Bitcoin Giving Tuesday: The Bitcoin Industry Comes Together

Bitcoin Giving Tuesday is the result of a partnership between The Bitcoin Foundation, BitGive Foundation and Bitcoin Black Friday to promote bitcoin donations to charities. ChangeTip, Circle, and BitPay have waived the fees for participating charities, allowing them to receive 100% of your bitcoin donation.

“Charitable giving should not pad the pockets of credit card companies, banks or any other financial middlemen.  100% of funds given through Bitcoin Giving Tuesday will go to the nonprofit you choose.” – BitcoinGivingTuesday.org

Women’s Annex Foundation (WAF), a non-profit that gives women around the a word a platform to blog, and promotes digital literacy, is one of the seasoned bitcoin charities participating in the event. WAF started accepting Bitcoin, and later Litecoin, in June of this year. Since then crypto-currency donations have been used to empower and educate women in Afghanistan, Mexico, Egypt and other parts of the world. WAF co-founders Roya Mahboob and Fereshteh Forough gave a presentation at the Bitcoin Center NYC in July about how bitcoin had allowed their global charity receive money around the world.

One of the founders of the virtual day of giving, the BitGive Foundation, is also participating in the event. BitGive is focused on leveraging the power of bitcoin to help health and environmental issues worldwide. They recently became the first charity to become officially recognized by the IRS as a tax exempt bitcoin charity.

“Many donors don’t know that charities are charged a transaction cost for each deposit into their bank account. If a transaction fee is $0.25, then a $1 donation will equate to a 25% loss. Such inefficiencies in banking systems – particularly when remitting funds internationally – could be overcome by giving in Bitcoin.” – Connie Gallippi, BitGive Foundation Founder and Executive Director

There are also many charities that recently started accepting bitcoin directly. Save The Children, and American Red Cross started accepting bitcoin last Thursday. While GreenPeace USA started accepting bitcoin in September.

“Accepting bitcoin donations seemed like a natural next step for us… We have already seen the generosity of the bitcoin community, and working with BitPay allows us to keep 100% of the donations, helping us serve even more children.” – Ettore Rossetti, Director of Digital Marketing & Social Media at Save the Children

A full list of charities participating in Bitcoin Giving Tuesday can be found at there website.

Bitcoin Giving Tuesday is part of an existing charitable movement called Giving Tuesday. The movement was founded by 92nd Street Y in 2012 in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and has helped over 10,000 organizations rally for donations.

Their Canadian division, Giving Tuesday Canada is participating in the event and claims bitcoin is a perfect match for Giving Tuesday. The organization sees both as “open source, decentralized” movements disrupting old models.

Sophie is an artist whose secret passion is finance, economics, and technology. She loves keeping up with the ever expanding and evolving world of crypto-currency. When she isn’t painting, she can be found trying to understand the complex inner workings of markets. Another complex system she is fascinated by, are ecosystems. She often observes them on her daily hikes through nature.