A strong tradition where I come from is people raising funds for charitable organisations. This may range from local sports clubs to international aid organisations. People regularly arrange cake sales and raffles at work as well as challenges such as marathons where they get sponsorship to compete with funds being donated to charities.
Is this type of fundraising OK for steemit?
In a post yesterday @joseph suggested that there is a big danger that
"We do not know if these funds will be used for whatever reason they are requested for."
https://steemit.com/steemit/@joseph/2281-charity-platform
This is a fair point and In @josephs post there were 184 comments and I didn't notice anyone disagreeing with him, but I have a very different perspective!!!
Grass Roots Fundraising
Steemit is an ideal platform to raise funds in this way. There may be criticisms of how the funds are spent, etc but in my experience a great deal of good comes out of these types of initiatives.
Local Charities
Steemit is entirely different compared to local charities or causes because it's an online anonymous community or is it?
Local Charities and causes can work very well and even taking them a step further you can think of forms of Mutual Insurance. This is something that has helped people for centuries and if there are appropriate safeguards or practices built in can work very effectively. For example if a member of the community gets sick or needs help we can all share the cost for the collective benefit of the community.
Community and Trust
What is unique about Steemit is the community and level of trust that you can build on the platform. Of course I am not going to give my money, or votes to just anyone but I feel there is certainly room on Steemit for Charitable organisations, events and causes. In fact it might be the most transparent platform for such causes that exists at the moment.
Just think about it you can promote a cause, raise funds, follow through with posts about how the funds were used and at the same time raise awareness about causes and promote a sense of community, caring and help across the globe.
Appropriate Safeguards
This platform has so much potential in so many arenas, there will need to be safeguards, and I would welcome official vetted accounts by major aid organisations but maybe that is not what this platform is suited to. Maybe its better to let the grassroots get community support for things they believe in, empower people to help out even if they are not part of an official organisation.
What we can do
Sharing
Let's not turn people off helping each other and utilising the most transparent global community out there for raising funds.
Guidelines/Best Practice
Let's develop guidelines, get registered, work with charities like I did last Christmas. It is easy to post a picture from the internet, but you can get authorisation from a charity and provide their contact details to show you are a registered fundraiser.
https://steemit.com/charity/@eroche/vote-for-the-children-of-syria-this-christmas-on-steemit
Lets get a Big Charity Involved
Let's expand our charitable profile and get charities posting about projects here on Steemit. I plan on reaching out to a few in Ireland over the coming months in advance of a fundraising campaign coming up to Christmas 2017.
This is all about trust and accountability
I have a big fund-raising event planned for next Christmas, I hope you will support it.
Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.
All Images are from https://pixabay.com/
Let's get big charities involved? Well, we arrived yesterday!! :D Please see our introduction post. We're obviously on the same mission here. Please see our proposal at the end of the introduction post and please comment if you have any suggestions that could lead to the success of those plans. We'll stay in touch. It's early now and we just started, but already collecting data.
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@adra/are-you-ready-to-bring-charity-to-blockchain-hello-this-is-adra-germany-calling-member-of-a-global-ngo-network
To amend this, yes trust is actually a major issue. the idea is to introduce some kind of guideline or quality check, so people can be sure the call for donation is legit. We hope we can play an important role on Steemit to achieve that with everyone who can participate.
Ill definitely check this out. Thank you for letting me know about it.
Hi @dinoo and @adra, are there any members of Steemit in Frankfurt that have been on Steemit since early days that you are friends with?
There must be! But I just joined Steemit short ago, so did not have the chance to find them. I'd love to join a meeting in Frankfurt (or in Köln/Bonn as well). I'll start looking for them.
It would be good to get them involved, the more reputation and time they have spent on the platform the more trust there will be in what your trying to accomplish.
I am following with interest though. Your the first organisation I have come across trying to achieve this on Steemit. I am hoping to get some support from a few NGOs in Ireland in time for a fundraising campaign at Christmas. I may be in contact with you for suggestions on how to approach them.
That's a good way forward. When you read the introduction post of @adra, we need to build use-cases and demonstrate a strategy for other charities, so they see it works, and how they can make it work as well. Then they can decide more comfortably to jump into the waters.
@eroche another great post hope ya having a good day
Watching the HF :)
cool the rewards went mad
@eroche, friend, you should totally participate in the Charity Contest here on Steemit! Your thoughts and ideas will fit right in!
And I’ll really appreciate it, if you would consider promoting the contest by resteeming its main post or by writing your own post about it. Thank you in advance!
Hi @oleg326756 thank you for your comment. The contest your running is a great initiative. I have nothing planned at the moment but I will participate in future.
Hi Dinoo,
I am new to Steemit and I am the CEO of a 40yr old micro nonprofit. We have a ton of content on our blog, podcast series, and youtube channels that we feel is important to share freely. We would like to use Steemit as another way to get our content out there and also raise funds.
We have earned Top Non Profit awards for the past 6 or so years that we have participated: https://greatnonprofits.org/org/center-for-advancement-in-cancer-education
Also you may research us here: https://www.guidestar.org/profile/23-2634508
#23-2634508 is our Federal ID - EIN
Anyway any help with best practices our be appreciated. I am going to follow your account. Thank you for the great article - It inspired me enough to comment.
Informative post! I will keep this article for reference ^.^