Bitcoin Forum

Hi Fellows,
I'm planning to build an local online charity where people can vote for the case their money should be spent. I'm going to build it using Ethereum smart contracts & Solidity, so it can continue to work autonomously.
Would you please sharing your thoughts on that? Introducing similar services(if any)? Or your useful suggestions on how to improve its functionality/features.
As a side question: Do you think building it on Bitcoin infrastructure would generate any advantages?

Been discussed already, recently.  People are more interested in donating directly to charities themselves.

The project sound intrusting, but as vod say, people trust more in donating directly to charities themselves because this way they are sure the money go to the right place, what will happen if someone ad a fake charity addy to your engine and bump that one to get the money. I think a system like that could be rigged, so, is hard to trust this way.

Uhum...
Thank you for your feedback. Its interesting that Trust is the major challenge I'm being warned about, either here or face to face discussions. If things continue to go as its been until now, I guess I should stop working on it.

I think you should focus on how to gain trust for your system more than pay attention to the payment system.
Voting systems seem easy to manipulate especially as you are talking that users will be anonymous, how can you put restrictions to prevent manipulation?
Alternatively, try to create a way to make payments with donation platforms that do not accept Bitcoin (such as MOON extension.)

Trust would really be the main issue regarding to these charity thingy yet there were lots of frauds related to this which it no surprising where people

much preferred on directly donate into the institution itself rather than on passing it or having some parties which involves in the middle.If you are really in passion
with this motive then you should do things transparent as possible but as said this would be a major challenge.

It doesn't mean that you should stop working on it, you should just change your scope IMO.
You don't need to make things needlessly complicated just for the sake of it.

Look, wanting to get more money to charities is a good thing and if you're really passionate about that, then make it work somehow.
Why not launch a project where you promote different charities, while giving visitors the chance to donate directly to those charities?

The end goal is to get more funds to charities right? Then make that happen!

Thank you all!

Sure, will be looking for a way to help charities to gain benefits from crypto in a way or other. Making crypto-payment-plugins or helping some gain traffic.

Thank you for your contribution.

Don't stop working on it, but keep that in your mind. Why would people donate to your charity when there are more trusted ones that have already been running for years and have shown an improvement in people's lives already (eg, world vision). There are also a lot of charities that accept bitcoin, just from the top of my head, watsi, save the children and the water project.

There are a lot of horrible people that see charities as a way to defraud people, as long as you can convince and show your community that you are not one of them, you'll be set. If you want to build a charity in a shareholder sort of way, where the people involved could vote for what cause, you'll need to have some trusted take care of the money, and have a portfolio of helping people out.

For example, if you used some of your own money to make a difference to people's lives, that would be a great way to show that you are invested. Even spending your own money to build working smart contracts, websites, social media is viable.

A bitcoin/blockchain-based charity definitely seems interesting though, doing something for the greater good whilst also working with new technology sounds like a dream come true.

With that statement, you are just showing us that you are not serious after all. Of course, there's always an obstacle, there's a challenge, lack of support on the early phase, etc. along the way. You have to create something special out of those challenges.

Remember that any project involving "CHARITIES" will surely have lots of concern by others. It's a serious matter. Don't know on what stage you are now on that proposed future project you are aiming to build but if you are really eager to push it, then just push it.

I suggest to list down all concerns then worked on how to solve it. It will take time.

- Why do you want to get into the entire ETH and Smart Contracts complication? Just create a bitcoin address where your local bitcoin holders can donate in bitcoin? The money coming on the address and the money being distributed to the charity can be tracked easily on the block explorer.

That seems much simpler indeed and if OP wants to add another layer of trust, they could also work with a multisig address where he adds another trusted party, which would be needed to actually spend funds.
Heck, wouldn't it even be possible to automatically spend the funds from the one address in OP's control to different charities? Maybe even tie those mechanics to a public poll?

I know that's already complicating it, but I suspect it wouldn't be that hard to write a script like that. (could be completely wrong of course, I'm just spitballing ideas here)

Keep in mind that most charities need cash, not crypto.  So whatever the solution is, cash should reach the charity with relative ease.  Sending Bitcoin to a small NGO in India for example, has no relevance, since they have no way to convert to cash.