Tuesday Project Spotlight: Giveth
Updated: Feb 25
Before this quick look into a single crypto giving platform, we at the BL4SG Center want to encourage you to stay tuned to the Bchain Blog for our special Friday, March 11th, post which will dive into how crypto donors are stepping up to help the people of Ukraine. Until then, please enjoy our regularly scheduled Tuesday Project Spotlight.
The philanthropic and crypto-flush among us already know that investments held more than one year can be leveraged to maximize impact through charitable giving.1 Now, while anyone with a crypto portfolio mature enough to require minimizing their capital gains tax burden has probably already come across Giveth, Giveth was made for socially responsible crypto donors of all stripes and levels (2). To draw two quick and dirty parallels, think Kiva, minus “lending,” on the blockchain or GuideStar, plus “donations,” on the blockchain.
A free platform, Giveth is a part of the SDG Impact Fund which is a registered donor-advised fund dedicated to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (3). Started by Ethereum‘s White Hat Group,(4) the first version of Giveth’s Donation Application (DApp) was launched on the Ethereum mainnet in 2016 (5). Giveth bills itself as a community focused on “Building the Future of Giving” by using blockchain technology. Their mission is to “build a culture of giving that rewards and empowers those who give—to projects, to society, and to the world. Their stated intention is to “support and reward the funding of public goods by creating open, transparent and free access to the revolutionary funding opportunities available within the Ethereum ecosystem.” To prove their commitment to accessibility, Giveth does not charge any additional fees for creating projects on their platform and has no minimum donation amount (6).
To meet its lofty goals, Giveth’s system was built on LiquidPledging, a novel smart contract system that allows Givers (née donors) to see exactly how Makers (née project organizers) are using donated funds, and provide oversight. This level of transparency is de rigueur for socially responsible donors—and those organizations courting their dollars—and is exactly what the blockchain was built to provide. Hence, in December 2020, Giveth’s DApp was renamed Giveth TRACE and is now bridged to Rinkeby testnet (7).
A project on Giveth that has been verified can choose to become a “Campaign” on Giveth TRACE, thus becoming a “traceable” project. This enables project creators to manage their donations transparently using “Traces” on Giveth. Traces specify how the project is using donations to achieve the goals of the overarching Campaign. Upgrading their projects to a Campaign enables project creators to specify parts of their project requiring funding as different types of Traces. Donors also benefit from being able to choose to fund either specific Traces or the overarching Campaign, and are able to trace the flow of their donations. Moreover, a traceable project appears on both Giveth TRACE (as a Campaign) and Giveth.io, allowing for dual coverage and exposure.
At publication time, verified projects include:
Free The Food: “Free The Food plants street-side food systems and provides educational content to help others worldwide successfully implement these systems! Using Permaculture and Syntropic farming techniques, fruit trees, edible plants, and additional companion plants are combined to create a circular and regenerative food system. We empower people and communities around the world to plant their street-side with food!”;
Diamante Bridge Collective: “The Diamante Bridge Collective (DBC) is a network of land stewards, individuals, organizations and communities located primarily within the Diamante Valley of Costa Rica, expanding to include those from the greater Southern Zone of Costa Rica, and those abroad.”; &
RECenter the Resource Recycling Center San Salvador: “Help us build a recycling center and create an Extruder Machine to transform “non-recyclable plastic” into a great building material : Wood plastic or Madera Plastica. Without a formal waste management system in place and limited information and options to recycle, residents of San Salvador are left to individual choices and practices; which is often in the form of illegal burning and dumping.”.
Because so many have decided to “dip their toe” in crypto the last few years, the donor base has only grown and shows no sign of shrinking. In fact, Kate Dore, CFP® recently reported that there was a 583% increase in digital asset donations in 2021 compared to 2020 on Crypto Giving Tuesday. That number is sure to be a shock to socially conscious donors still hesitant to “enter the chat,” but what is certain is that whenever you’re comfortable, Giveth will be there to help you align your values with your crypto giving.