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 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.
