Introduction: An Industry Critique
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Last updated
SugarBlock operates as a P2P marketplace that enables nonprofit organizations to find skilled labor, and reward freelancers using crypto donations.
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Today's donation mechanisms rely heavily on trusting organizations to spend contributions in ways that align with what donors desire. As the scale and complexity of nonprofits continue to increase in a globalized world, tracking how funding is spent can often be too time consuming for the average donor to follow. As such, many donors contribute based on the belief that organizations will act in good faith towards their intended mission statement. While the majority of nonprofits tend to be good actors, the few fake charities that act maliciously have disastrous consequences for donors, as was seen during the Covid-19 pandemic:
"'Charity scams are on the rise, increasing nearly 70% since 2019, according to figures released for Scams Awareness Week, 17-21 August 2020...
“Unfortunately, in times of crisis there are people who will take advantage of Australians’ generosity by impersonating charities.”'
— From the
"Americans have lost $145 million to fraud related to Covid-19, according to Federal Trade Commission data.
Consumers have filed more than 205,000 reports of fraud linked to the coronavirus since the beginning of the year, according to the federal agency.
The average loss was $300, according to the FTC."
— From the
The effects of these scams can be devastating for the nonprofit industry as a whole, as donors who are wrong footed by bad actors are left with a permanent bad taste towards donations in general.
As such, creating "trustless" donation mechanisms where donors know exactly how their contributions are being spent seems to be of paramount importance in order to keep growing nonprofits so that they may focus on their respective missions.
SugarBlock allows donors to choose: Nonprofits list tasks that they need completed by freelancers in the form of bounties. Donors then choose which tasks they want to fund. Funds are locked into smart contracts between the nonprofit and freelancer, guaranteeing that those donations are used to pay for the services requested in the bounty. SugarBlock's marketplace creates a closed donation economy that offers benefits to nonprofits, donors, and freelancers alike!
Money flows to where it is treated best, and transparency enables users to trust that transactions are legitimate. In the nonprofit industry, organizations that give donors faith that their money will be spent wisely outperform by a significant margin.
"Transparent organizations accrue more in contributions in the year following the information disclosure than organizations delivering only basic information. Specifically, we find that going from not being transparent to being transparent results in a 53.27% increase in contributions."
— From the