Groupon Grassroots Launches Social Venture Week, Offers Groupon Payments™ Service To Social Venture Partners And Members Of Social Enterprise Alliance

Today Groupon Grassroots, the philanthropic program at Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN), announced the launch of Social Venture Week and the expansion of Groupon Payments™ to all Groupon Grassroots venture partners and Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) members. For the next 14 days, Groupon will feature a series of social ventures across the country. Additionally, all social venture partners will now be offered the Groupon Payments tool, which launched in September 2012 to Groupon merchants, providing a better way to accept credit cards at the guaranteed lowest overall rates.

Groupon Grassroots routinely runs 10-15 campaigns a week with local nonprofits across the US, totaling just over 500 in 2012. Social Venture Week specifically features a collection of social ventures: For-profit, mission-driven businesses that seek to provide sustainable solutions to achieve a social objective.

The campaign will showcase a variety of causes, ranging from youth mentorship and disability programs to employment training and upcycle innovation. The social ventures in the series include:

• Aspire CoffeeWorks
• Project Repat
• Humphrey’s Street Coffee Co.
• Women’s Bean Project
• Senda Athletics
• Bright Endeavors
• Better Way Imports
• Raise5
• Callie’s Coffee

Additionally, all partnering social ventures now have access to Groupon Payments. The service is built into the Groupon Merchants app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and is backed by a guarantee to be the lowest cost option to accept credit cards. As credit card fees can be a burden for mission-driven organizations, Groupon Payments relieves that strain and simplifies the process, featuring:

• Swiped transactions - MasterCard, Visa and Discover (1.8% plus $0.15 per transaction) and American Express (based on industry category)
• No hidden costs or monthly fees

Participants also receive credit card deposits in bank accounts overnight.

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