Bitcoin Forum

see

https://decrypt.co/9966/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-adoption-ngo-chaarity-report


The real question is whether the NGOs immediately sell their crypto for fiat, or whether they then use it to buy services in the target sector using crypto. lf they did the latter, then adoption would soar in places like Africa.

I was working with a non-governmental organization in my younger days and we were supported by funding agencies based in the USA and Canada. I know how NGOs can be making a good impact direct with the people and how they are using a much better approach to development as compared to that implemented by the government.

The NGO sector can do well to be working with and using cryptocurrency as they can be accepting funds or assets coming from anywhere in the globe without the usual hindrances in the international transfer of money and resources. While the volume of transactions with NGOs can be insignificant for now I am sure that there is a good potential here.

Now, whether the receiving NGOs converted the cryptocurrency to cash or use them to buy good/services, it does not matter to me. What is important is that we now have a good option and let's hope that a growing number of charities and developmental organizations will continue and even expand their cryptocurrency exposure.

I doubt most of the NGO's have enough resources to fund their current and incoming projects by using fiat currencies. Thus, they have the option to exchange or convert their cryptos to their local currency on the latter. And I dont have anything against it. Nevertheless, its still a good event for further crypto currency adoption globally.

It shouldn't just be limited to receiving donations.

I think that where NGOs can really benefit is if they can somehow partner up with a big blockchain firm to provide banking access to disadvantaged groups, especially in countries where the banking system is severely underdeveloped. I remember the case study of M-Pesa IIRC a while back that worked fairly well.

That way, these underbanked and unbanked people can access the global forex and labour markets (if they have the necessarily means to doing so) with the help of cryptos at a low cost, and an internet access may not even be needed through a third party SMS wallet service.

It is a small step but still could influence the growth of adoption. I guess for an NGO they will not store their crypto funds for long unless they are knowledgeable on how they can utilise and profit from it. By using crypto as their medium of donations will also speed up their financial transactions in the organisation.

It would depend on the rules for charities in those countries, if they would be allowed to hold currencies for exchanging later. Even if they are, it would depend on their operations. If they are always short on cash they'd probably convert cryptos as they come in to fund their day-to-day activities.

Cryptos already benefit these charities anyway with the transfer of funds. Donors can afford to send more if the cost of doing so is less.

this is if the adoption rate in Africa is much higher that they can see service providers are accepting BTC. i don't see much news about the adoption in Africa though so i'm not sure.  good to see some enthusiast are teaching how crypto and wallets work for the NGOs. how about they let Angelina Jolie do it for them, she use to be active in this field. the word will spread quickly than just let Song do it.

I agree! I guess one of the main benefits of accepting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as a source fund for donations is that it will provide an accessible, fast, transparent and efficient remittance channel that will  further encourage donators to donate more and influence other prospective donators to do the same.

In fact, some big philanthropists who wants to help any cause wants to remain anonymous as much as possible, and they would find the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of sending donations very appealing! As such, I think this would drive more adoption in the charity sector.

From the article it is clear that NGO's have known about the cryptocurrency. When someone gives donation in terms of cryptocurrency, the other have begun to accept cryptocurrencies. Out of the total only 12.5% have known about the blockchain technology and the way it gets used. This could be helpful only if the people are educated to use it.

It is good to see Africa leading in all aspects, particularly they are the one with good understanding about blockchain technology compared to Europe, Latin America and Asia. This can be a beginning for the rebuild of new Africa.

Donations in Bitcoin is much better than fiat because they don't cost much. Aside from that, there is what we call as donor's tax. This might vary from one country to another but if that is applied, that will lessen the donation amount. With Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, we can possibly get away from this donor's tax and maximize the amount we donated. Every satoshi will go to the beneficiaries.

They will convert those cryptocurrency donations most probably. Depending on the specific country in Africa, but I guess it is very hard to buy using cryptocurrencies in depressed areas where donations are largely focused. 

There are really sectors that are benefited by the smooth transactions that cryptocurrencies have to offer. As the adoption  in cryptocurrencies in physical stores or business aren't that wide yet, depending on countries and governments they are up too. I think they purely convert it to fiat without the risk of lowering its value any time soon, besides they have tons of product needed to operate their organization. Nevertheless, whatever transaction they doing it to converting or exchanging products from companies or stores that accept crypto I'm already thankful that they are helping the needy, I have some charities helping and I would like to rely them this solution in transactions since they are not using it yet.

