Bits N Dollars: Make an Impact: Donate Bitcoin to Projects on the Ground in Nepal

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Make an Impact: Donate Bitcoin to Projects on the Ground in Nepal

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This is a guest post by Elizabeth Ploshay, Connie Gallippi, Victoria van Eyk, and Sarah Martin.

Last week, Nepal was hit with a magnitude 7.8 earthquake – the worst in 80 years. More than 4,000 people died, and hundreds more are without food, water or shelter.

Natural disasters shake not just the core of our communities, but also the core of our humanity. Many of us feel a deep-seated need to reach out and help during major catastrophes. But it can sometimes seem overwhelming when the scale is so large, and hard to know how to make a real difference.

Three leaders in the Bitcoin ecosystem – the BitGive Foundation, ChangeTip, and BitPay – have solutions to help:

The BitGive Foundation is running a campaign to raise donations for Medic Mobile, a nonprofit organization that uses mobile technology to improve health-service delivery. Here’s a message from the Medic Mobile Team:

“The Medic Mobile team is actively exploring how we can help with local, coordinated relief efforts after the earthquake that devastated Kathmandu on Saturday, April 25th. Our third-largest office is based there and very thankfully all of our teammates are safe. The Bitcoin community has already been so supportive of our efforts in the past and we’d be grateful for that support again. Every donation will go directly to our Nepal office and help as we deploy the right technology. Thank you from our whole team.”

Click here for more information about the campaign and how you can contribute.

ChangeTip is encouraging the Bitcoin community to contribute to the Red Cross via Twitter tips. More than 400 ChangeTip community members contributed to the Red Cross from Sunday to Monday as part of an ongoing, weeklong campaign. The campaign currently exceeds more than $3,200 in micropayments.

BitPay also processes donations for Save the Children, an international relief organization mobilizing humanitarian assistance in Nepal. Save the Children began accepting bitcoin donations last fall after a successful 2013 campaign with the BitGive Foundation to raise funds for the Philippines Typhoon Haiyan relief effort. To donate in bitcoin to Save the Children, click here.

How can you help support the people, families, and communities in Nepal? Reach out to more charitable organizations and encourage them to accept bitcoin donations. BitPay charges no (zero percent) transaction fees, and nonprofits receive all (100 percent) of their contributions in their local, fiat currency.

As we all know, Bitcoin is not just a fast and easy way to send money. It’s an incredibly powerful tool to help those most in need. Let’s join together and show the world how Bitcoin can make a meaningful difference in real people’s lives.

Elizabeth Ploshay is an account manager at BitPay and board director at The Bitcoin Foundation; Connie Gallippi is the founder and executive director of the BitGive Foundation; Victoria van Eyk is the vice president of community development at ChangeTip; and Sarah Martin is the head of special projects at the Digital Currency Council (DCC).