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.
yo creo que si amigo
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.
If you agree with me, please vote up and follow me @Yehey
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.
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
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.
If you like my poats or work the please follow me at @honey chum
VERY NICE POST..... ^^^UPVOTE^^
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?
It is a pretty important issue to discuss @joseph although the world of charity is generally an absolute mess in terms of the actual funds reaching the right place without excessive 'friction fees' occurring...
In my opinion I would like to see a Steem version of gofundme, with the system taking as small amount of the fees as possible.
A very good idea! We'll add this to our proposal and strategy. Please check our post about it: 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
A good tip. The fact is stated that giving goodness will facilitate our life. Or ease and blessing. Our life is directly proportional to the good we offer. Even more said, the key to the happiness of our lives lies in proactively to us (to offer) goodness to others. But all of them must be on target and must be managed properly. Must be published by the person requesting a social request, the final outcome of the program
Interesting discussions, I really agree with you, Finally some articles on this topic. You should always lift it to the surface.
Yes, although there is a social assistance applicant for the private or for social community in any country, should be able to handle the administration by Steemit, so steemit must regulate the rules ..
hi there @srek and @joseph
let me know i am with you on that one i would like to do some stuff for disable children in thailand in my province of chonburi i start already by going every week end to give some language course and make them laugh with my accent and my scary mouth with out any teeth ahahaha
looking forward for understand all of this best regard @loooping
@joseph this topic is something I have spent a great deal of time thinking about. I agree with you to a point but I also believe it is yet another great opportunity and use case for Steemit.
Just think about it for a second, you can raise money and support causes by just voting for them.
A strong tradition where I come from is raising money for charitable organisations, this promotes a culture of caring and giving in the wider community and from what I have seen of Steemit, it's not that far from the ethos of many Steemians.
A Local Charity
Steemit is entirely different compared to local charities or causes because its an online anonymous community or is it? Local Charities and causes can work very well and even taking it a step further you could think of it as a form 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. 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.
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.
I will be positing some more ideas on this topic in coming days I hope you check out my post, and I have a big fund-raising event planned for next Christmas, I hope you will support it.
As long as the charities are certified and researched.
Being a bona fide charity in the US does not mean they are necessarily noble.
Many charitable organizations here have horrible track records as there is no legal requirement as to what percentage of the monies raised actually go towards charitable goals.
Many spend as high as 85% on fund raising, salaries and travel expenses for executives.
While Google does not auto complete for anything negative a "unicef scandal" search has some interesting returns.
Agree. For sure. @ironshield
I think it is quite easy and we just need to have certified charities on steemit people can donate directly to - that is one thing other platforms did well.
In addition an ideal item to me a proof / confirmation to see where the donation really went to in the end.
Having thought about it I think you are right. I'm wondering if there is some means of sorting this out on the blockchain or at least partially automating it and removing some of the trust.
Maybe if steemit can create some charity accounts for known organizations that they can handle. just an idea.
Yes or if the charities officially come on to Steem and make an account themselves (and verify it).
I really disagrer with this post my friend! I would suggest thst allowing registered, organised charities on steemit is a bad idea. Why is everyone so unwilling to trust the man in the street but ready to trust organisations that clearly don't provide the level of charity that they should be given the donations they recieve. I think people neef to give this some more thought!
The problem is we have had a lot of scammers on the platform and someone could easily take advantage.
I completely agree with you there @thecryptofiend (forgive me for getting your tag wrong earlier today) but the majority of registered charities in my opinion are scammers also. I replied to @joseph and made my feelings known, although not as eloquently as I would have liked and explained to him that I am currently working on my own charitable proposal and that to read his words feels like a slap in the face to me. I have identified some of these scammers myself and all I do is decide to walk away. We all have this ability. Perhaps my emotional response is muddying my view of this but I really don't think so.
I am one of the members that follow your work and although I may not comment and interact with you much I see that all of your articles are extremely well written and presented and I also see via my feed that you do a lot of work to support others and the platform itself so I know that your intentions are pure and I respect your point of view but I simply cannot agree that letting registered charities have a place on steemit is a good thing! To me it is the direct opposite!
