It's amazing you bring this up about the bank denying a loan for needed renovations. The reason benicents was created was exactly situations like yours. I'll be putting together a post soon to explain what we're all about and what we're trying to do. But in a nutshell imagine a place where you can fundraise for anything. Where upvotes contribute directly to your goal.
We created it because right after Christmas we paid off bills and found ourselves with a broken washer. There was a nice one on amazon but we couldn't afford it right away and the bank wasn't comfortable with a loan. Eventually we were able to replace it, but boy what a hassle!
This got me thinking... Why does every fundraise need a sob story attached? Why cant it just be about us helping eachother, doing a good turn. And what if there were a platform that could reward that exact same type of altruistic behavior?
Anyways, great article! I'm upvoting and resteeming!
Sounds interesting and good luck with that. Remember though, Steem doesn't function well as a charity at this point and often the amounts people are seeking are significant in relation to the pool value. There are also many people looking to game all they can. However, I do think that as price increases and the industry matures, there is a lot of room for charitable and microloan activities.