Summary: Lumenthropy encourages nonprofit organizations to accept lumen donations and inspires people that hold lumens to donate to worthy causes.
Goals:
- Maintain an index of nonprofit organizations that accept Stellar lumen donations; and
- Increase the amount of nonprofit organization that officially accept Stellar lumen donations.
Timeline: The Lumenthropy.com initiative is already live and actively maintained - we most recently completed a fundraiser for Watsi.org. With regard to increasing the amount of nonprofit organizations, I will continue to reach out to nonprofit organizations to find those willing to accept a Stellar lumen fundraiser. With funding, I will:
- Immediately budget for and setup a donation schedule to provide a stream of support for those nonprofits that already accept Stellar lumen donations.
- Immediately contact the two nonprofit consultants that have taken interest in the initiative to inform them of the increased incentive so that they can help find nonprofits willing to officially establish a Stellar wallet.
- Before the end of October, write a new blog highlighting the steps and considerations a nonprofit must work through when deciding to accept digital asset donations.
- Within a year of award, I'd aim to double the current list of nonprofit organizations with Stellar wallets. This equates to roughly one new fundraiser every two months.
Description: The combination of these goals will help deliver on the philanthropic heart of the Stellar mission – to inclusively provide financial benefit to the world. It does this by increasing awareness of the Stellar network and its benefit to nonprofit organizations and the people many nonprofit organizations help. The benefits being lower remittance costs, seamless currency exchanges, and a wider understanding of the technology among people that are already working closely with those that can benefit the most from the Stellar technology – people without a secure government or access to banks (bank the unbanked).
Safety in numbers. The index list of nonprofit organizations that already accept Stellar lumen donations provides nonprofit organizations looking for new fundraising avenues comfort that other nonprofit organizations have already started adopting the technology. It also illustrates and provides concrete proof that the policy, organizational, and reporting challenges of accepting digital asset donations are surmountable and have already been solved by other nonprofit organizations.
In the end, Lumenthropy.com increases Stellar adoption and makes providing financial support to nonprofit organizations easier, instant, and low cost regardless of the sender’s global location and financial means.
The lumens provided to Lumenthropy.com through the Stellar Community Fund would allow Lumenthropy to:
Periodically provide lumen matching donations so that the Stellar Community's XLM donations can make a bigger impact for the nonprofit organization. Currently, raising 1,000 XLM for a nonprofit through the Stellar Community is difficult, but achievable. 1,000 XLM, however, is not much financial incentive for a nonprofit organization and can make it difficult for nonprofit staff to justify the time it takes to gain approval and implement a new and cutting-edge avenue of financial funding. Matching donations will allow for achievable community goals while also increasing the nonprofit's financial incentive to adopt the Stellar technology.
Maintain a steady amount of support for nonprofit organizations that officially accept Stellar lumen donations. A one-and-done model (providing one large donation with no further donations) will not be as effective as a model that provides many donations. A steady stream of donations after the initial donation, even if relatively small, will maintain the nonprofit's awareness of and engagement with the Stellar network.
Stellar fundraising success stories. The continued support of nonprofit organizations with a Stellar wallet provides fundraising success stories. It provides an ongoing financial incentive to maintain the wallet and to use the technology. It also will likely result in those fundraising success stories being shared within others in the nonprofit community because fundraising is a constant focus and shared challenge for almost all nonprofit organizations.
Link: https://lumenthropy.com
Anything else: Since starting this initiative in January of 2019, Lumenthropy has already expanded the list of known nonprofit organizations that officially accept Stellar lumen donations from 1 to 5. This has also resulted in two large nonprofit organizations (each with more than 250k followers) to actively engage and tweet positively about this Stellar-based initiative - Torproject.org and Heifer.org. Two nonprofit consultants have already taken interest in the initiative and are looking for ways to help advise nonprofit organizations on the technology and how it can be used to further the missions at nonprofit organizations. I have done this to date with very little incentive for the nonprofits (about $100). I expect I can do so much better with a bit more support and incentive for the nonprofit organizations.