I believe myself to be a man who is trying to become better. I will not say that I am a good man because I don'y honestly believe that I am. Maybe compared with the rest of humanity I could argue that I am but in my own self I know that there are a million things I need to do to improve myself. I would like to make a difference in the world I see around me and feel that with the idea I have come up with I can achieve that thanks to steemit and the community here and only because we have this platform. Without it I don't feel that someone like me would have this opportunity. I hope to make a post in the next couple of days to explain my intentions and I believe that I have found a way that does not follow the usual suspicious manner in which these things are usually done! I would urge you to have a look when I make the post and let me know your thoughts on it, not only because of the reaction to the post by @joseph but also because I do respect your input on such things as well as those of the other members here!
Hi @tonyr, you're raising a major issue when it come to bigger professional NGOs. One of our next blog posts should address this topic. When there is too much doubt our proposal will not be successful to establish charity on Steemit (please check our introduction post). Nobody wants to see money wasted. It's for the people who REALLY need it.
I agree that there are problems with established charities. Perhaps blockchain solutions can overcome them.
Just happened yesterday 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
its not just an my dear,its THE IDEA..nice one....voted and followed.
I agree that we really should find a system to handle all these charity cases that are popping up now. At first it was only a few, but I see them pretty much every day now.
I don't think the Steemit devs have time for this, but I'm sure we could find some trusted members of the community who would be willing to take this responsibility. They could be in charge of vetting which charities to give a seal of approval, and which that do not have the needed information to verify that it is a real charity case.
Writing about charity more profitable than actual fake charity confirmed.
What a great idea! Love this. Followed/upvoted/resteemed/appreciated. So cool!
you know bro i always thought about it like this,
you have your intention, they have theirs,
no charity really provides proof, they offer jobs at the end of the day,
only 1 charity in my life I've ever seen where the guy literally goes there himself with his own money to build orphanages, and whatever he takes is recorded for everyone that's donated, but my question is this, how do you really know?
how do you really know your vote was polled correctly?
how do you know where your taxes are going?
how do you know what color undies I'm really wearing?
what do you lose?
we are emotional beings, your emotions will dictate your clicks, no?
how often have you mentioned "I will never do this" and stuck to it, I never have, i changed moment to moment, even now I feel like this comment is stupid
we are the internet, we are looking for decentralization, not further governance,
why don't we all do our due diligence?
forgive me if I've overstepped, I like to stretch boundaries <3
<3 may we all be blessed with infinite love <3
hey bro, I do this with the best intentions to keep the debate going, I have made a more detailed response here
https://steemit.com/steemit/@sols/charities-government-people-in-general-what-do-we-really-know
again, done with the best intentions, I am only new but your taboo post had me following you already
Individuals can be helped, but there should be checks and balances such as proof of bills, and the other measures you stated. I have been slightly spammed on Steemit Chat by someone requesting money. I'm from South Africa so I am naturally mistrustful.
Good cause? You fucking did 1000 usd in one hour.....nice
I think this problem could be solved by creating a charity fund etc. page on steem. This will mean you know who you are giving to. Pages could also post their projects and get people upvoted the specific fundraising campaign.
Congratulations @joseph!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following categories:
Ive been considering making a series of posts to try and alleviate some of my student debt,.. im struggleing to make my rent and i have to start payments very soon,.
The value of 4 posts of yours would close to solve my problem.. just a thought, whales can save lives just with their SP. Id certainly try to spread it around and help if I had the steempower to back myself.., ☮
Please vote got me $ 100 Follow and @herman2141
Wow, this is exactly what we are working on at Injii.com
Our focus is working with real 501C charities that make real change with their contributions. I have been brought on board to help decentralize the platform and incentivize people to help creditable charities. Everyone's comments are amazing insight and something for us at injii to focus on. We have been in meetings all week working on this so hearing your concerns validates our passion and commitment. Please reach out if this is something you are genuinely interested in. Amazing article!
Lots and lots of fake fund raising campaigns we see daily online.
May be some are really true. Due to the number of fake campaigns, the real people who in need of helping hand are framed as "fake"
With this kind of initiative, and evidence.. every one can be sure that every single penny goes to the right people for right cause. If more people and master minds of community join hands for this cause....
