Charity Miles: Move and Earn Money for Charity

Charity Miles is a free app that donates money to a charity of your choosing (they have twenty you can pick from including Feeding America, Wounded Warrior Project and Habitat for Humanity) for every mile you walk, run or bike. Bikers earn 10¢ a mile and walkers and runners earn 25¢ a mile, up to Charity Miles’ initial $1,000,000 sponsorship pool. The app tracks you via GPS and is very accurate, so hit the pavement and take it for a spin.

My run yesterday raised $1.08 for Stand Up To Cancer. While a dollar might not seem much, for Feeding America, $1 = 8 meals. If you are going to move around, open the app on your phone and let your workout benefit a good cause.

Interview: Christine Lemke, AchieveMint Co-Founder, Making Healthy Choices Fun and Rewarding

AchieveMint is a multidimensional platform that not only aggregates your data from various health and lifestyle technologies (i.e. steps taken as measured by Fitbit, healthy places visited and checked in through foursquare) but additionally takes that information and uses it to reward users for healthy habits. Simply, do healthy activities tracked on mobile or web applications and earn AchieveMint points which leads to cash rewards for reaching your goals. The Company started when a few co-founders came together to discuss creating a system to track and incentivize healthy behavior as a way to improve their various health goals.

AchieveMint’s Christine Lemke, who focuses on product and operations, explains it as “There are already apps that monitor your weight and steps taken that are widely adopted. The world doesn’t need yet another one of those apps, however we saw that if there was an incentive attached to those apps, users have more loyalty in using them and ultimately improve their health.”

There has been a lot of interest from consumers who want to use AchieveMint but the company is adding users and accepting invites in a controlled and steady manner. They want to make sure that they are providing the best rewards and experience for users.

When I synced my Fitbit to the website, I was delighted to see that it pulled my historical data and gave me credit for my distance covered in early December.

The Company is offering points not only for exercise and weight loss, but also for spreading news about health. For example, soon you can earn points for tweeting and sharing healthy articles on social media websites. AchieveMint wants to work with all types of lifestyle businesses, including recipe sites and forums like Pinterest – giving points to the user for reading and promoting healthy tips.

What else can we expect going forward? Christine acknowledges that they want to make the rewards more comprehensive and not just cash based. This could mean anything from donating your earnings to a favorite charity to getting discounts on fitness gear, a nice meal or a spa day.

The Company is very focused on big data, namely sifting through all the data that is collected on you and analyzing it to get a view on which apps have what type of affect on your lifestyle. From this, AchieveMint will be able to focus on what motivates you most based on your past behavior (i.e. a certain goal or a leaderboard). Taking that knowledge, AchieveMint can create a plan for you, sort of like a “personal trainer in a box,” suggesting which activities or path to take to get back on track if you find yourself in a trough.

I certainly like the company and if you can secure a coveted invite (sign up today!) there is no reason not to use AchieveMint to help track your fitness goals and earn rewards while doing so. As Christine summarized, “At the end of the day, you improve what you can measure and we want to provide that central dashboard to aggregate your physical and social activity. We can then use that data to help people improve their quality of life through healthy living on a daily basis.”

stickK: How Well Does Money Motivate?

As discussed in an August post on stickK and GymPact, money is one motivator that is becoming more prominent in health and wellness.

As I described previously: On stickK.com, when you don’t hit your workout goals or weight goals for the week, your credit card gets charged and money is sent to a person or an organization you initially select. If you hit your weekly goal, no money is lost or gained.

After my post I was asked to be the receiver of funds for a diet challenge. For every week a pound was not lost, I would get $5.00. Here is the feedback my friend gave after the program was over:

• Program worked really well, but she set an unrealistic goal for herself and couldn’t modify it midway.
• She wanted to get to a certain weight by a specific date but the site changed it so the goal became more exact – to lose 11 lbs in 11 weeks, one pound a week. This meant if she had a bad week she would be penalized.
• If she was to do it again, it would be for a shorter time period – 6 to 8 weeks, not 11.
• Would she set it up to pay out more money? No.
• Her biggest change: Users should get a pass week (to stay flat in weight loss) on their goal if there is a holiday or event in the middle of the program. Her birthday was in the middle of her challenge, and after a slip, she couldn’t get back on track.