Charity through Blockchain: How Humaniq can help materialise the “Blockchain for Good” movement
Blockchain is a secure, shared public record of documents and transactions collectively maintained by users. It’s built to resist censorship and tampering from any particular entity, and it’s completely open for the world to see — no matter how one tries to obfuscate it, every transaction can be traced to its original sender and receiver. This absolute transparency is often considered to be extremely useful for one age-old issue: inefficient and insecure charity distribution.
How much of a problem is it?
Charitable organizations can become targets of massive scandals, more often than one could think. For example, following the tragic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, more than $500 million dollars were donated by people in the USA to the American Red Cross — a colossal sum of money that would have been instrumental in helping the island nation get back on its feet, if not more.
Instead, large portions of the money ended up never reaching the affected Haitians, as NPR uncovered by exploring locations where large housing projects were supposedly implemented.
And this is just what was painfully obvious — a building is either there or it isn’t. For the rest of the funds, which officially went into things such as immediate relief, food, water sanitation and other helpful initiatives, we simply don’t know how they were used. While some of the money definitely got to the intended people, it’s difficult to imagine that all of it was spent as efficiently as possible, seeing how the housing project went.
Cases of outright fraud exist, too. Several cancer charities in the US, which collectively received $187 million in donations, were closed down following federal lawsuits accusing them of using as little as 3% of the funds on actual charitable initiatives. The rest was used purely for personal expenses of the founders and for more fundraising initiatives.
Furthermore, even if the charities themselves might be legitimate, they still run into problems with the local realities, where warlords, central governments and other entities are often accused of meddling with the charity distribution process.
How can Blockchain help?
The core problem leading to these inefficiencies is the lack of information and accountability: donors are simply unaware of how their funds will be used, exactly. As a consequence, there is very little pressure on the charities to perform, as the money will be obtained anyway.
Enter Blockchain, the technology that allows most processes to become radically transparent: money transfers, supply chains, data, you name it.
Cryptocurrencies can get round restrictions placed on currencies and banking in conflict zones where sanctions are applied and the use of international currency is limited, as the CAF has highlighted. Moreover, money meant to help the desperate can be given directly to people in need.
The scope to tackle “endemic” corruption, for example in international development, is one big draw, identified by think-tank Charity Futures. Better tracking of funding can only bolster flagging trust in the sector in its report, as mentioned in its report. It further states that there is a need for funding raised through the Blockchain to be used for “truly humanitarian purposes”, with organisations that are accountable with a clear charitable purpose.
Announcing the Humaniq for Good charity platform
Seeing all the issues with the process of delivering aid to developing nations, and realising the potential of Blockchain to revolutionise it, we decided to develop a platform that would leverage our existing infrastructure to provide better ways of tracking humanitarian aid, expand non-profit partnerships in Africa, promote impactful social causes, and help local communities raise awareness of their projects on the Humaniq platform.
In many cases, charities that receive funding in the developed world rely on local Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) as “contractors” to provide the aid for its intended cause. Global charities struggle with finding a reliable local partner to help identify key NPOs that make a real impact in local communities across Africa. This results in significant waste of time and energy, and also dramatically decreases trust in local institutions.
By leveraging its established network of Ambassadors, Humaniq is able to assist any organization seeking to donate to philanthropic causes in Africa, from raising funds to distributing it to local organisations, and deliver it directly to the people who need aid. Payments will be handled through Blockchain, making sure that the money always reaches the right people.
This is an expansion direction that makes us incredibly excited! We will be keeping our community up to date with all the development in the charity sphere, so stay tuned.
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