I assume this platform will be the final roof for all charities to reach.
Although I am skeptical about giving to charity and if they implement the idea you talk about. I'd never give an upvote, what you are saying there are website already offering those facilities. For example a fire took place in london so a controlled charity organisation did the collection made £2.3 million the company kept £115,000 how is that fair in anyway. This is hard earned money given for the poor.
Fund raising for charity on here yes we cannot trust people. Therefore, I recommend an I.D verification for those wanting to raise money but should not be limited to organisation. This just be for the whole of steemit community.
I'm glad to see this topic brought up. I think Steemit presents a rather wonderful opportunity to create fundraising initiatives.
Personally, not a big fan of the huge charities, mostly because they tend to use a very substantial part of funds raised to cover their fundraising expenses.
What I would like to see more discussion on is how to best use Steemit in support of smaller private organizations. For example, my wife and I have a small non-profit we're currently to fundraise for in connection with creating an educational foundation... supporting those who wish to study and explore the connection and interplay between art and metaphysics ("soft") and conventional "hard" science. We're just four people in all, with local roots but global reach...
Anyway, my point is that we've been considering setting up a Steemit account for the organization... persuading our existing followers to join up here and supporting us through the basic Steemit ecosystem. One of the things we were talking about just yesterday is the notion of "verified" accounts (like twitter and Facebook have) for such ventures... to lend a sense of legitimacy, since pretty much anyone could create a Steemit account and claim to be a charity. Maybe some version of teaming up with @steemverify?
our injii (beta) platform we developed handles realtime micro crowd donations for non profit organizations using fiat currency, the major issue was the middle-men and their processing fees and distribution costs for micro donation. we're stoked now that we are going to incorporate our coin as well as other cryptocoin, this will get that donation (actually) received by the charity to approx .99 cents on the dollar to which it was before .71 cents on the dollar. our model is about crowd giving, and not the individual having to break the bank. strength in numbers ✊
it's been quite a journey for the team and I. It has been our mission for the last 3 years to build this charity platform and we are ecstatic to say that we are only about weeks away to integrating with the blockchain and finally launching injii :)
my name is Justin, i'm the founder of injii, an open-to-user media/entertainment broadcast for social good, its pretty much a decentralized tv network. please keep us on your radar in the coming weeks and message me if you want to know more or would like to collaborate with us.
I am really pleased you released this content because i love helping people in need and it makes me feel really good about myself. The only thing is i really do not like people who fake and i find it very disrespectful :( I am 14 years old and really want to contribute to helping people when i am older :D
Keep that giving heart, @ottostephens! We need more like you on this Earth. Teach yourself how to spot those who want to take advantage of your charitable spirit, so you can continue to help those who really need it. Good luck!
why is it when I see the word Unicef I think of the Simpsons??? Oh right.
I strongly disagree with your assessment my friend and would like to think that some of the earnings from this post do go towards a noble cause. I personally would rather give charity to someone directly into their hands than give it to an intermediary who will take a cut of it for doing 'charitable work'. Please do a little research into the annual salaries of the directors etc who work for some of the big name charities and you will find that they are on exorbitant wages which they are taking out of the donations of everyday men and women like myself and in many cases there is little left to make any difference whatsoever!
I think you are right in saying that there will definitely be some who abuse for their own ends but I personally would much rather trust a fellow member of steemit than have an organised charity that needs employees and administration costs. Many of us would like to use steemit for good causes and you have no right in making the claim that only an organised charity can be trusted. In my experience they are the least trustworthy. I myself have a proposal that I am working on and feel strongly about so to read your words now is like a slap in the face to me. I don't usually comment if I don't have anything positive to say but this has really angered me my friend. I respect your opinion but am diametrically opposed to it. Steemit has given many people including myself the opportunity to do something for the good of others that no other platform can offer and I personally intend to use it to help in this way. If you do not want to help then don't but please don't tell other people what they should and shouldn't be doing with their money, upvotes or whatever else. We, like you, are all big enough and ugly enough to make decisions for ourselves in this regard!
My apologies for getting so worked up but I think you are completely wrong in your assessment of the overall good will and good nature of the majority of users on the platform and also wrong in your assessment of our own ability to see a scam. You are not the only one who can recognise these things my friend!
