By Anne RinaudoTuesday 10 Jul 2018Open House InterviewsFinance and BusinessReading Time: 2 minutes
Listen: Bryce Thomas and Fredrick Brien in conversation with Stephen O’Doherty.
Cryptocurrency is the next big new thing in fundraising. The security and other features provided by blockchain will be a game changer for Australian charities. It will give the not-for-profit sector access to new sources of funding and improved public accountability.
Focus on mission not tech
The founders of new blockchain charity, ‘Tokens for Humanity’, were motivated by a realisation that charities, while interested in new technologies, found blockchain and cryptocurrency very complex.
The founders developed a basic system that has all of the security of blockchain but allows charities to focus attention on their mission, not on high level computer science. Blockchain and cryptocurrency is also expected to open up a new pool of potential financial support.
Cryptocurrency donation
‘Tokens for Humanity’ developed out of the University of Queensland’s accelerator program. It is the only legally registered blockchain charity to be recognised by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission in Australia – it will operate initially in New South Wales, launching in August 2018.
The charity have two fundraising methods, ‘Tokens for Humanity’ which allows direct cryptocurrency donations to charities and ‘TokenSpin’ which runs virtual raffles.
Virtual raffles
The raffle idea arose from the realisation that raffles are time consuming and can also have administrative and marketing costs that can be up to 70% of the funds raised. Using the technological approach of ‘TokenSpin’ the process is vastly simpler, cheaper and less headache for the charity.
Geeky, brilliant idea
If you recognised the geeky reference to the game ‘Cards for Humanity’ in the title of this startup, you probably already know all about the wonders of blockchain and crypto currency. For the rest of us who are not so tech and computer literate, it is very useful that Open House have asked a few questions about how it works.
‘Tokens for Humanity’ is built on blockchain and the concept is that it will make decisions more transparent, fundraising more efficient and move records to the public domain. On ‘Open House’, co-founders, Bryce Thomas and Fredrick Brian, explained to Stephen O’Doherty the advantages of a blockchain charity.
Real time transparency
Transparency is one of the big advantages of ‘Tokens for Humanity’. The transparency arises because everything is on blockchain, the chain of what the organisation is doing can be viewed by members of the public in real time, including the flow of funds.
To listen to the podcast of this conversation click the red play button at the top of the page, or you can subscribe to Open House podcasts in iTunes and they will appear in your feed.