Hi All,
I am responding in here to a topic that was started in the Ivory Tower because I don't yet have the rank to post in there, but it is a topic that is interesting to me and that I think I have some meaningful contributions I could make. If this is not allowed, please let me know and I won't do it again - but I looked and didn't see any rule against it as far as I can tell.
The in there has the same subject, here's the link:
Charity Projects with CryptoWhat if someone developed a so-called Charity token, where in every donor was rewarded with some tokens. Then we could find some use cases for these tokens (first thing that comes to mind is something similar to airline miles, or loyalty points) which can be redeemed with various partner organizations. Does anyone think something like this has any potential?
I wanted to let you know that I've been working on something along these lines in my organization as one of the projects that we're incubating and launching, and explain a little bit about where we're at. My organization is just getting off the ground, but this is one of the first projects we're going to launch.
The project has a working name of "Bitcoin for Good". The goal of the project is two-fold: first, to raise funds for charities, and second, to increase adoption of Bitcoin in the non-profit organization market segment. I believe that crypto assets are a particularly well suited in the charity space for donations because many charities are international in nature and Bitcoin and other cryptos transcend national boundaries. In addition, organizations that have operations around the world, or that respond in disaster relief contexts, could really benefit from Bitcoin's ability to be transferred quickly anywhere on the planet. So these are two powerful features that would encourage adoption of cryptocurrency by charities.
The essence of the project is to provide an "Amazon Smile" like experience for donors. For those that aren't familiar with Amazon's charity effort, Amazon Smile is a program that allows Amazon.com shoppers to opt-in to any charity of their choosing (using the IRS master file in the U.S. and I believe similar registries in Canada and Europe). Amazon then donates 0.5% of the shopper's purchases to that charity. The charity does not need to register in advance with Amazon, all they need is 501(c)(3) status and to be listed on GuideStar, which is a repository for charity information. They've given tens of millions to charities through this seemingly small 0.5%. So, our project, Bitcoin for Good would do the same, only it would
make the payments to charities in Bitcoin. The project will distribute paper wallets that contain the contributions. We're going to do it in a secure way (still thinking about how to best accomplish this, probably two mailings to separate the public and private keys), of course. But the overall benefit to the crypto ecosystem is gaining adoption in a segment of the economy that has some unique benefits to be gained from crypto use. The average person on the street never, or hardly ever, has a need to send money half way around the world. But charities do it every day, and it can be difficult to accomplish from a logistical perspective, especially during times of crisis. Cryptocurrency is, in my view, a tailor-made solution for that problem. Currently, some charities literally stage cash in strategic locations around the world which is very expensive to store and protect. This could reduce the need to do that while actually making response times faster. Once we have this project implemented we will also be producing integrations for various shopping cart platforms and reaching out to large Internet retailers. I know that some retailers would be very inclined to implement a program like this if it was "turnkey" for them. They don't have the resources that Amazon does so it's difficult for them to enable customer-directed giving in the same form, so that's where Bitcoin for Good can be a benefit.
We have some other ideas for disaster relief using cryptocurrency but this is the first project in our incubator program. The other ones are more complicated, but I believe that in a heavy disaster scenario the ability to distribute mass amounts of cryptocurrency to individuals has huge potential. In areas that suffer huge natural disasters, one of the top priorities today is to restore cell service. After the hurricanes last summer in the Caribbean, many areas remained without electricity (many still are, in fact), but wireless service was restored quickly. In areas where banking infrastructure is down for weeks, cryptocurrency can be a perfect solution allowing people to be able to purchase what they need to repair their homes / eat / etc. The current FEMA solution of distributing prepaid debit cards has a big drawback when disasters have destroyed POS terminals and/or landline service isn't working (as many of those terminals still use landline or non-wireless internet). But moving to cryptocurrency transactions, that can be bought and sold from each other through smartphones, is a great way to help people get what they need to begin the process of recovering from a disaster. I think your idea to reward donors with some type of coin that they could redeem with partners is a great idea, it's an extra incentive for donating, and I know many retail/online partners that would offer benefits in exchange for publicity about their participation in the program (corporate responsibility).
Also, to your point about crypto people being charitable, I believe that there's many that have been very generous which is a really great thing about this field. Not everyone can give like the Pineapple Fund did, for example, but there are certainly people that come together to donate to causes or organizations they believe in which is outstanding. More of those stories will be highlighted and featured to counter the "Bitcoin is used to commit crimes" BS. The spreading of FUD in that way by the legacy interests won't stop Bitcoin and other crypto assets, but positive stories can only help counter that as well as grab people's interest enough to help adoption. That's what I'm working to do -- projects that benefit the whole field (and by extension, civilization as a whole).
Best regards,
Ben