I hope that your day is going well!
@Joseph are there any registered charities on Steemit?
Not that I know of. Would like to see a few.
There are a few charity guys that i know that i could bring here to benefit their charities but they kind of need something more official like an official badge to say they are legit etc
@joseph by the way ... incredible page you have. Im following you hopefully some of your steemit skillz will rub off on me. Would love some feedback on my page if you ever get the time.
This is a great post, I and my friends visit orphange homes very often, we know what it means not to have, we want to improve the life of the less privileged.
That is an inspirational post great...👍 @joseph
Charity steemit = Upvote
that is really great to mention. especially in this specific time.
I was just looking to away to rise some charity to the refugees that suffer a lot since a long time.
UNICEF is the best gate for any charity as per now because there are no other means.
thank you for the good article
Great idea! I was about to wite a post about the same topic.
I think that steem opens huge possibilities for found raising and it will even better when EOS will be launched and someone will create a platform specific for charity purpose.
I am in touch with two onlus association ( http://www.axeitalia.net & http://www.pesciolinorosso.org ) and I will assist them in the process of joining the steem community and raise funds throught creating content. It would be a great experiement! Stay tuned!
Thank you for your post I will make a donation :)
I made a post urging people to support The Turing Trust, I declined payout on that post. To me this is the way charity should always be handled. If the recipient is a steemian, then just transfer them funds, I think this is a more abuse tolerant method.
It is really a big issue. Crowdfunding can be an alternative to it.
What a great idea!! lets hope everyone jumps on board and helps out a great cause!!
I thought the idea of blockchain platforms is that there is no oversight or censorship?
I think that in the long term, people will become accustomed to seeing posts trying to get money and just ignore them.
That's what will happen if we continue the same way, so maybe if we organize it a bit, so legitimate charities do actually get something. People who think this post is against them will end up the biggest losers on the long term, because people will do what you said and start ignoring.
But on a platform where content creators are meant to be rewarded, rewarding charities just for posting and asking is not right.
Charities will have to just post good quality content and earn upvotes just like anyone else.
Well, that is up to the holders of Steem Power to decide, is it not? Everyone who has SP has to decide for themselves if they want to spend it on good content, on their friends, on charities or even not spending it.
Wait so when you upvote posts it actually costs you Steem Power? What if you have no steem power left, can you not upvote anymore?
No, it costs you Voting Power, not Steem Power. Each account get 100 % voting Power, and each vote with 100 % costs 0,5 % of this Voting Power. So you can cast 40 votes and get down to 80 % Voting Power, or 80 votes to get down to 60 %. At lower Voting Power, each vote is worth less. However, you get +20 % Voting Power each day, so you get to cast 40 votes daily without getting to low Voting Power.
Steem Power is a different thing, and mainly affects how much your votes are worth.
Also note that the percentages for voting power will change in the next hardfork, and after this you only need to cast 10 votes to drain the daily 20 % of the Voting Power you have, so if you want to keep voting 40 votes daily you need to lower the vote to 25 %.
Hope this makes sense to you, but let me know if you got any questions, and I will try to answer them as best as I can ;)
This is incredible innovation! Good luck!
Totally agree! Remember that by donating money to charity:
4.Realize That Every Little Bit Helps
Problem is..it goes to DIRECTORS and advertising for more money. They give around 10% away. UNICEF is a complete RIPOFF. NEVER GIVE TO CHARITIES!
I am from Kosovo where there was war 18 years ago and organizations like UNICEF have helped us with food, clothes, and shelter. I think every organization misuse a fraction of the money but, if you can help people in need directly it is the best way to send money or goods in the right place.
The worst offender was yet again for the 11th year in a row is, UNICEF - CEO, receives $1,200,000 per year, (plus use of a Rolls Royce for his exclusive use where ever he goes, and an expense account that is rumored to be well over $150,000). Only pennies from the actual donations go to the UNICEF cause (less than $0.14 per dollar of income).
Charity is a good thing for all, because you help a life and you make a persons life even better. So in this way you will also be happier. I think that all of us should join the charity programs.