How Blockchain Can Help the Red Cross Help Others — What Makes Giga Giving Different
The Red Cross has received a fair bit of criticism in recent years, but to be charitable, they are operating in the pre-digital age. The Red Cross certainly isn’t alone. There are literally thousands of charities that are rated poorly by charity watch dog groups like Charity Navigator. Some of these are legitimately bad actors, but many are simply operating in the pre-blockhain world. They haven’t been disrupted much in the way that innovations like snail mail vs. email, brick and mortar vs. Amazon, or online bill pay vs. written checks have changed the world.
Charitable Giving Current State
The traditional charity model is rooted in the pre-digital age where is necessary to collect donations (cash or non-cash), and often physically transport them to those in need. Between banking and foreign exchange fees, fraud, middle-men, and transport costs, this process has become costly and quickly reduces the effective impact of donations. The end result in many cases is that more is spent on overhead and processing than ends up going to those in need.Beyond the logistical issues with traditional charity systems, whenever someone decides to donate to a charity they must make several decisions — with the most pressing being to identify if the charity is credible. Traditional charity foundations often consist of complicated structures, that can cause confusion to potential donors; especially when solicitation is conducted over the phone or door to door where limited information is available to prospective donors. In many cases after a donation is made, there’s no way to truly verify that the money ended up where it was intended.
Redefining Charitable Giving Using Blockchain
Giga Giving believes that the solution to addressing inefficient charities and fraud is to build a completely transparent system that is purpose built to deliver donations where intended, with minimal transaction costs. With modern Blockchain technologies, that is finally possible on a global scale.
One of the key developments of modern Blockchains is the ability to define Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts serve to create an immutable and publicly verifiable electronic contract, which lays out very specific rules for how donations are handled. For example, you can design a Smart Contract that designates a donation recipient, what currency they need, how much they need, and a timeline for fulfilment. Then individuals can contribute into the contract, and once it meets the criteria for fulfilment, the funds are disbursed — directly to the intended recipient(s). And if it takes too long to reach the goal, or the recipient fails due-diligence, the donations can easily be returned to the contributors.Smart Contracts are publicly viewable agreements, so anyone can review the contracts, and perform full diligence on them. They also make it easy to follow the progress of a donation to see who received it, and when. And yet another benefit of using Smart Contracts for a contribution is that they provide an electronic receipt for your donations, so if you need a record of your donations or just want to view your donation history, you can right from your smartphone or computer.
Giga Giving also provides a place where companies can agree to provide goods to fulfil a donation contract. This allows local companies the chance to invest in their own community and reduces waste related to transport and conversions.
Ethereum and the Blockchain for Good
Giga Giving is leveraging Ethereum for smart contracts, on and off chain flexibility, transparency and its transaction fee structure.
Ethereum is the next step in the evolution of Blockchain technologies, and introduces the concept of Smart Contracts. At their core, Smart Contracts are publicly viewable and verifiable programs, which allow two or more parties to execute a transaction on the Ethereum Blockchain with full confidence in the terms and constraints of the contract. For example, when making a charitable contribution that has a minimum threshold, donors can be certain that if the threshold is not met then their donation will be returned.
Further, Smart Contracts allow for more complex interactions that simple currency exchanges, and permit multiple people or organizations to safely, securely, and transparently interact in contracts world-wide; regardless of their currency. This allows an individual in the US to donate to someone in another country, without worrying about currency conversion rates, and market fluctuations. When the contract is fulfilled, all required conversion is done, and every donation will be sent at the correct valuation.
What Makes Giga Giving Different
With Blockchain technologies experiencing tremendous growth worldwide, there are many organizations that are trying to leverage this new concept in a way to help charities. The difference between Giga Giving and these other organizations, is that Giga Giving provides a start to finish platform to connect donors to recipients, with complete transparency, and accountability.
While Blockchain provides a public and tamper resistant ledger of donations, Giga Giving takes it a step further and helps donors search for recipients that meet their criteria and performance expectations. We help businesses meet their goals for social responsibility by empowering employees to contribute to charitable organizations through employee based programs. We allow direct peer to peer donations and provide a process for emergency disaster relief. Giga Giving facilitates donations that remain local with support for intangible assets such as goods and services.
We enhance the donor experience by allowing prospective donors to search for recipients and charities based on validated information, transparency, and history of impact. Giga Giving makes it possible for individuals and businesses to select specific charities to donate to, or set a criteria and preferences for their contributions which may allow the system to automate selecting or recommending recipients based on need.
Digital currency is a very elegant way to send money overseas or across traditional borders, making it a great way to donate while reducing transaction costs and fees. Many charitable organizations are working to leverage the Blockchain for cross-border donations. Giga Giving believes that redefining charitable giving requires a robust and forward thinking toolset to realize the full potential of a highly efficient, global, transparent, intelligent platform connecting donors to recipients.
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