Non-Profit Blockchain Based Charity

[Dr Charles]

Hello Everyone,

I have an idea that I believe in but I am looking for some participants to help move the project forward. I have been active in the Bitcoin community since early 2010, joining this forum in 2011. I have rode the ups and downs of poor altcoin investments, cloud mining losses, hardware/vaporware companies (I am still waiting on my Alpha-T hardware o_o) and everything in-between. Throughout the last few years, even with tons of time and money invested with little to show for it, I still believe in Bitcoin and ultimately the blockchain possibilities that can change how we currently operate most businesses/markets.

I am not here seeking investments but rather help in launching a non-profit blockchain based charity. Ultimately, every charity needs a board of advisers to oversee operations and I thought this might be a good place to start. I went to my local SCORE location (https://www.score.org/) and when I mentioned Bitcoin/blockchain, eyes glazed over and I got questions about drugs and silk road and that's when I knew I was in the wrong place...

Again.. I am just looking for idea feedback or people who would be interested in moving forward with this idea and/or helping to register and go through the process of establishing the 501(c)3 as a board member.

My idea is that I would like to launch a charity/non-profit type organization that operates on the blockchain for transparency and low overhead/admin costs. All contributions would be documented on the blockchain so contributors can follow the money. Additionally, anyone who would contribute would have two avenues to choose from in regards to where the money goes. Below are my initial thoughts but I am more than open to feedback or suggestions...

1) Anyone who contributes, regardless of contribution size, would be eligible to vote on a monthly basis as to which cause the monthly accrued contributions would go to. I would like to find a way for those votes to be documented on the blockchain as well so everything is transparent.

2) For those not interested in a voting based system, they could just contribute and note what cause they would like to contribution to go to. I feel the initial question to this statement would be "Why wouldn't we just contribute directly to the cause we wanted instead of a pass-through organization?" To that question I have several responses and I would be happy to get into them if you care enough to respond to this thread.  

For anyone who has done research on where your money goes when you donate to most of the well-known charities out there, it is disturbing to see how much of every $1 actually goes to support the cause that the money was initially raised for. Just do some research for yourself... it is disheartening....

https://www.charitywatch.org
https://www.charitynavigator.org
http://www.givewell.org/

I have two ideas how how to structure this organizing in terms of where the contributing dollars go... but again open to suggestions.

1) 100% of all contributed funds be issued directly to the cause voted upon. For this option, I, as well as any other board participants, would work for free. I will personally cover the cost of setting up and registering the organizing as a 501(c)3 and building the website, most likely through P2P lending. The organization would have to run on donations in the long term.

2) 99% of contributed funds would be issued directly to the cause voted upon. The 1% remaining would be used for website hosting fees, marketing, etc.

By using the blockchain as a backbone for the organization, a lot of the admin/infrastructure costs could be cut out entirely.


Any feedback on this post, positive or negative, would be much appreciated. I am located in North Carolina so if anyone is interested in meeting to discuss further options, I would be ecstatic to do that as well. I graduated from Business School so I understand the workings of a business but all my education is based around making money... not giving it so this is new to me. I look forward to hearing from some of you that might be interested.

[Iranus]

Great idea.  The most important reason why you would have a blockchain based charity is transparency.

With fiat charities, it's so much harder to follow the money.  With a blockchain, you have the choice to independently verify everything - that the charity owns the address that you're sending to, that different people own the addresses that the charity is sending to (and if the charity puts work on it it's much easier to prove without doubt exactly who you're sending to and why).

It would also take away people's excuses not to donate to charity, related to how little they actually spend on the causes (although personally I think the charities are often investing it in advertising and general investments so that the cause gets more money in the long term).

[BitGiveOrg]

Hi - You might be interested in BitGive (founded in 2013 and the first bitcoin 501c3) and our GiveTrack donation platform (coming in BETA soon)

https://bitgivefoundation.org/

https://bitgivefoundation.org/2016/12/givetrack-launch-and-new-video/

Thanks!

