Yonatan is using GoodDollar to support a local soup kitchen

At Pessia’s Kitchen, a local soup kitchen in Israel, General Manager Yonatan Ben Ami is constantly looking for innovative ways to raise money and distribute more free meals. The COVID-19 global pandemic certainly stressed out demand for these kinds of social programs in many different communities, all around the world. In Israel, the coronavirus drove thousands of people into hunger, as lack of government funding left helpless social welfare agencies wary and charities to bear the burden for food insecurity (via Times of Israel).

When Yonatan first heard about GoodDollar in a Bitcoin Israel Facebook group, he knew there would be a meaningful use for accumulating free digital money distributed amongst a global community of humanitarians like him. And today, he has found multiple ways to mobilize the GoodDollar community to raise additional funds to feed more than 1,000 people per day.  

Raising digital money and digital awareness for real impact

An early-adopter of cryptocurrencies, Yonatan saw the project’s potential. “When I signed up for a GoodDollar account, I said to myself ‘I’ll hold this wallet for Pessia’s Kitchen and claim G$, and one day when it reaches some value I’ll turn it over to Pessia’s Kitchen.’”

Slowly, donations trickled in. He posted on a few Facebook groups, telling the story and impact of Pessia’s Kitchen and asking for more G$ contributions. “It was a total shot in the dark,” Yonatan chuckles. In a few months, he had raised 1,400 G$.

At Pessia’s Kitchen, each meal costs one shekel to make. “And then I had this idea. Maybe I could find somebody to give me one shekel (NIS) for every GoodDollar raised. And, that person could hold onto those GoodDollars until the token reaches value, instead of just waiting for it.”

Yonatan turned to the Facebook community again, looking for a generous donor to match the current G$ contributions. A fellow social entrepreneur saw the Facebook post, and matched the exact amount in shekels: 1,427 NIS. “And that lit everything up,” he says. “The community started donating more, and a couple big donors stepped in as well. To date, we’ve raised over 460,000 G$!”

A teachable moment for the GoodDollar community

Yonatan teaches us a few new creative – and altruistic – ways to use G$ to support community activities. And, how to use GoodDollars in a meaningful way to create real, positive social impact. From Yonatan, we’ve learned:

• That our good behavior has the potential to incentivize others to also behave altruistically
• That anyone can use G$ as a layer to valuable activities that members are already doing
• How to support and get involved in making the world a better place

Instead of cashing out the raised funds in GoodDollars, he is using the GoodDollar wallet as the platform to crowdsource in his communities, and thus, double the impact. See his work in action here.

https://www.facebook.com/641749564/videos/10158442330854565

Traditional crowdsourcing is still inefficient

Yonatan turned to cryptocurrencies to raise money and awareness for Pessia’s Kitchen because the reality is: traditional crowdsourcing is still extremely inefficient. According to Kickstarter, 78% of campaigns that raise 20% of their goal ultimately become fully funded, while 11% of projects finish having never received any funding at all [via Kickstarter].

Crowdsourcing allows small businesses and individuals, with really great product and service ideas, to raise funds from other regular people in small amounts. In this model, a pool of people contribute small amounts of money towards a project or cause and expect some financial or non-financial returns. When it works, it can really give a social impact mission a big boost. Companies like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Crowdfunder were among the earliest to make it popular and capitalize on this (via The Balance). But, this tech is changing. Blockchain is paving the way for more reliability and transparency in this modern way of raising funds.

Blockchain makes for better crowdsourcing

Blockchain technology is now changing the future of crowdsourcing, for the better. It allows the model to be totally transparent, and more trusted. Because blockchain makes the funding process safe and offers completely transparent access from anywhere in the world, crowdsourcing with digital money can actually maximize the success of a project or social cause. There are several ways blockchain crowdsourcing are being used to help fund businesses. According to Hasnan Barber, “The introduction of blockchain in crowdsourcing will make it more reliable, transparent, trusted, decentralized, cost-efficient and convenient.”

We see this happening already. Yonatan used the GoodDollar Facebook community as a crowdsourcing platform, with G$ as the medium of transaction and exchange. Every G$ contribution sent to the Pessia Kitchen wallet is recorded on “a decentralized ledger, making a more efficient, safe and tamper-proof system of nodes in connection” as Hasnan explains.

So, let’s get to work!

You too can use free crypto to do good things in your community. Are you a social entrepreneur that cares about creating and scaling social impact?

Here’s our bottom line: you can use free crypto to advocate and ignite social change, and inspire others to join you, too.