Hello from Devon, Uk. Newish to crypto but up and running with my ledger and staking on Cardano. I have seen stakepools donating to chairty and other charity funding projects across the cryptosphere but I am more interested in how tokenomics and the blockchain tech can actually be used to replace charities in delivering what ‘investers’ deem to be work of value that traditionally would be carried out by a charity (and at the same time get a return). Any pointers, links to potential projects on Cardano or elsewhere would be great. Looking forward to being part of the community.
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Welcome to the community Myles!
Have you tried googling “charity tokens”? I see lots of projects.
And you can filter charity tokens here to compare activity.
Good luck!
Hit us back if you find anything amazing 
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Thanks @rin9s!
I have indeed looked at many “charity tokens”. I may be missing something but they mostly seem to be a continuation of the model where the token companies effectively contribute a portion of profits/token sales to existing charities working within a particular sector. Similar to any other charitable donation really. All good I guess, but I was hoping there could be a more direct way to use the blockchain. The most interesting solution I have found so far would be for an organisation to run a stakepool (cutting out the middle man) where people staking believes in the project enough to support with some profits attributed to its core “charitable work”. This leads me to these questions: How can a small organisation without the technical skills run a stakepool? How can trust in the project actually be demonstrated enough for people to stake? Could a governance coin with clever tokenomics (e.g where the receiver of that charitable work mints coins/nfts) help introduce that trust. I hope that makes more sense, I’m looking for those projects with funky tokenomics that directly links end users of the charitable work with people wanting to support it. Thanks for the welcome.
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I hear you. Good hunting.
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Hey Myles
A very interesting question and one which I think has huge potential.
We envisage the line between Impact Investment and Charity blurring as charities are being driven more and more to be “sustainable”. In effect, this means that measurement of the delivery of a charity and the measurement of Impact - particularly with regard to the UN SDG’s is going to get closer and closer. Transparent, cost-effective and immutable systems are required to do this.
Our objective is to build a Cardano based platform that enables both in the most cost effective and transparent manner.
We have started with a direct and practical use case in the Impact sector (more innovative than charity ironically!) - affordable housing in Africa - as the means to begin this process.
We have applied for Catalyst Funding - Fund 5 - Grow Africa Grow Cardano - the project is called Introducing Empowa.
https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Introducing-Empowa/352666-48088
Our objective is to build a platform focused on using property and affordable housing as a means to economically empower Africa but bearing these issues in mind.
Please check it out, as well as the White Paper on our website - empowa.io - and feel free to contribute. This kind of project needs all the energy, resource and mind power that it can get!
Hope to chat.
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Thanks for the reply. I agree with you regarding impact investment and charity blurring in the future and the need for more transparent, immutable systems to increase trust in impact investments. Thanks also for the link to your project. It appears at first glance to be exactly the type of project I was looking to see examples of. I will happily vote for it and follow the project going forward. I wish you all the best with it.
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Many thanks for that Myles!
If you can share as far and wide as possible to all your Whale mates - that too would be much appreciated! 
Not sure what you do - but we are also seeking to build the Empowa community - so please feel free to join our Telegram Channel: Telegram: Contact @empowa_io We will not bombard you.
Hey Myles, I’m a long time software developer trying to learn Cardano so I can build something that sounds very similar to what you are describing. It’s kinda of a gamification take on donating with increasingly rare nfts minted based on donation amount over time. I’ve got the whole thing speced out but I’m a long way away from delivering anything, really just getting started on it. Would love to hear your ideas about exactly what you think would make something in this space compelling.
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Hey @j1z00, I wish you good luck with your project. Sounds interesting. In answer to your question, for me, to be compelling in this space a project needs to do more than just raise money (whether or not it is for a charitable cause or not). I would hope it would engage both the impact investor (or donator) and/or the end-user with more interaction. It should be clear where funds were raised, what the intention of those funds are and what impact (also verified on the blockchain) they had. It should be bidirectional, where the real world conditions and impacts affect the project on the blockchain. If NFTs are used as a mechanism of engagement or raising funds, I think they would need more complexity than just minting/selling. For example, incentives to trade/rent, knock-on fees of transactions etc. It would also be compelling if the NFT’s were directly related to the subject to the impact investment or donation, again to increase that engagement. The gamification could create that engagement very powerfully especially if leveraged by a kind of ‘guild’ rival mentality that increases which perhaps could lead to greater longevity of the project. Any project in this space will be more compelling if it elevates trust in any way compared to traditional charity models, a huge and complex subject but the blockchain provides so many opportunities especially for causes that were once perceived to be too complex or too much distrust was inherent in the data verification or the process. I could waffle on… Just my initial thoughts. Cheers!
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Wow @Myles you bring up a lot of good points. I lot to think about there, but yeah I like the link-up between the donator and the end-user. That could be really cool and that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day right. Connections. Good stuff man.
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