2281 - Charity Platform?
Raising funds now:
Today I want to discuss the subject of raising funds for charity on Steemit. How it is done now, and how it should be done.
Lately we have seen a number of (do-good) posts requesting funds to help a cause or another. These are good initiatives, but we do not know anything about the posters or their real intentions. We do not know if these funds will be used for whatever reason they are requested for.
Myself I do not mind upvoting these once in awhile, but the way it is being done is not right, even if it is a noble cause.
Raising funds the right way:
Raising funds for charity should not be a race between a few do-good people or assumed to be so. It should be an organized and supervised effort by someone on the steemit team.
If someone has a cause, they need to submit a proposal which has details about the people involved, contact numbers emails etc... The person responsible for checking this on the team is the one to put the proposal forward and ask the community to donate and the funds are to be sent by the team, and a receipt from the beneficiary organization delivered.
If the team is too busy to handle this, then they can assign the task to a trusted member in the community to handle it. I recommend creating proposals for some well known entities like Unicef / Unrwa / St Jude Hospital or any organization that is registered and can provide evidence of the funds aew being used for a good cause.
I love helping people, but I also detest people who use noble causes as means of personal funding. As of now I will no longer upvote any of the "please help me do this or that" personal efforts. This could be the start of a deterioration in our platform. Do not take me wrong, helping is good, but is it for everyone to ask for such help?
If there is no such mechanism where we know for a fact the charity is really a charity, then refrain from upvoting such efforts.
Also for people posting these requests please refrain from using pics of needy people or people with disabilities for such efforts. The first rule about helping is not to insult the dignity of the person you are trying to help. Please use logos of your organization, and if you do not have an organization it's a good sign you should not be collecting charity funds.
You might choose to agree or disagree, but in the end we all know we will feel better that with 100% certainty we actually helped someone.
PS: I am not putting myself forward to handle any of that, handling charity is a big responsibility I have no time for.
Finally some article on this topic. I've witnessed an increase of such inappropriate posts regarding the charity. It's becoming a slight issue on Steemit since you cannot know if they are true or false thus a downvote could ruin someone's future on Steemit. Posting behind a verified charity organisation would resolve this issue.
BREAKTHROUGH ! Ethereum Blockchain is Used By United Nations For Sending Aid to Syria:
read my story about it:
https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@alihbadr/breakthrough-ethereum-blockchain-is-used-by-united-nations-for-sending-aid-to-syria
we need to be wary of the UN participating in cryptocurrency. as with many other institutions responsible for our current debt and war based systems of control, we can't neglect their past corruption just because we're excited about mainstream adoption.
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I agree with you @freedomnation
We don't have an establish "check and balance" with regards to this donation requests. Who knows what.
I know this very sensitive topic to discuss, but we can't ignore this as well. Bless the hearts of willing to give.
Some seniors members should be able to "VET" or somebody or a bot, this request before any steemit members start pouring donations. But due to the rewards system established in this community, just reading, voting and comments an article already start earnings.
I guess if it is a DONATION post, the system should not give the AUTHOR and CURATORS a rewards. Though the community should be able to send a tip as donation. We need to start somewhere before we see more "sad stories" in this community.
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awsomme
Good idea! If we can get a solid team behind this it can succeed. Now it's only a matter of finding people that are capable enough to do it.
Yeah, finding the right people can be pretty difficult. It is a big responsibility for the chosen ones, but also a whole lot of work. On one hand I think they should also be paid for their efforts, but on the other hand it's kind of bad taste to take a % cut of charity donations. Lot's of stuff that needs to be worked out and solved by to community before this can be a reality in my opinion.
yea we have a charitable giving platform (launching soon) on the blockchain and we don't want any cut from the donations raised to charities, just seems wrong and there is so many other ways a startup can make revenue without taking a cut from contributions. please check injii out in the coming weeks.
Agree with you here
Yeh I agree it's a tough subject to talk about as the majority of us really do want to help people in need. But it can be abused and will be abused and we need a procedure in place so that everyone will know what to do. Then once the appeal is confirmed as genuine I will happily and enthusiasticly donate. Also in another post I made I put forward the idea of having the choice to add a percentage of what we earn to a designated trusted charity. Did not get much response from that but I still think that would be a great way to give something to charity from us all here.
I thought about this for a long time. I also wrote about this.
https://steemit.com/relief/@deaddy/steem-for-social-good-how-we-may-solve-the-poverty-in-the-world
I think we have to make it an ongoing process, not fund all at once. while the process is continuing we have to ask for the person who was aided to share the story, videos, make us believe to donate more..
Or; we may hire people or organizations all around the world as verifiers and pay them some of the donations to do actual work of verification.
I think first option is easier.
Fundraising on steem or a fork of steem or a subchain on top of steem is VERY DOABLE. We just have to coordinate it well. I think steem has such a great community and can handle this.
@joseph This is very good advice. Your post is very reasoned and logical. It's good to know that there are voices of wisdom and reason on steemit. I'm brand new and have wondered how much "hype" drives the bulk of the transactions on steemit. Reading this was a breath of fresh air. Thanks.
VERY NICE POST..... ^^^UPVOTE^^
Well said....The truth is there are more people out there who geniuely need our help but some also would take the opportunity to amass wealth for themselves ...
Your suggestion is if taken seriously, i believe will curb this situation and people who truthly need help will get it
I strongly agree with the opinion @ joseph, should be in the matter of charity has a maximum accuracy.
Let alone charities in the general category, not personal
You got my support! It is becoming more difficult nowadays for fund rasing. But I saw quite a numbers of successful case in Steemit. But it is mainly about those case for personal, hardly see a origanization doing this. Hope you can get what you want here, and keep going on it! Cheers!
Hi @victorier, perfect timing. We started yesterday on Steemit as first big international NGO. Hope we can achieve something like outlined above. Will you help us promote the effort?
Hello Sir, you have raised a very important issue. We should always know that the money donated by us goes into the right hands or not. Ofcrs this is our right.
Your have very well adviaed the community to lay a guideline or to form some pattern for those who seek donation.
Here i would like to add that they sgould categorise this in two divisions.
If someone wants help individually then he or she should mention this and also the reason of the problem.
Now here that person or organization should leave the traceable contact information. With this we would know in what hands our help is going to.
I appreciate and value your work and ideas. Keep going.
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