Bitcoin 100: Developed Specifically for Non-Profits

[edd]

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin100s-dilemma-too-many-bitcoins-not-enough-charity/

Nice interview, Rassah. I read it this morning and meant to link it here but didn't get around to it.

The only part I had a small issue with was that it implied BitPay was the only way to get the funds. I know we've promoted that particular company in the past but they aren't the only option.

The charities, which volunteers bring on board, go through a vetting process to ensure they are in fact legitimate. After that, money is sent via BitPay.

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[Rassah]

The only part I had a small issue with was that it implied BitPay was the only way to get the funds. I know we've promoted that particular company in the past but they aren't the only option.

The charities, which volunteers bring on board, go through a vetting process to ensure they are in fact legitimate. After that, money is sent via BitPay.

Yeah, I would have preferred if it said, "we suggest they use BitPay," but oh well. I did actually plug them on purpose though. They help us out with the no fee thing, in exchange for getting publicity for their service.

[Seth Otterstad]

AlphaRelief now accepts bitcoins after bugging my cousin about it for months.  They smuggle food and bibles into North Korea, China, and Burma.

Their donate page uses a 3rd party that they can't edit, so they made a whole separate donation page for bitcoin.  I think the setup is hilarious because if you click on the only dropdown option under "donate", it looks like they ONLY accept bitcoin.  You have to directly click on top of the donate drop down to see the credit card option.

http://alpharelief.org/4564-2/

[edd]

AlphaRelief now accepts bitcoins after bugging my cousin about it for months.  They smuggle food and bibles into North Korea, China, and Burma.

Their donate page uses a 3rd party that they can't edit, so they made a whole separate donation page for bitcoin.  I think the setup is hilarious because if you click on the only dropdown option under "donate", it looks like they ONLY accept bitcoin.  You have to directly click on top of the donate drop down to see the credit card option.

http://alpharelief.org/4564-2/

I think donating to this organization would go against the "no political or religious agenda" rule.

[Seth Otterstad]

OMG I didn't know we had a rule about that!  Where is it listed?  Don't quite a high percentage of charities have a religious motivation?  MyRefugeHouse certainly does.  It seems to me that even atheist libertarian types would have an interest in promoting literary freedom that subverts totalitarian states.

[edd]

OMG I didn't know we had a rule about that!  Where is it listed?  Don't quite a high percentage of charities have a religious motivation?  It seems to me that even atheist libertarian types would have an interest in promoting literary freedom that subverts totalitarian states.

AFAIK, there aren't any hard and fast "rules" per se, but Phinnaeus and Rassah have generally only considered charities that the majority of donaters agree upon and those organized by religious/political groups haven't garnered much support:

This is not exactly a charity, but it is a worthy cause in my view. An open source movie is in the works that wants to portray life in a resource based economy and the idea of a better world for all people. I have recently persuaded them to accept bitcoin donations for their work. For those of you who are interested in donating to or following the progress of this project, I highly encourage you to check out their sample video and take note of their current and ongoing accomplishments.

http://www.wakingupmovie.com/2011/12/bitcoin-donations/

-1
I would avoid any political, religious, or ideology based charities, as they are way too divisive. This one was especially so on just this forum alone.

[Seth Otterstad]

I've just been recruiting any 501c3 organization, as I was not aware of any religious rule, and the first charity I recruited, MyRefugeHouse, is clearly a Christian organization.  Let's see what Rassah thinks of this one.  I think we should help oppressed minorities in totalitarian states.  Would we not support Gutenberg and his printing press in the 1400's because he was printing bibles?

[edd]

Cross posting for a newbie: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236484

Dear Bitcoiners!

I work at an NGO/NPO in Berlin. We organize mentoring for children in the age of 5 or higher. Can our URL or our Bitcoin address (1BB5Bf5gUKs8YcnshoA98Ua8EcYdvR2Seu) be registered at Bitcoin100? And if yes, what is the procedure?
Our website www.handinhand-patenschaft.de is only in German at the moment, so I am posting here a text in English with the description of our mission and how we fulfill it. I will very much appreciate your support!

Best wishes


Nikita Andreew



Opening statement:

Growing up is tough sometimes ...

"Who am I, what am I good at, what will I be, what do I need to do?"

are important issues on this way and children are looking for answers.


There are over 150,000 lone mothers and fathers in Berlin. Most of them lack a solid social inclusion through friends and relatives.
Many children have only a single adult caregiver. On the other hand, more than half of all adults living in Berlin live alone.

Every child needs their "island".

Previously this was the favorite aunt, grandfather, or just the nice, old woman who lived in the apartment opposite that always had an open ear, in difficult times, a cup of hot cocoa - and good advice.
Today the world has grown. Favorite aunts live in the rarest of cases in the vicinity and with Grandma and Grandpa, it behaves the same way. The nice old woman in the apartment across does not open her door anymore because she is afraid of being robbed.

Therefore active sponsorships and mentoring is becoming increasingly important.