BitGive

[Joel_Jantsen]

->Great Idea!
->The only one reason it wouldn't work out for : Lot of people don't think like you and everything doesn't count in terms of donation and charity.Money,at the end of the day gets things going.
->To get the idea developed,you need a huge investment for developers and other resources.
->Once it's developed,you will still need developers for support.
->1% would really cover costs of everything ? I doubt it.
 

[Dr Charles]

Hi - You might be interested in BitGive (founded in 2013 and the first bitcoin 501c3) and our GiveTrack donation platform (coming in BETA soon)

https://bitgivefoundation.org/

https://bitgivefoundation.org/2016/12/givetrack-launch-and-new-video/

Thanks!

BitGive

Interesting! thanks for sharing, I have not heard of BitGive. Is there a way to track all donations directly through the blockchain? How much of every $1 donated goes to the causes you support?

->Great Idea!
->The only one reason it wouldn't work out for : Lot of people don't think like you and everything doesn't count in terms of donation and charity.Money,at the end of the day gets things going.
->To get the idea developed,you need a huge investment for developers and other resources.
->Once it's developed,you will still need developers for support.
->1% would really cover costs of everything ? I doubt it.
 

Joel, thanks for your feedback. Regarding development, I have the technical aptitude to do most development myself in terms of the website and backbone, I would need some support in terms of finding a creative blockchain solution to track all donations and you are correct in terms of needing on-going developer support.

1% would cover some expenses but not all (mostly website hosting/domain fees and some minor marketing). I have done a great job in the past with organic marketing techniques to grow website traffic and authority while spending very little in upfront capital. While the organic approach can take much longer and involves a sense of hustle, it keeps overhead costs low and the ability to pass-through the highest percentage of donations high. The rest would most likely rely on donations to the organization. These are just some initial thoughts I had and your feedback is much appreciated. The donation ratio and/or structure might need to be adjusted but I think it could work with the right participation.

[Joel_Jantsen]

--snipe--

Tell you what,open-source the application.
You can get the donations and find creative people to collaborate without getting paid.Only problem is, code will be available for re-use.Being a developer myself,I always look out for open-source projects to contribute.

[Dr Charles]

Open source makes sense to me... especially with the initial thought of the project looking to get started with little to no capital expenditure other than the legal filings and website. The blockchain application would require the most work and that is where my weakest point would be.

[OpenBitLab]

Hi Dr Charles, great idea, I personally appreciate your effort and your vision.

I'd like to inform you that even in Italy there is a startup called Helperbit that has the aim to bring transparency and efficiency in the charity and humanitarian sector using blockchain and bitcoin.
Legambiente, a famous Italian NGO, is the first big non profit organization in that country to accept bitcoin donations and to use the multisignature wallet provided by the startup.
They started a crowdfunding campaign to help local young entrepreneurs affected by the earthquake in Central Italy and at the moment they raised more than 9.5 bitcoin, autonomously managing the bitcoin wallet and offering full transparency of the economic flows. Everybody can see how much they received and how they spent the funds because Helperbit developed also a tool to notarize documents in the blockchain, linking the invoices to each transaction that the NGO makes.

At the moment Helperbit is looking for more non profit organizations that want to be transparent (Link here)
Bitcoin fund for Italy earthquake: https://helperbit.com/donateit.php
Helperbit presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO4bn4e7A2A&t

I hope it is helpful to you!

[btcbug]

I was directed here. Here is a topic I posted regarding a similar idea. The theme being transparency/accountability in regards to crowd funding and investing.

1) Anyone who contributes, regardless of contribution size, would be eligible to vote on a monthly basis as to which cause the monthly accrued contributions would go to. I would like to find a way for those votes to be documented on the blockchain as well so everything is transparent.

