Bitcoin might just be a force for charities. It makes global donations a whole lot easier.
Even pure Bitcoin charities such as the Bitgive Foundation, the first 501(c)(3) Bitcoin nonprofit, have sprung up with Bitcoin as their donation method of choice. Here are just a few reasons all charities should hop aboard and accept bitcoin donations:
- Tons of well-respected institutions accept bitcoin donations – I mean, just look at this list. Wikimedia Foundation, Greenpeace, and XKCD all accept bitcoin.
- Bitcoin is censorship resistant - Transactions to non-profits have been restricted before. WikiLeaks is an interesting example of this. The non-profit is a perfectly legal organization—if controversial for leaking government documents)—yet payment processors like PayPal choked funds. Cut off from donations, WikiLeaks later turned to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is peer-to-peer. There is no middleman built in to the system that can restrict donations.
- Global transactions – Charities can receive bitcoin donations from anywhere in the world. It’s like email. That’s one reason WordPress originally decided to accept bitcoin payments.
- Potential donation increases – You might get a donation boost just for announcing that you’re accepting bitcoin. Case in point, this sports fan raked in more than $20k in donations after waving a bitcoin QR code on ESPN. The Pirate Party of Finland saw 4.47 BTC in donations 24 hours after announcing it would accept bitcoin donations. It could help your cause.
- Bitcoin enthusiasts love to tip - Bitcoin subredditors are already super donation-savvy, using ChangeTip. You see the same thing happening on Twitter too.
- Accepting bitcoin donations is easy – There are all those benefits. And donation systems are actually quite really easy to deploy using services, including ChangeTip’s Tip.Me. It doesn’t take long to sign up, connect your social media pages, and add a button to your website.
- Microtransactions – With bitcoin, you can accept tons of tiny payments of under a dollar. This isn’t possible with other payment systems where transactions costs are inherent.
Besides the easy tip deployment, there are always new innovations in the works. Earlier this year, ChangeTip launched a Tip Redirection feature. Those who don’t want to keep their tips can choose to automatically redirect their tips to the charity organization BitGive.
Sure, Bitcoin is technical. It’s “peer-to-peer” and all that mumbo-jumbo. But that translates to stuff that normal people can use. It makes stuff, such as global charities, easier.
Just wait until these initiatives expand. Maybe one day we’ll all be donating to Greenpeace and Doctors Without Borders painlessly with Bitcoin-filled tweets.
