NEW YORK, Nov. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Budge, the only social, mobile micro-donation platform, today announced the launch of its new iPhone application that provides a fun, simple way to donate to charity. With Budge, users challenge their friends to everyday activities or play the games they already love on behalf of a meaningful cause. The loser of the challenge then donates a preset micro-donation to one of a handful of relevant charities.

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"Budge was born out of our vision that giving to charity should be a fun and super easy process," said Hillan Klein, CEO and co-founder, Budge. "With this goal in mind, we set out to build a new culture in charitable giving specifically aimed at Gen Y by combining social gaming with micro-donations. We want to educate people that it's okay to give in small amounts--casual deeds can truly have a meaningful impact."

Budge disrupts traditional roadblocks to philanthropy by encouraging people to use their regular daily activities and interactions with friends as a way to donate to charity. In doing so, Budge has created a simple and engaging way for people to support the causes they care about.

A strong focus has been to create a beautiful and easy to use platform that people will enjoy using. Once downloaded, users can easily invite or find friends through Facebook, or simply connect with those who are already using the app. From there, it takes only a few seconds to create a "budge," select a charity and challenge their friends. "Budges" can be anything – a game of chess, meeting for coffee, a pizza-eating contest, you name it. The winning "budge" can be published to Facebook, with the loser donating to charity. To better promote the social act of giving, the app features a "like" feature as well as a news feed for following friends' actions.

After a successful beta launch, Budge currently has members actively "budging" and donating in the United States and Australia. To date, the company has raised $1 million in funding from influential investors in Australia including Square Peg Ventures; Tony Faure, former CEO of Yahoo!SouthAsia, NineMSN and chairman of Pollenizer; and Matt Rockman, co-founder of SEEK.com.au. Additionally, the company has cultivated partnerships with key nonprofits including African Services, BreastCancer.org, EngenderHealth, Envirolution, National MS Society (NY Chapter), The United Nations World Food Program USA and READ Global.

"Budge is creating a cultural shift in micro-philanthropy," said Paul Bassatt, principal, Square Peg Ventures. "Currently, charitable giving is at an inflection point--struggling to engage younger generations while also grappling with how best to revive a stagnant industry. With its seamless social mobile user experience, we think Budge will help power this new era of philanthropy and we're excited to be part of this opportunity."

Budge is available for free from the App Store.

About Budge

Budge is a private, venture-backed mobile micro-donation platform that makes giving to charity fun. Budge allows people to play with their friends and give to charity at the same time. Budge is available for free in the App Store. For more information, please visit www.thebudge.com.

SOURCE Budge