Many of crypto donations are facilitated by crypto services which turns the received coins into fiat on receiving and provides the receiver in fiat deducting some commission. For a multinational NGO, redeeming crypto in the target country would have been a better option but the problem comes in exchanging them in the target country as most of them are third world countries and have nearly zero adoption or full restrictions on crypto use.

Nice find! It's encouraging NGOs use bitcoin to further their goals.

However, if i had to speculate i imagine that NGOs immediately sell their crypto for fiat in order to maintain operations. Speaking from experience with working with an NGO directly, i can say that not all NGOs are rich and are often hard pressed by budgetary concerns. Hopefully in the future more services open up to crypto, especially in the social sector, and NGOs spend directly on these instead of converting to fiat.

Well, that's another good news for everyone. In NGOs part, it would be beneficial since more people might be able to donate since bitcoin transactions are quite fast and fees are minimal, and there's no limit for a transfer. It would also promote bitcoin to increase aware percentage in the population of the benefits and concept behind cryptocurrencies and its differences to having a centralized system.

I think it does matter. Suppose they use the crypto they receive to pay locals in crypto - that way you start to build up an economy based on crypto. For parts of the world that are unbanked, this could be revolutionary.

I think one of the main reasons why they accept a crypto donation is because it's easy to set up, and everyone in the world can use it. Unlike Visa or bank transfer, crypto has a relatively low fee, which is an excellent thing if you want to donate with ease.

I doubt they start accepting crypto just because there are a lot of crypto users over there, or because they want to build a crypto-based economy because that's too difficult. Do you believe local people over there have enough phone and internet connection to use crypto in their daily lives? Not to mention that most resources are still priced with fiat.

And what would those unbanked people do on global markets? They don't have any skills to do freelance jobs or work remotely, their best shot is some extremely low paying work like solving captchas or data entry, but those things will get automated eventually, and also you can't improve anyone's life significantly with those earnings - it's only enough to just survive.

Yay more adoption. Sadly though, NGO's venturebon crypto would be fraught with difficulties because of the amount of funding they can invest on crypto. I believe they should be holding a part and using another to fund their operational at the moment. Financial problems are an almost always occurence NGO's and they really need funds to continue their operations.

Well, why wouldn't it? It is literally charity so there is actually no reason not to get bitcoins for it. You can pay them in any shape or form, most charities even take your old stuff to give to less fortunate so you can help them in many ways, so of course crypto will get more and more adopted in charity world and be accepted in all of them.

Obviously, there could be legal hurdles they would have to overcome, it is not easy to accept bitcoins all around the world but at the same time if you can find the legal ways to accept bitcoin then you can totally accept it as a means to add another option of accepting global money.

Think about a place that does charity in some African nation, accepting dollars or euros would be difficult, accepting any other non-major currency would be even harder but if you start to accept bitcoin or any other crypto then you can accept money anywhere around the world which would make your job easier.

As long as charities accept Bitcoin directly it is an extremely powerful tool, but when they use third party payment processors things will be different, especially after what happened with BitPay.

The main reason for them to accept Bitcoin through a payment processor is because they are in need of fiat. When they accept Bitcoin directly they need local buyers to sell to if they want to liquidate their donations.

I doubt registered/legal charities will bother without a payment processor. Just imagine the hundreds or thousands of inputs they have to consolidate would they accept Bitcoin themselves....

If charities have some partnership in crypto related store then it will be easy for them to sell their bitcoin, but in some countries, or in those distant areas that technology is a problem , it will be hard to do it. While it is helpful if sectors also knew how to adopt in technology, to reach more people who are willing to help in having bitcoin transactions,it is really an impressive solution just a need for a app where they can monitor and convert it to fiat or transfer in their bank so they can easily convert it to fiat.

My memory is a bit fuzzy from this, but I think there was a charity I found a couple months back that intergrated with coinpayments or bitpay and was able to accept BTC that way.

Charities are charities, and they are very tight with money and I don't think a lot of the mainstream ones would have the chance to even hold any BTC - they are probably forced to instantly transfer it into their fiat currency.

I was under the impression that NGO's should immediately sell it to fiat to get the ball rolling and address the issues that they wanted specially social issues.

Well there's nothing wrong using the crypto they raise and use to buy other services for their target sector, but I think it will be just redundant and could have a negative impact specially if they are in the field of humanitarian services, in my opinion.

