BitGive is a nonprofit organization that has revolutionized philanthropic work through bitcoin and its blockchain technology. Soon BitGive will introduce GiveTrack, a blockchain-based platform that has the potential to dramatically disrupt how international and humanitarian organizations work.
Also read: Red Cross Donations Go Astray, Time To Embrace Blockchain Technology
Indeed, GiveTrack has the potential to help organizations like the United Nations, USAID, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and Oxfam, to perform their work more efficiently and transparently.
BitGive Success Stories Set an Example
Philanthropic, international, and humanitarian organizations face enormous and multiple challenges to funding and running their operations.
Overall, humanitarian aid operations are inefficient and lack transparency. Recognizing this fact, the European Union, a leader in humanitarian aid, has set as a major objective, “To improve the delivery of aid through complementary and thematic activities aiming at increasing the effectiveness, efficiency, quality, timeliness and visibility of humanitarian actions and transport.”
Moreover, these organizations have to overcome unique obstacles, especially in the developing world. At the Latin America Bitcoin and Blockchain Conference (LaBitConf) in November, Connie Gallippi, Founder and Executive Director of BitGive, summarized these challenges as follows:
- Access to the developing world
- Lack of financial services
- High fees and charges
- Long wait times and multiple steps
- Vulnerabilities to fraud
Remarkably, BitGive overcomes all these obstacles by using the bitcoin cryptocurrency and its blockchain technology, benefitting charitable organizations globally.
Bitcoin allows BitGive to confirm remote transactions, significantly lower transfer fees, provide transparency in real time, execute cryptographically-secured transactions and obtain fast settlements, explained Gallippi.
BitGive success stories are many and outstanding, such as helping to rebuild Nepal after an earthquake, providing clean, safe water in developing countries, and saving lives while protecting Ebola’s orphans.
GiveTrack Will Help Organizations Provide Greater Transparency
International and humanitarian organizations tend to be complex and to suffer from excessive bureaucracy and lack of transparency.
Donors, beneficiaries, and the public would like to know, in real time, where the money is going and how it is being spent. Additionally, these stakeholders need to monitor and measure the impact of the expenditures.
In this regard, BitGive is developing GiveTrack, which will be launched on December 8, 2016.
“GiveTrack uses blockchain technology to allow donors and the public to trace nonprofit transactions on a public platform in real time to see how funds are spent, ensure they reach their final destination, and track the results generated from contributions,” according to BitGive’s website.
GiveTrack Can Help the United Nations to Achieve Greater Transparency
Since its inception, the United Nations has been in financial crisis. It is often accused of mismanagement, waste, and inefficiency. Moreover, member states are continuously demanding from the organization greater transparency and accountability.
In effect, demands for UN reform or restructuring have been permanent. “Over the course of five decades, numerous reports, studies, congressional hearings, investigative newspaper series, and reform proposals appeared, all calling for change. The question of UN reform has always been on the agenda of the United States. Of course, there was no single concept of how this reform should or could be implemented,” according to a presentation made at the United Nations University.
Recently, in March, a former UN official declared, “Thanks to colossal mismanagement, the UN is failing.”
Responding to this allegation, the UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, “Reforming an organization … whose rules were designed really for a talk shop in 1945 and transforming them into a much more field-oriented, service-oriented, action-oriented organization is a complicated process,” reported Reuters.
Now, the UN has the technology to reform and redesign its business processes. In effect, the UN could reengineer many of its processes by using the features that Bitcoin and its blockchain technology offer. Thus, the organization could minimize its maddening bureaucracy, streamline its business processes, and perform its financial transactions with full transparency.
For example, the UN and its agencies could reduce waste and operational costs just by using bitcoins instead of handling several fiat currencies. Indeed, the UN and its agencies could reduce almost to none the costs associated with transferring and exchanging currencies across countries, while increasing the security and speed of the financial transactions.
Moreover, were the UN and its agencies and programs to adopt GiveTrack, they would finally be able to provide donor countries, host governments, and its beneficiaries full transparency of its financial transactions. Additionally, donors could track in real time the results generated from their contributions.
During conservative U.S. administrations, the UN financial crisis has usually intensified due to their withholding or reducing funding. Now, Donald Trump’s election as the U.S. president leads many to fear increasing hostility towards the UN, including a threat to its funding.
Therefore, the new UN Secretary, Antonio Guterres, might wish to investigate Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, in order to innovate and show how UN operations can reform to be more transparent, efficient, and effective.
BitGive is already demonstrating how innovation through bitcoin and its blockchain technology can make a difference. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, BitGive is setting an example for how the UN and humanitarian organizations could use bitcoin and its blockchain to create amazing solutions to fulfill their mandate and help the world in previously unimaginable ways.
What do you think are the benefits that the UN and humanitarian organizations could obtain by using Bitcoin and its blockchain technology? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and BitGive.
