Hi Lumenauts!
My name is Daniel and I was encouraged to make a post about the Lumenthropy.com initiative here on the Stellar Community Forum. Many of you likely know about Lumenthropy, as I have been active on Twitter, Reddit and Keybase, but I'm certain there are many Stellar community folks that still don't know.
The full detail of the initiative can be read about on the website, but it's fairly easy to summarize with the mission, the how, and the why statements.
MISSION
To encourage nonprofit organizations to accept lumen donations and to inspire people that hold lumens to donate to worthy causes.
HOW?
By increasing visibility of lumen-accepting nonprofits and by donating lumens each time Lumenthropy’s Stellar wallet reaches a balance of 1,000 lumens.
WHY?
To increase Stellar adoption and make providing financial support to nonprofits easier, instant, and low cost regardless of the sender’s global location and financial means.
I launched Lumenthropy last February and it has already started delivering on its mission in some very meaningful ways.
When Lumenthropy launched, there was only one known nonprofit organization that accepted Stellar lumen donations (UNICEF France). That list now sits at five - three that were recruited by me personally and another had a wallet that few, if anyone, knew about.
We are now on our sixth Stellar lumen fundraising campaign and have raised and sent 5,200 lumens to nonprofit organizations. 3,200 of those lumens have been officially accepted and 2,000 sit waiting for the nonprofit to accept by claiming their Twitter handle via Keybase.
Heifer.org had a wallet that was over a year old that had never received a single lumen donation. We worked with the community to successfully raise enough lumens to buy two goats for people in need. Heifer.org actively engaged with us via Twitter, which helped raise awareness for Heifer as well as for Stellar.
We have piqued the attention of two nonprofit consultants in search of finding new ways to advise and provide value to their nonprofit organization clients. Although this hasn't yet amounted to any nonprofit conversions, it has provided a communication channel into the nonprofit organization space.
Needless to say, the initiative is working but it could use more community support to keep the momentum. If you believe this is an initiative worth supporting, there are many ways in which you can help. Most immediately, Lumenthropy is competing for a share of the Stellar Community Fund (SCF). Please consider voting for this initiative along with the other spectacular projects that are also in search of funding. https://galactictalk.org/d/1907-lumenthropy-com
While there are lots of worthy and important projects competing for the SCF, I do believe the Lumenthropy initiative stands out in that 100% of any lumens received will be donated to a nonprofit organization with a published Stellar lumen wallet. The time and resources used to run Lumenthropy are my contribution to the Stellar vision as a fellow Lumenaut.
If Lumenthropy received some of the SCF, the lumens would be used to provide donation matching and to provide a trickle of continued support to any nonprofit organization with an established Stellar wallet. Donation matching would help make the initial fundraiser more valuable and would help offset scarce nonprofit staff time spent establishing a Stellar wallet (unlike individuals that can create a wallet in seconds, a nonprofit organization must think through a lot of important issues when they accept digital asset donations). The trickle of support would keep Stellar at the forefront of the minds of the people that that run each Stellar lumen accepting nonprofit organization. In addition to helping establish Stellar as a viable funding channel, continued Stellar support could also lead to Stellar's use in the nonprofit's everyday business - such as funding operations in far away places.
Other ways you can help support the mission can be found here https://lumenthropy.com/how-to-support-the-mission/. Some monetary, some not.
And with that long post, I wish you all a lovely weekend.
Cheers and thanks in advance for any and all support in this community-driven initiative.
Daniel
