A strong tradition where I come from is people raising funds for charitable organisations. This may range from local sports clubs to international aid organisations. People regularly arrange cake sales and raffles at work as well as challenges such as marathons where they get sponsorship to compete with funds being donated to charities.
Is this type of fundraising OK for steemit?
In a post yesterday @joseph suggested that there is a big danger that
"We do not know if these funds will be used for whatever reason they are requested for."
https://steemit.com/steemit/@joseph/2281-charity-platform
This is a fair point and In @josephs post there were 184 comments and I didn't notice anyone disagreeing with him, but I have a very different perspective!!!
Grass Roots Fundraising
Steemit is an ideal platform to raise funds in this way. There may be criticisms of how the funds are spent, etc but in my experience a great deal of good comes out of these types of initiatives.
Local Charities
Steemit is entirely different compared to local charities or causes because it's an online anonymous community or is it?
Local Charities and causes can work very well and even taking them a step further you can think of forms 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. For example 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.
Appropriate Safeguards
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.
What we can do
Sharing
Let's not turn people off helping each other and utilising the most transparent global community out there for raising funds.
Guidelines/Best Practice
Let's develop guidelines, get registered, work with charities like I did last Christmas. It is easy to post a picture from the internet, but you can get authorisation from a charity and provide their contact details to show you are a registered fundraiser.
https://steemit.com/charity/@eroche/vote-for-the-children-of-syria-this-christmas-on-steemit
Lets get a Big Charity Involved
Let's expand our charitable profile and get charities posting about projects here on Steemit. I plan on reaching out to a few in Ireland over the coming months in advance of a fundraising campaign coming up to Christmas 2017.
This is all about trust and accountability
I have a big fund-raising event planned for next Christmas, I hope you will support it.
Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.
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