I've been discussing digital currency with charities for the past 3+ years. As an early member of the Coinbase team, I led our efforts with large, globally known charities like United Way, the Wikimedia Foundation and Watsi to help them accept bitcoin.
I've been excited about digital currencies and charities for a long time for the following reasons:
Digital currencies are inherently global, so they make it easy for anyone in the world to contribute to causes
When paying with a debit or credit card online, the merchant loses btw 2% and 3% to fees. Consumers don't care about savings for the merchant when buying a TV on Amazon or bed sheets on Overstock. But when giving to charities, 2%-3% is meaningful
There are significant tax benefits to donating with digital currency. Bitcoin donations get the double tax benefit of both deducting the full amount of the donation and avoiding capital gains (so its attractive for early adopters that have seen the vlaue of their holdings rise significantly)
A blockchain is transparent, so funds sent can be monitored (so crypto donors donors know for certain that funds are not misappropriated)
Despite all these benefits for both donors and charities, digital currencies and charities haven't yet taken off like many have hoped. I think a social network-based crypto protocol like Steem could change that and here's why...
People must own BTC to make BTC donations, so the growth of Bitcoin donations for these charities is based on the global adoption of BTC. Global adoption of BTC is growing, but it's growing slowly because it's still relatively difficult for people to acquire it -- one must buy it, mine it, or earn it. As a result, charities that accept BTC aren't earning meaningful donations for the most part.
Steem has the potential to earn meaningful donations for charities today. Great content creators that earn Steem can direct the new Steem Power and/or Steem Dollars created as a result of their work directly to the causes they care about. I imagine in the future, large charities may create their own accounts as well, to tell stories about the beneficiaries of the charities as a fundraising mechanism.
To test this out, I will be donating all the SBD earned from this post to my favorite charity that accepts BTC, Watsi, directly supporting as many individuals as I can. I will convert SBD to BTC and send to Watsi this time, but will also use this as test case for Watsi to use Steem.
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