About
Hand in Hand Patenschaft eV accompanies active sponsorships and mentorships between disadvantaged children and volunteer adults in Berlin. We offer children and young people
active assistance through personal involvement of their mentor:

- Mentors encourage

- Mentors are role models
- Mentors offer time
- Mentors nurture talent

- Mentors accompany the professional development
- Mentors simply listen and take children seriously

Mission
The aim of sponsorship is to equalize social deficits, to find out talents and provide specialised support. To strengthen childrens self-confidence - and encourage them to build their future positively and responsibly.

[Rassah]

Sorry I haven't done much in a bit. I haven't had a free evening in a while, and was away this weekend. I had a few solicitations from charities, and I'll put them up for people to comment on tomorrow evening.

AlphaRelief now accepts bitcoins after bugging my cousin about it for months.  They smuggle food and bibles into North Korea, China, and Burma.

http://alpharelief.org/4564-2/

I think donating to this organization would go against the "no political or religious agenda" rule.

Sadly, I agree. I am all for MyRefugeHouse, because they seem to be "help women that escaped" first, and "spiritual" second. This one sems to be mainly about getting churches into NK. Their mission statement even starts off with "Alpha Relief mobilizes and educates the global Body of Christ."

Sorry the "rules" aren't posted somewhere front-and-center, but the general guidelines are: non-political, non-religious, and a charity instead of just a non-profit. This would disqualify missionary organizations, libertarian ones (even though many of us are), and groups like the RIAA or even Wikipedia and EFF. The reason is simply because all the money we are holding and continuing to receive is coming from a very diverse group of people with varying religions and political ideologies. Over the many pages, we have had discussions and arguments over who should and should not qualify, complaints about certain suggested organizations, and even threats of pulling support if we donate to someone dissagreable. So have eventually simply settled on donating only to non-controversial secular organizations (or as non-controversial as we can get) that most of our donors would be ok with.

[Pouncer]

Hi,

I'm helping this non-profit organization spices.org.my based in Malaysia - SPICES (Support for Parents, Infants and Children through Early Services). We've been providing early intervention services to children with developmental delays or learning difficulties for the past 17 years.

Recently we've taken on the role of doubling up as a training center and toys resource center serving other start up centers.

We're in need of funding to grow our services and we welcome Bitcoin donations! Is there anyway we can be a beneficiary of Bitcoin100?

[Seth Otterstad]

AlphaRelief now accepts bitcoins after bugging my cousin about it for months.  They smuggle food and bibles into North Korea, China, and Burma.

http://alpharelief.org/4564-2/

I think donating to this organization would go against the "no political or religious agenda" rule.

Sadly, I agree. I am all for MyRefugeHouse, because they seem to be "help women that escaped" first, and "spiritual" second. This one sems to be mainly about getting churches into NK. Their mission statement even starts off with "Alpha Relief mobilizes and educates the global Body of Christ."

Sorry the "rules" aren't posted somewhere front-and-center, but the general guidelines are: non-political, non-religious, and a charity instead of just a non-profit. This would disqualify missionary organizations, libertarian ones (even though many of us are), and groups like the RIAA or even Wikipedia and EFF. The reason is simply because all the money we are holding and continuing to receive is coming from a very diverse group of people with varying religions and political ideologies. Over the many pages, we have had discussions and arguments over who should and should not qualify, complaints about certain suggested organizations, and even threats of pulling support if we donate to someone dissagreable. So have eventually simply settled on donating only to non-controversial secular organizations (or as non-controversial as we can get) that most of our donors would be ok with.

I've just been recruiting any 501c3 organization, as I was not aware of any religious rule, and the first charity I recruited, MyRefugeHouse, is clearly a Christian organization.  Let's see what Rassah thinks of this one.  I think we should help oppressed minorities in totalitarian states.  Would we not support Gutenberg and his printing press in the 1400's because he was printing bibles?

I am annoyed that I didn't know about this rule and spent time recruiting a non-eligible charity that won't get any bitcoin promotion or bitcoin100 website listing.  I am one of the original 100 (under a different screenname), and I'm pretty sure I've read every post in this thread this year.  The original post and the website needs to be updated with this rule.

I will ship out the $1,000 to AlphaRelief myself to make up for this massive failure.  If anyone else wants to donate, that would be awesome.

[TsuyokuNaritai]

Ok, here is a list of charities that we have been contacted about.

You missed one:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52543.msg2476877#msg2476877

[Rassah]

Please consider adding the Machine Intelligence Research Institute to your list of non-profits.

It's important to build extraordinary safety measures into smarter-than-human intelligence because it may impact billions of lives. Unfortunately, immediate economic incentives tend to favor the incremental development of algorithms that are not particularly transparent, robust, or stable.

MIRI are working to promote safety and rationality in this field. Their mission is to ensure that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence benefits humanity. Their bitcoin address is 1HUrNJfVFwQkbuMXwiPxSQcpyr3ktn1wc9

For more, see intelligence.org

Thanks for your consideration.

Admirable, but not quite sure how this is a charity :/

(I'm sure we'll all be sorry in the future, when AI comes to destroy us all!)

