CommonCollection: Social and Technical Activism
Elisabeth Grothe-Møller is an art history student of the University of Copenhagen who wants to aid people who are excluded from valuable resources most people take for granted. So, Elisabeth and her family created a peer-to-peer online platform called CommonCollection to connect people together and change things. People can directly donate Bitcoin to those in need, as it is the native payment solution for the charitable organization. From the global refugee crisis to natural disasters, this young woman and her family are using the digital currency to create a better world.
Also read: Disrupting Gender Imbalance in the Bitcoin Ecosystem
“It’s our fundamental belief that there is so much unutilized potential and goodwill,”
~Elisabeth Grothe-Møller
The world has gone through a lot of turmoil lately, and many people face economic hardships. The Grothe-Møller family feels that we all can help ease the discrepancies between those that have and those that don’t.
Elisabeth grew up in a family that traveled the world, seeing unfortunate circumstances and always feeling the need to help. With the economy in most regions in deep depressions, and the refugee crisis happening globally, people do need a lot of help.
When visiting CommonCollection, you can find various cases of individuals and families who need financial assistance. One man is building transitional shelters for people suffering from the earthquake in Nepal. Some other cases that can be found include someone looking to fund a laptop for a receptionist position in Karnataka, India; in Lesbos Prefecture, Greece there is an effort to fund life jackets for refugees crossing water from Turkey to Lesbos.
Bitcoin.com got together with Elisabeth Grothe-Møller to get some insight and perspective on the social platform she and her family started to help people. Elisabeth tells us the benefits of Bitcoin and how it can revolutionize crowd funding and charity today.
Bitcoin.com (BC): What is CommonCollection all about?
Elisabeth Grothe-Møller (EGM): CommonCollection.com is a social media platform that is all about connecting P2P to essentially unite for a better world! It’s our fundamental belief that there is so much unutilized potential and goodwill – and our goal is, therefore, to present a social media platform where we can share, connect and give with the purpose of creating an impact on both receiver’s and giver’s lives.
BC: How did you get involved with activism?
EGM: I guess we’ve always been involved with some sort of social activism – or at least always had a deep yearning for a better world. I grew up in a family that traveled a lot and whenever we meet someone who was living under horrendous circumstances, or really just opened up a newspaper, or saw a beggar on the streets, it was almost unbearable not be able to do anything to help — which is a feeling I think most of us recognize and share. And this is something that has been fundamental for the creation of CommonCollection.
When the founders, Annette and Thorkild Grothe-Møller, about 7 years ago first got the vision of using the already social and connected internet to help make it easier for people to help others and in turn get help themselves, it was the beginning of a whole new level of ‘social’ and ‘tech’ activism. I was allowed from a relatively young age to join a discussion as to how we could bring these super idealistic ideas alive using the internet, and that was very special! The current version 1 on CommonCollection, today, is a product of many discarded prototypes and hours of testing and brainstorming. I am very excited to get started on version 2, which we will begin developing when we have enough funding from sponsors and investors because it will entail some amazing comprehensive improvements to the existing ‘social’ components of the site, which will include new sharing functions, profile improvements and UX design.
BC: Who introduced you to Bitcoin?
EGM: My brother, Fredrik Grothe-Møller, who was the chairperson of the Danish Bitcoin Foundation and is now developing his own Bitcoin-related business, first introduced us to the many advantages of Bitcoin.
BC: What do you think Bitcoin can do to help the world’s poor?
EGM: I think it’s brilliant to actively use Bitcoin to help the world’s poor. Basically, CommonCollection.com use Bitcoin-to-Bitcoin as the native payment solution. We realize though that knowledge about Bitcoin is yet generally limited, so for the convenience of the givers and receivers, we also accept local currency as donations and make the payout in local currency by use of local bitcoin brokers, and uses Bitcoin as a media to transfer money across the world. Right now we use Copenhagen Bitcoin for the Danish market and Unocoin for India, but we plan to expand this partnership-model as we extend our presence in different parts of the world. I think CommonCollection will help show how we can actively use Bitcoin to help the poorest of the poor – peer-to-peer – and thereby help broaden the understanding of the many benefits of using cryptocurrency, as well as make it more mainstream since it is so solidly integrated into this social media platform.
BC: How do you feel about the current evolution of decentralization and peer-to-peer technologies happening globally?
EGM: Taking the control of money from central authorities and give to each and every one of us, really brings hope for a better and more equal world in the future – that idea feels very good to me!
As Bitcoin is a decentralization of money, we are with CommonCollection trying to make a decentralization of the whole charity-industry, which together with Bitcoin can have a major impact on poverty around the world.
BC: Can you tell our readers about your partnerships?
EGM: CommonCollection also establishes partnerships with businesses, non-profits etc. that share our idealistic vision and we have most recently struck up a partnership with the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Leymah Gbowee and her peace foundation, ‘Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, with the goal to provide educational and leadership opportunities to sustain growth and development in African countries. Imagine, being able to talk with these young woman and men through this social media platform and being able show them each individually some of the kindness you have in you, kindle hope and ignite their belief in their individual potential to live the life they deserve, and then help sponsor their education from afar.
BC: What has been the overall goal with CommonCollection?
EGM: Keep growing and developing this social media platform to ultimately make it as easy, as it should be, to help where help is needed, and to connect, share and give P2P (or B2P) with the ultimate goal to make this world more kind and connected (no pun intended).
Thank you for speaking with us, Elisabeth. It’s always a pleasure to talk with activists who want to change the future for the better. We too believe Bitcoin can be the tool to help activists provide people resources and everyday needs. Best of luck with CommonCollective and its future endeavors.
What do you think of CommonCollective? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Redmemes, CommonCollective, and Pixbay.