This is good news. This means that a certain niche or sector is already opening up for cryptocurrency as a viable option. I used to consider only business establishments as the potential market for cryptocurrency. Charities were not within my radar. And now this news is clearly saying that Bitcoin is really acceptable even in the charity sector. I guess these cryptocurrencies will be exchanged for fiat to be able to be spent in the actual areas.

That would be great of course, but for me it's too good to be true. It's hard to persuade even educated people to use crypto, let alone uneducated ones, NGOs usually deal with. I would be glad to be mistaken on this matter, but I couldn't find any evidences of such economic activity so far.

As for me, NGOs wouldn't hold their Bitcoins for such a long time. They will definitely sell it right away for their necessities. I don't think it has a huge impact because they will exchange it into fiat to buy goods. However, crypto donations is another adoption which could make donating faster. I wish that there will be more charities that would accept crypto

You are not wrong. Generally speaking, the use outside the speculation spectrum is very limited. People here keep talking about adoption and how important it is, but I'm fairly sure that most of them don't actually use Bitcoin.

The hype behind adoption and use is just that there will be more people entering the space to drive the price up---mostly everything people here do and say has that fundamental driving their bullish adoption narrative.

Use will only take of when the price is stable, the cost of transaction is low, and people actually know how things work here. It's incredibly important to acknowledge how inconvenient crypto is today. It's not user friendly at all.

Crypto has been used bu NGOs for the longest of time. I remember in the Dogecoin community back in 2015, we have this Doge4Water campaign which helped deiiver potable and clean water in different parts of the Philippines and Africa. It was a good cause and I think it’s still continuing up until today, although in a different name and a wider scope of aid. I just hope though that services would coordinate with these NGOs and make their lives easier by accepting crypto payments. In that way there’d be actual use for crypto and also some much needed education regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

I loved this report because it points out one of the sectors of the world economy that crypto can truly disrupt and bring change to. Aids usually travel across borders and oceans from the funders to beneficiaries and in so doing it has to jump through countless hoops, crypto can ease this burden by being the much needed digital pipeline. Also, the aid sector is usually shrouded in mystery as in some instances there is no clear evidence that the donors' funds have been put to the intended use and this can be solved by deploying smart contracts.

The real challenge lies with developers and techies to build the much needed digital infrastructure that can aid this process by making exchanging and transferring of crypto assets easy for NGOs. This answers your question as to whether NGOs are selling their crypto for fiat as soon as they receive it or are they using it to pay for services, in Africa there are a few or next to none service providers who accept crypto as payment so NGOs here end up just exchanging as soon as they receive it. What is needed in infrastructure and simpler usability processes that makes adoption and acceptance easier.

To be fair all what NGOs want is money, so what is bitcoin? Money, currency just like USD, EURO and etc, only difference here is that bitcoin is also payment method and is on another level but after all it's money. To be fair I don't have much experience with NGOs but logically they will immediately sell their crypto for fiat to get usd or national currency and use it as needed. There is really no need to spend crypto without exchanges, it's not beneficial to look for services which accept only crypto because their prices may not be good.

Even the numbers are still small, the number of organizations who accept cryptocurrency and bitcoin climb up to 100%. It is an affirmation that the world of cryptocurrency is being widespread all over the world. Though I believe even Africa has the largest amount of donations and next is the Asia, still these countries are also few knowledge about the cryptocurrency. Maybe the NGO’s accepting the currency exchanging for fiat and buy material things like cloth and blanket, buy food and water, or anything that makes help the people in this very hour which is needed in some underprivileged places.
I believe because of activities related to cryptocurrency even for donations, and the widespread of the positive contribution of bitcoin. The acceptance and information regarding crypto all over places will proliferate in no time.

Well, that's really good to hear. In the way, I do believe that bitcoin will be able to recognize and used by a lot of people all over the country and also it will be a really good help to raise the economy of the said countries as well. This is a good impact on bitcoin because they use as a payment processor. Because Bitcoin has an easiest way of transferring money so even if their charity accepts fund world wild it is very easy to collect.

As of the moment, it is highly unlikely that they will utilize crypto to pay for goods and services to implement their program but I think they would convert it to fiat specifically in a currency  accepted in their area of operation. But the good news is, once crypto adoption becomes full blown, it is possible that an economy based in crypto will emerge!

Now to support this assumption, a recent news indicated that UNICEF is now accepting donations in the form of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum - this recognition on the use of cryptocurrencies by a U.N. program is a major milestone and a great step towards mainstream adoption!