[Rassah]

Ok, here is a list of charities that we have been contacted about. Please let us know if you have any objections to donating to them.

1) https://watsi.org/about

2) http://iccf-holland.org/

3) http://www.handinhand-patenschaft.de/  (Please ask them to post a Bitcoin donation option to their website, even if it's just a text Bitcoin address wit a note about acepting Bitcoin for donations)

4) http://spices.org.my/  (Note, this one is run through a church, but is not a religion-focused charity)

5) http://www.sternenhof.eu/ (helping flood victims and their animals)

6) http://harvestlots.org/

7) http://www.hiphopchessfederation.org/  (growing a future generation of nerds!)


Some of them are still working on adding a bitcoin donation option to their page. Let me know what you think. I'll let you guys discuss them for a few days before I commit, just to make sure everyone got a chance to see them.

[TsuyokuNaritai]

Please consider adding the Machine Intelligence Research Institute to your list of non-profits.

Admirable, but not quite sure how this is a charity :/

The fact that it's a charity. It's recognized as a non-profit organization in the United States and as a Charitable Organization by the Canada Revenue Agency.

[Rassah]

Please consider adding the Machine Intelligence Research Institute to your list of non-profits.

Admirable, but not quite sure how this is a charity :/

The fact that it's a charity. It's recognized as a non-profit organization in the United States and as a Charitable Organization by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Nonprofit doesn't necessarily mean a charity. For example, http://www.riaa.com is a nonprofit, but they are not a charity, and are a very hated organization. Could you tell us what kind of charitable works intelligence.org does, and how they would spend the donation?

[TsuyokuNaritai]

For someone doing charitable work and new to AI research I'd start with this page on their web site:

http://intelligence.org/2013/06/05/friendly-ai-research-as-effective-altruism/

The TED talk and links at the top page are vital reading for anyone involved in good works, regardless of their opinions on AI safety research.

I'll be happy to answer more questions as best I can, but please note I don't work for or represent MIRI.

[BitCoinYx]

Hi, here is Frank.

First of all thank you for adding the "Sternenhof" Herbert Denk Foundation to the list of charitys for thinking about a donation.

As the website is unfortunately not in English language please let me introduce a bit of our work that you can have your own opinion about us.

We are officially accredited by the German state as a foundation helping animals and people and we have 2 animal sanctuaries - one in Austria and one in Germany and over 500 animals which have been mostly rescued from different situations and can now live in our sanctuaries.

We bring people and animals together - also we are very engaged in social work and often there are also handicapped people visiting our animal sanctuary.

In the last weeks Germany was very affected by heavy rainfall and following flood thats why we have decided to help those affected people with their animals as well.

We see this as an addition to our project "1 food bowl and 1 food sack for every dog / animal in animal sancturies in Europe"

We already have distributed 585 food bowls and sacks with food to affected people in "Passau" Germany and also to animal sancturies in Hungary.

We plan to give away 6550 food bowls and sacks in total during the next months.

1BTC is enough to cover the costs for 7-8 food bowls and sacks at the moment - so each BTC would help a lot!

I have add some photos and I hope you like our project.

I am not very active in the Forum here as a writer normally, but I like the Bitcoin idea since months - and I wish you all the best here.

I will monitor the other projects mentioned here and I hope you will all be successful with your social work - it is great that the Bitcoin community will be a part of it.

Thanks for your time!!

--------------------------------
http://www.focus.de/panorama/videos/jahrtausend-flut-in-passau-zeitraffer-dokumentiert-ueberflutung-der-passauer-altstadt_vid_39285.html -> Passau video
http://www.sternenhof.eu/images/bilder/news/2013/BILD1.jpg -> Photo in Passau Bavaria
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.611362895548400.1073741834.161901933827834&type=3 -> Sternenhof helping in Passau
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.610263995658290.1073741832.161901933827834&type=3 -> Sternenhof food distribution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cnxy6GCLGps -> Video about the Sternenhof (all money goes to our charity organisation for 100%)
--------------------------------

Frank

[edd]

For someone doing charitable work and new to AI research I'd start with this page on their web site:

http://intelligence.org/2013/06/05/friendly-ai-research-as-effective-altruism/

The TED talk and links at the top page are vital reading for anyone involved in good works, regardless of their opinions on AI safety research.

I'll be happy to answer more questions as best I can, but please note I don't work for or represent MIRI.

I think the issue is that not everyone would agree that potential problems and actual problems deserve equal resources.

[Rassah]

Got this in private PM:

The non-profit I was talking about is rockzipfel: http://www.rockzipfel-leipzig.de/ . It's definitely non-religious and non-political. The idea is rather unique: They make it possible for parents to stay close to their small children while working and foster community at the same time. You go there and find everything you need in an office and your kids get looked after by volunteers from all over the world. I have been going there with my little daughter for about half a year now. In fact I am working there now

They have been featured in quite a lot of national media and won family friendlyness prizes and EU funding. They are a tax-deductible common-good non-profit in Germany and $1000 would make quite an impact there. Do you think they would be eligible?

Feedback please?