Ask charities if they accept bitcoin

[strawbs]

After seeing the tragedy unfolding in the Philippines over the last couple of days, I felt the need to donate to a disaster relief charity here in UK (http://www.dec.org.uk/appeals/philippines-typhoon-appeal).

I was pleasantly surprised that the charity accepts donations via PayPal, which led me to send an email to them to ask whether they had considered accepting BTC too.  It then struck me that if a charity were to receive lots of similar requests, they could begin to consider it as a means of receiving donations.  After all, charities are pretty hard up these days and are always looking for innovative ways of raising money.  BTC seems absolutely perfect for charitable giving/receiving, especially across international borders: no transaction fees = more money straight to the charity.

Then, with my speculative hat on I figured that if a big name charity were to begin to accept BTC it could generate lots of positive publicity ("Oxfam accepts Bitcoin", etc).

Let us all bombard household name charities with requests for them to accept BTC (obviously, you must be willing to donate something too!).

[Phinnaeus Gage]

After seeing the tragedy unfolding in the Philippines over the last couple of days, I felt the need to donate to a disaster relief charity here in UK (http://www.dec.org.uk/appeals/philippines-typhoon-appeal).

I was pleasantly surprised that the charity accepts donations via PayPal, which led me to send an email to them to ask whether they had considered accepting BTC too.  It then struck me that if a charity were to receive lots of similar requests, they could begin to consider it as a means of receiving donations.  After all, charities are pretty hard up these days and are always looking for innovative ways of raising money.  BTC seems absolutely perfect for charitable giving/receiving, especially across international borders: no transaction fees = more money straight to the charity.

Then, with my speculative hat on I figured that if a big name charity were to begin to accept BTC it could generate lots of positive publicity ("Oxfam accepts Bitcoin", etc).

Let us all bombard household name charities with requests for them to accept BTC (obviously, you must be willing to donate something too!).

Unless I'm mistaken, Oxfam doesn't accept bitcoins, but maybe one of their subsidiaries do.

http://www.oxfam.org/en/search/apachesolr_search/bitcoin

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I have something in the works, but been waiting for Rassah to generate a vanity bitcoin address before I announce it. The endeavor's a tad grandiose, but obtainable, I believe, nonetheless.

Stay tuned.

~TMIBTCITW

[franky1]

DEC.............................

oh no, no no no..

DEC is not a front line charity. they are a fundraising "service" which them after taking a cut of the funds earned. they then pass funds onto these charities (named as "our member agencies")
Save the Children, British Red Cross, World Vision, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern, Oxfam, Plan UK, CARE International, Age International, ActionAid, Merlin, Teafund.

in the UK i have seen them advertising "fundraising" jobs in newspapers, jobcentres and other media, paying each fundraiser £250 a week + commission. to me i see DEC as an expensive middleman

as with this latest emergency(Philippine) and other emergencies(Haiti) in the past DEC has not been the guys that buy food, water, blankets or anything directly. what they do though is they fundraise and when a disaster strikes they remotely assess the needs of that area via data gathered from the news or its member agencies

just read how they work: http://www.dec.org.uk/about-dec/how-we-work
(short version)
the front line workers of its "member agencies" have to request funds from DEC, and DEC have to decide if the disaster is big enough to warrent large scale funding on one go, small funding periodically or if the disaster is not of certain scale, no funding at all.

and as it says here of the funds they pass onto member agents, they ensure  between 50-60% get to where its needed on the frontline http://www.dec.org.uk/about-dec/how-we-spend-your-money
(short version)
using hait as an example, in total they got £380mill but only £107mill was actually spent on frontline emergency supplies. (meaning only 30% of your donations to DEC would get to the victims)

now, then if someone was organising a bitcoin fundraising appeal, they should be in contact with the frontline guys and give them funds directly. cutting out the middle man.

im hoping Dabs is trying to get contact information for the frontline volunteers of the rescue kit distributors so that the money gets to the people needed faster and most cost effectively

[bitboyben]

Need Red Cross.
Shouldn't Bitpay or Coinbase have their support teams over there?
Also a great time to remind those that send moneys home to families in other countries...

Hey, Bitcoin

[silvergoldandbitcoin]

This is my hope as well, that more and more places will start accepting bitcoin. The more "household names" we get into bitcoin the more this will spread.

[strawbs]

Unless I'm mistaken, Oxfam doesn't accept bitcoins, but maybe one of their subsidiaries do.

No, they don't accept bitcoin, that's my point - we should be asking them to accept them though

[strawbs]

DEC.............................

oh no, no no no..

DEC is not a front line charity. they are a fundraising "service" which them after taking a cut of the funds earned. they then pass funds onto these charities (named as "our member agencies")
Save the Children, British Red Cross, World Vision, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern, Oxfam, Plan UK, CARE International, Age International, ActionAid, Merlin, Teafund.

in the UK i have seen them advertising "fundraising" jobs in newspapers, jobcentres and other media, paying each fundraiser £250 a week + commission. to me i see DEC as an expensive middleman

as with this latest emergency(Philippine) and other emergencies(Haiti) in the past DEC has not been the guys that buy food, water, blankets or anything directly. what they do though is they fundraise and when a disaster strikes they remotely assess the needs of that area via data gathered from the news or its member agencies

just read how they work: http://www.dec.org.uk/about-dec/how-we-work
(short version)
the front line workers of its "member agencies" have to request funds from DEC, and DEC have to decide if the disaster is big enough to warrent large scale funding on one go, small funding periodically or if the disaster is not of certain scale, no funding at all.

and as it says here of the funds they pass onto member agents, they ensure  between 50-60% get to where its needed on the frontline http://www.dec.org.uk/about-dec/how-we-spend-your-money
(short version)
using hait as an example, in total they got £380mill but only £107mill was actually spent on frontline emergency supplies. (meaning only 30% of your donations to DEC would get to the victims)

now, then if someone was organising a bitcoin fundraising appeal, they should be in contact with the frontline guys and give them funds directly. cutting out the middle man.

im hoping Dabs is trying to get contact information for the frontline volunteers of the rescue kit distributors so that the money gets to the people needed faster and most cost effectively

I wasn't trying to open up a discussion on the relative merits of individual charities, just that we should be asking all charities if they would accept bitcoin. Even if you don't agree with DEC, you might agree that their acceptance of bitcoin would be good for bitcoin.