2) For those not interested in a voting based system, they could just contribute and note what cause they would like to contribution to go to. I feel the initial question to this statement would be "Why wouldn't we just contribute directly to the cause we wanted instead of a pass-through organization?" To that question I have several responses and I would be happy to get into them if you care enough to respond to this thread. 

As a non-believer in politics, I hate the idea of voting to decide how funds are spent. 

Charity by nature is a voluntary contribution, whereas something like welfare is not. Voting in Democracy is there to hide and confuse the reality that it is just majority rule.

If people are already contributing to your charity, they are simply voting with their Dollars or Bitcoins.

The point of transparency is to enable people to make better decisions. If they support you financially it's because they like the cause and trust you. If you make poor decisions and squander their money, they can just stop contributing and transparency allows them to evaluate that easily.

I just feel that the voting thing is possibly over-complicating the issue. Do supporters really need to make management decisions by voting? I don't know.

[Nagadota]

I just feel that the voting thing is possibly over-complicating the issue. Do supporters really need to make management decisions by voting? I don't know.

While the decision of what charity to choose is down to the user, the charity will never have the exact thing that they want.  It's a bit like democracy - you could become a representative if you wanted, but most people will instead support whoever most closely aligns themselves with their views even if the two differ on some minor issues.

With a charity, which is a voluntary contribution, it's nice for people to feel that they have control over the charity - it's like a direct democracy.  No one actually has to vote, it's just a useful option and then if you didn't vote, there's no point in complaining about where your contribution went.

[Dr Charles]

I think these are some great points being raised, thank you very much for sharing. It is by no means a perfect, or even complete, idea but I knew I would get better feedback here than my local SCORE.

[BitGiveOrg]

Sorry I don't hang out on here much.

BitGive has been around for 4 years and as a startup has evolved a lot over time.

The short answer is that when we did charity campaigns, we had separate wallets for them and 100% of the funds went to them. BitGive has it's own wallet as well and people can contribute to our org to keep it going!

Now and for the past few years, we have been 100% focused on building GiveTrack, which is a donation platform on the blockchain to allow charities to share financial transparency with their donors. We are working hard on the MVP and hope to release it soon.

Please find out more on our website https://bitgivefoundation.org/.  We are a small team and need to stay focused on our mission and don't spend much time here.

Thanks! Connie

[surus]

I was waiting long time for this idea to come to life. The world needs charity on blockchain, ironical it is hard to profit from it, that is why it hasn't yet been done. I am definitely a supporter, let us know if you need any help

[Grant Hero]

This is great!  We love to see more people and projects supporting social good and charitable giving.  We've created Grant Hero, a platform that enables donors to create and award direct personal grants for complete autonomy and transparency.  Additionally, the GIVE Coin, a cryptonized asset based upon ETH ERC20 that anchors giving data direct to the blockchain.  Our goal is to create an ecosystem of partners, merchants, and foundations that accept the GIVE Coin as a method of payment / donation as well.

You can find more information here:  http://www.granthero.ngo

Website: http://granthero.ngo
ANN: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2132508

Best of luck to you!

[anton_lotos]

Score is mostly retired old-timers, not so crypto friendly. However, you might try finding a mentor via online channels--there are some mentors that will be more crypto friendly than you'll find locally.

[R.Hasan]

I would describe myself with a desire to overcome poverty and injustice with my skills and care for the well-being of Ultra-Poor worldwide. I am willing to help you out with in this project

[DreamsLedger]

Hello, how are you doing with this project? how advanced is it? we are interested in helping.

Best Regards.

[Portfolir Dev]

charity and blockchain, my two favorite subjects!

[Dr Charles]

Hello, how are you doing with this project? how advanced is it? we are interested in helping.

Best Regards.

Never got a chance to put a good team together so it is still on the back burner. If you have some ideas or are interested in helping get it off the ground, I would be open to discussing it for sure.

[LoveInThisCryptoClub]

How do you make money off this Non-Profit Charity?