Charities Eyeing Bitcoin In Order To Keep up With Technology

It is no secret that Bitcoin can be used to do social good as well as being a regular currency at the same time, especially when it comes to small and micro-transactions.  Bitcoin can easily outshine the competition due to its low – or non-existent – transaction fees.  This is one of the main reasons why several charitable organizations around the world are shifting their attention to Bitcoin.

Some Notable Charities

With just a handful of lesser-known charities accepting Bitcoin payments, there would be no headlines to make.  However, as soon as some of the major charities jumped on the Bitcoin bandwagon at the end of 2014, the story became quite different.  Names such as Greenpeace, Save the Children and American Red Cross all started accepting digital currency payments recently, and they are seeing the benefits of doing so.

Although Bitcoin – as a digital currency and technology – is just six years old, it has caused quite a bit of distress in the financial sector in that short timespan.  But even that story seems to be changing, as several financial institutions around the world are looking to implement Bitcoin technology to make their own system more transparent and decentralized.

With charitable organizations – and of course, merchants in both the online and offline sphere – accepting Bitcoin payments, there are multiple benefits in doing so.  First of all, you can cut quite a lot of overhead costs due to transaction fees nearly dropping to 0% on Bitcoin transactions, compared to a 3%-5% fee associated with credit card transactions.

On top of that, Bitcoin payments can be converted to local currency – either for the full amount or a part of it – and you will receive your money the next business day in your bank account.  With traditional payment methods, it usually takes about a month before you see the funds arrive in your account, which is simply unacceptable.

But even though there are a lot of Bitcoin funds flowing from everyday people to charities, Bitcoin has caused a chain reaction behind the scenes of charitable organizations as well.  Save the Children, for example, has participated in Bitcoin-giving campaigns ever since they started working with BitPay in 2013.  This is made possible because of both the 0% transaction fees charged by BitPay and the ability for the nonprofit to convert BTC to fiat currency immediately.

Keeping Up With Technology

The monetary aspect is very important for charitable organizations, but it is not the sole reason why so many of them are eyeing Bitcoin as a potential payment method for the [near] future.  Bitcoin is driven by a disruptive technology which brings transparency and decentralization to a financial infrastructure which relies on keeping everything secret and centralized.

“We want to remain contemporary and relevant to current and future generations.  We don’t only want to be your grandmother’s charity, we want to be your grandchild’s charity.  One way to do that is to accept bitcoin.” – Ettore Rossetti, Director, Social Media & Marketing at Save the Children.

Source: Wall Street Journal

All images courtesy of Pixabay