Donation Opportunity - Philippines

[thddx]

As I'm sure you all know, the hurricane which hit the Philippines packed a mean punch.  Naturally, whenever a big disaster such as this strikes, aid organizations (e.g. Unicef) ask for the world's help in financing the recovery.  Enter Bitcoin.

Would this not be a prime opportunity to 1) help and 2) paint Bitcoin in a positive light?  I read that Canada has pledged ~$5MM.  What if the community could raise 3k coins which will probably be valued at $1MM by EOD Monday?  For those of you having trouble separating from your coins, considering the likely surge in interest which would ultimately drive up the price of your remaining holdings.

Just a thought...

EDIT: Adding a link to a pre-existing donation effort out of the Philippines:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=300631.msg3519767#msg3519767

[CurbsideProphet]

A good thought.  However, who would be entrusted with collecting the coins.  I think that's the problem.

[thddx]

Indeed.  That would certainly be the first hurdle.  I suppose it would have to be a highly entrusted member of the community - perhaps someone from the foundation.

Second, we would need to leverage a preexisting aid organization on the ground.  Sure, they may be reluctant to accept small donations in BTC, but I can't imagine any aid organization would say "Sorry, we only accept Paypal" when you are offering them the equivalent of $1MM.

Perhaps Bitcoin is not yet at a point to be an effective/efficient means of transferring value to disaster-relief efforts, but the potential is there.  If I go to Unicef right now and make a fiat donation, how long will it take for those funds to be extracted from my account and be available to purchase food/water?  I don't know the answer, but I know with BTC it could be near instant.

[Stephen Gornick]

From another thread:

As you may be aware, my country is all over CNN and other news, because we are having the biggest and baddest storm the world has seen in the past 30 years. Category 5. 300 kph gust winds. Roofs flying.

Dabs lives in the Philippines.

[callem]

From another thread:

As you may be aware, my country is all over CNN and other news, because we are having the biggest and baddest storm the world has seen in the past 30 years. Category 5. 300 kph gust winds. Roofs flying.

Dabs lives in the Philippines.

Perhaps something the Bitcoin Foundation could organize - or at least oversee? Using bitcoins to buy supplies/or dollars here might be more effective than sending btc to the Philippines - unless Dabs has any other ideas? - not sure. 3000 is a lot of btc to spend locally.

I think many of us would be glad to donate if we knew it would be effective. 

[thddx]

From what I read, Dabs to seems to be a solid guy.  I sent a BTC his way earlier.  Here is more distinctive link to his thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=300631.msg3519767#msg3519767

The primary objective should of course be to provide aid as quickly as possible.  If we were to dump 3k coins on Dabs, he might not be able to immediately use everything.  It would however provide a sustained stream of funds which could be put towards long-term recovery.  Hell, if Dabs were able to pull off rebuilding a school with BTC, not only would it be an effective use of funds, but also it would be excellent publicity for the currency.

There is no red tape; there are no frozen funds; no bank transfer delays; its people having the power to circumvent third parties and apply aid almost directly to a problem.  People might just begin to see the value of BTC beyond a speculative vehicle for profit-seekers.

[Dabs]

My thread is only for the Feed The Children part. I would need your permission to use it for anything else. I am part of a military unit that does disaster relief operations on a regular basis. I could officially turn over any donations you send to them, either as cash (preferred) or as actual goods and medicines. (Cash or Check means almost the same thing, so I could write a check and not actually carry huge amounts of cold cash.)

The purchasing officer and the higher ups have access to pharmacies that give discounts.

No organization accepts bitcoins. They all accept cash. That's what I'm doing, converting the bitcoins to fiat locally. There are lots of buyers here, and now there is an exchange founded by some rich bald British citizen who is living here. ehhh, hehe, and I met him personally.

The best that can happen is news get out how the money was donated. But they will not, or can not accept bitcoins as is.

3k coins would sustain operations for my unit for an entire year, or more.

For reference, here is an old youtube video of something we did in 2011. It's in a slide show format.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEGAZamHeWM

You can see me at 1:25, I'm the one with the faded uniform with a bag and a camera taking pictures. I am not in formation with the rest of the guys because, RHIP. (look it up, hehe.)

You can see me again at 2:20, I'm the guy 2nd from the right wearing sunglasses.

Also, if someone sends me 3K coins, I'm going to get promoted to General by next year. heheheheheh. (Seriously, it's going to do wonders when I have a sponsored activity every week, 52 weeks in a year.)

[TheButterZone]

Not sure if my donation offer warrants its own topic (as it's a one-shot deal for 1 person with a US shipping address), but:
http://bitcoin-otc.com/vieworder.php?id=18388