A Contingency Plan

The denouement upon us

This week ends our crypto-experiment in nonprofit fundraising and adminstration. You’ll find my review of the product of our labors in this post. To sum up where our experiment stands, see @phillyhistory's post here- but suffice it to say that we end the semester’s project with 3000 SBD in uncommitted funds; no investors have applied for our funds. Now is the time for our contingency plan to kick in. We are still formulating one, however, through in-class discussion and in our final #explore1918 posts. See, for instance, @jfeagan's idea to route the proceeds to Temple's Digital Scholarship Center.

We had originally hoped to use funding to subsidize a nonprofit organization around Philadelphia. At this time, this particular plan does not appear to be a possibility. Another alternative would be to continue running the crypto-experiment within the department; this would entail not cashing out the funds, and hoping that monetary value would continue to accrue to a larger sum over a longer period of time than one semester. This plan requires several conditions that we are not positive will be met at this point in time, including wider buy-in among students and teachers on continuing the blogging on Steemit, as well as an ultimate hope that Steem’s market value will continue to rise.
We simply don't know: Will Steem allow features like post scheduling or a more streamlined text editor? Will it offer tokens to be embedded on other platforms? We don’t know yet. It has some way to go before it is easy to use, easy to teach, and easy to persuade writers to use actively.

So what should we do now?

I say:

1. Cash out the profits we have accrued.
2. Invest some, most, or all of the principal into a long-term/low-risk/low-yield fund, possibly administered by the university.
3. Keep the funds within the Public History program or department at Temple for the time being.
   4.Celebrate our victory in having raised this amount of money, and shelf the experiment while we discuss what to do next.

An unsexy but realistic middle-of-the-road solution

This may run counter to the "spirit" of cryptocurrency, but it also reflects the demonstrated reality that nonprofits are not yet ready to deal in this alternative financial arrangement. They will probably be amenable to using money raised in that way, but only after it has been converted to more widely transferable currency. It will ensure that the funding we've raised with our labor will be retained and stewarded.

^{100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.}