends or upload media. Simply put Kudo points award you for your participation and with Kudo points you can go to the Kudo Marketplace and acquire prizes such as an exclusive MP3, shoes and other cool stuff. Yet another way to tie brands into causes.

But if you are in it for the giving you can also put your Kudo points toward real-life kudo's and give them over to some of the charities such as a via micro-loan on Kiva or donate a baby goat to a family in Guatemala through Heifer.

I am sorry to say, however, that you cannot acquire the baby goat as a prize for yourself.

In all seriousness, the marketplace will be opening soon so start collecting your Kudo points now.

CauseCast.org is currently working with such foundations associated with Jennifer Lopez, Matthew Modine and world renowned slave hunter Aaron Cohen. At its start Causecast launches with 30 organizations such as Kiva, The Humane Society and Witness. It plans on adding 10 non-profits a month.

Scott put it pretty beautifully at the end. "We think there is power in the simplicity. Web 1.0 was really about building the skeleton, the bones of the internet. Web 2.0 is really about putting muscle and meat on the bones. And what we think is that with CauseCast, we are brining the heart."

Ok everybody, give a collective "awwww." If I were on a date with Ryan Scott, I totally would have gone out with him again :-).

Technorati Tags: causecast, generation rescue, heifer, hiefer, jenny mccarthy, kiva, witness

Activism | Non-Profits
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