I am very hopeful that in a span of several months or in course of over a year, UNICEF, will encourage its partner NGO's worldwide to adopt cryptocurrencies as a form of payment and a way to hasten the transfer of much needed funds in its missions worldwide. I guess UNICEF will also influence the perception of all U.N member nations towards cryptocurrency and might be convinced to embraced it. :)

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/10/08/6-billion-united-nations-agency-launches-bitcoin-ethereum-crypto-fund/

Related Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5191725.msg52713466#msg52713466

Raising funds from all over the globe in a decentralized manner is much more effective compared to raising the money in a centralized manner, which means involving numerous intermediaries who are unnecessary and also tap a global community who can contribute to their cause without worrying about cross border payments and a delay of raising funds in case of emergencies. Decentralization will make running of non-governmental organizations seamless and i believe this is the reason there is an increase of adoption of Bitcoin in the NGO Sector.

On the recent news Unicef is having their Cryptocurrency Fund for donations that will be made thru ether and bitcoin. Though Unicef is not considered as NGO but still accepting donations from individuals. It will be nice if NGO who don't have stable  support will accept also Cryptocurrencies besides there are available blockchain applications that can help them monitor the transactions and its them who will convert it to fiat. It can help them encourage more people all over the world to donate since easier transaction is now available.

While UNICEF is not an NGO itself, it still has an NGO committee and in essence operates like one. Sadly, i went to the UNICEF donation website and couldn't find an option to donate using crypto. Do you have a link to that crypto donation page?

In any case, i really am excited about more real world adoption for crypto. Nothing but more good to come.

That is indeed very good news!

Now we need people to actually donate using either bitcoin or ethereum, or we'll find these payment methods disabled in a few years if no money flows in via crypto.

UNICEF has partner NGO's worldwide that collaborates on its programs so in  essence, UNICEF has a more direct relationship on this local NGO's.


As per their press release UNICEF is now currently accepting crypto with the national committees of USA,France, Australia and New Zealand . I've just checked all these sites but if I'm not mistaken, I just found the New Zealand site actually ready to accept crypto donations - https://www.unicef.org.nz/donate-in-crypto .


If I have the means, I would gladly donate in anyway I can, hopefully soon! :)

Absolutely, You are right. Bitcoin adoption is rising in the NGO's sector because as we all know some governments in all countries are against bitcoin ( just like country of China, they are banning Alipay payment processor because of bitcoin collaboration) because of the reason that it's a threat to the government because they said that it is being used by drugs lords and criminals in their illegal transactions. But this is different from the Chinese government and we can consider as a good news.

It is not about crypto communities coming together and helping other less fortunate people out, it is about less fortunate people coming together and accepting crypto, that is the difference here. Now charities have seen that people who have crypto can dish out some money all around the world and they are using that as a way to make more money for their charities.

Somewhere in some Asian or African country where people are super poor, people are opening bitcoin accounts and getting money from all over the world. Normally there would be people in crypto community that would open a new charity and collect money and go help those people, now we don't have to bring the help to them, they bring the help to us which is awesome and would mean more money go towards good stuff.

It's a pity but I don't think they usually reinvest their Bitcoin or hodl like other Bitcoin investors.
Usually those who will invest with it or probably hold are  individuals who knows about the digital currency and these will be people from developing country.
Nevertheless, we can't stop appreciating the fact that the use of Bitcoin in NGOs brings massive exposure.

Very interesting article, and also a relatively new one. What is also important is that it was written by Michael del Castillo, a guy from the Forbes Staff. It's not that often we can see something like the following, coming from a Forbes Staff member:


Several years ago, similar words could come out only from a Bitcoin fan, so something is definitely changing for the better.

Its really good to see NGO's adopting digital currencies like bitcoin and contribute to the innovation of blockchain technology.We are aware of the fact that now most of the institutions like UN is also accepting btc as deposits feom the investors and others are also on the way.They might not have reserves for such currencies and exchange them in fiat immediately or later but its good they are helping others in any form of money they get.We can't argue on this topic.

Yeah, It's true that the NGO's is doing very well work for the humanitarian job around the world, not only that but also they are providing various type of support to the people who don't have anything, following my own experience working with some NGO's I know they are very willing to work for the poor and disable people around the world especially in the third world countries, I think it's good to sign that NGO's are adopting Bitcoin, It means a lot for the whole community, I think when people will see a various types of window it has then more people will come to this platform, so Bitcoin is not only for the profit purpose but also some humanitarian work here. day by day the sector of Bitcoin is getting bigger and the community is getting mobilised by the Bitcoin.