It’s no surprise that nonprofits operate on shoestring-sized budgets and are constantly working to recruit a new generation of millennial donors. But Water is Life, a charity focused on providing clean water resources, found an interesting way to hack the popular mobile payment app Venmo, which could open the floodgates to creative and stealthy digital marketing from other nonprofits.
Last week, the charity teamed up with Deutsch New York to zero in on millennials who use peer-to-peer app Venmo to send each other money. But there was a problem: Venmo doesn’t let brands advertise on the app—likely because seeing a flood of ads alongside credit card statements would scare off its users.
