Project Giving - Charity on the Steem Blockchain

First, I will explain what Sndbox summer camp is and how it is helping to support projects/individuals on steemit. Recently, two members of Sndbox @anomadsoul and @guyfawkes4-20 started an initiative called #sndboxsummercamp. This initiative challenged talented bloggers to compete in a friendly competition to win a place in their summer camp and potentially in Sndbox itself. After weeks of challenges and many hours of work we have finally reached the penultimate challenge. This final challenge is focused on one of Sndbox's stated aims, creating projects.

I managed to win through the #sndboxsummercamp initial stages of the challenge in the travel writing category and when we were asked to choose one of the winners from the projects/coding quest to work with I chose Project Giving NGO Charity. Anyone who has read my blog regularly may say "Why a charity @raj808? You seem to be writing travel, poetry and fiction mainly, what's up?" The fact is, that I believe in the project, its founder @tristanoliff, and the goals that were set out in his quest post. I also wanted to go where my skills would make the most impact in these initial launch stages as in my last job I worked as a project officer at a national charity in the UK. I felt that I had something I could bring to the charity that would really make a difference and already had some insights, coming from a mainstream charity background, about how we could address the problems of accountability for a steemit charity.

In the next day or two the project will release an introduction post and an accountability model which will explain in-depth how the charity will work. So, in a nutshell what is Project Giving? We will be steemit's first fully accountable NGO charity. The charity will support projects both off and on the platform by fundraising and spreading awareness through dedicated blogs written by established talented writers from the steemit platform. 100% of payouts from these posts will go to help the projects they are written about. There are also plans for bloggers to travel to the projects receiving support to write about them and report the impact on communities as well as showcasing the positive effect that Project Giving is having. We believe this will spread the message of steemit's potential to the wider mainstream as this project gains momentum, both through press stories and eventually empowering the projects we fund to create their own content on this platform.

Steemit has the power to change lives, both for individuals and also with charity drives to help communities around the world. I passionately believe we are poised at the cusp of a technological revolution which could address how our species handles economic models and wealth discrepancies. Steemit, with all of it's innovation and problems, is like a sandbox for how this could play out. I believe it will play out to the benefit of all, both in an economic business sense, and in the humanitarian impact that digital currencies can bring, but it is up to us to make this happen!

@ned has expressed a goal of 100,000 entrepreneurs on the platform creating SMTs in the next 5 years (link to YouTube discussion with steemit core team). At approximately 11 minutes in the linked video, @ned and @sneak talk about the potential of using SMT's to fund specific projects which gives me great hope that there's a space for charity organisations within their vision. In terms of growing steemit, charity brings much more than just the positive impact it has on the communities of the projects they fund, there is also huge promotional value in organised charity which could benefit this platform in the coming years as we move towards mass adoption of blockchain technology.

I am very excited to see the direction we take as a community in the future and how Project Giving effects the space. The support of an established entity like @sndbox could be the catalyst for highlighting the potential of charity in this brave new world of tokenization. I feel that this is a much-needed balance for steemit's increasing evolution toward business focused entities like bidbots and the various problems inherent because these steemit businesses drive whales/dolphins away from manual curation due to the profitability of leasing their steem power. Moving into the future, I hope to see Hivemind and SMT's remove some of the power of these tools. But to circle back around to my point regarding charity initiatives, I hope they will be viewed as the win-win they are when handled right and positioned properly. I invite everyone, from devs to communities, plankton to whales, to support Project Giving in the drive to get the message out into the world that steemit can bring real change and help alleviate poverty.

I have big plans to sell up all that I own and travel the world as a digital nomad, writing on steemit and working freelance across a variety of media. If accepted into Sndbox, it will have a big impact both financially and in terms of support in making these plans a reality. In regard to how I will impact the world around me, Just Giving also has a place in my plans. I envision myself as someone who could find deserving projects at a grassroots level. As I'm planning to start my journey in central America and work my way through the continent of south America, I will be perfectly placed to both report on and seek out projects for Project Giving blogs.

I will also host research based competitions/challenges on my steemit page to merge creative writing with travel writing in a way I feel is unique. These planned competitions will ask steemians to research an interesting legend/story I encounter on my travels. I will post a creative post myself and then ask participants to research the location and write their own post inspired by the prompt. This will be my way of engaging the steemit community in my journey, particularly the poetry and fiction writing communities which have helped me to rediscover my confidence as a writer.

In conclusion, steemit can be such a power for positive change in the world. I have found that we get back what we put in on steemit and this becomes abundantly clear when you get involved with the various steemit discord communities. I hope that steemit will find its place in the mainstream as a social platform with a strong drive to reflect its values of rewarding community outwards into the world through charitable initiatives like Project Giving.