Looking for the charity apps from our 2010 In the Spirit of Giving roundup? That list captured an early wave of iPhone experiments: turning store check-ins, a virtual village and small payments into support for good causes. The original downloads are no longer listed in the US App Store under the five app IDs we checked on October 15, 2026. One familiar service, VolunteerMatch, now has a clear destination: Idealist’s volunteer opportunities.
Where VolunteerMatch users can go today
VolunteerMatch and Idealist merged in January 2025, and their shared platform launched on September 8, 2025. Idealist’s official merger FAQ explains the transition, including which older accounts were migrated. Visiting volunteermatch.org now takes visitors to Idealist.
On your iPhone, open the volunteer search in your browser and search by a keyword, skill or interest. Read the organization’s requirements and contact details before applying. This is the current web destination for finding opportunities; it is not a download link for the old VolunteerMatch iPhone app.
The five apps in the original roundup
Our archived December 2010 article described these products. The following summaries refer to how they worked then, rather than to features or donation arrangements available today.
- CauseWorld: store check-ins earned “karma points” that users could direct toward causes supported by sponsors.
- Raise the Village: a village-building game connected virtual purchases with support for Kapir Atiira, Uganda.
- VolunteerMatch: an iPhone companion for finding nearby volunteer opportunities and sharing them with others.
- Tipping Bucket: a small-donation model in which projects had funding targets and deadlines.
- Make Poverty History: a paid app offering white-band wallpapers while supporting the campaign described in the original review.
Checking an old app before downloading
A matching name does not establish that a newer app comes from the same organization. Check the developer and the organization’s own website. Our US catalog check returned no entries for these five original IDs; it does not establish availability in every country or on devices where an app was previously installed. Old prices, fundraising promises and donation totals should be treated as historical information.
For apps currently appearing in Apple’s charts, browse our iPhone App Store rankings.
Image credit: Idealist’s official 2025 merger announcement, showing the Idealist and VolunteerMatch logos. The image represents the organizations, not the interface of the 2010 iPhone app.