AidCoin showcases the first-ever entirely blockchain-based charitable campaign in Africa!

Published in

AIDCOIN

5 min readOct 4, 2018

Today, we are excited more than words can say to pass you the details of the recent charitable campaign arranged by AidCoin and CharityStars in support of Alice for Children.

It’s become the first real showcase of how a charity can raise funds in crypto and spend them transparently without converting to fiat, with all transactions being recorded on the blockchain and visible for anyone.

But let’s start from the beginning…

Step 1: fundraising through CharityStars

Several months ago CharityStars launched a charitable auction with the CEO of Genesis Mining, Marco Streng, which came under the hammer for as much as 15,000 EUR — quite a steep for a single lunch. The CharityStars team then converted the auction money into crypto (315,000 AID) and donated it via AIDChain to Alice for Children’s project aimed at educating kids who live in Kenya slums and giving them a chance to find a decent job.

Nairobi slums where the kids live and “work”. The picture was taken during AidCoin Founder’s trip to Kenya where he helped the charity to receive and transfer crypto, as well as find a service providers who’d accept it

Why choosing a charity in Africa?

It’s no surprise that for our first showcase of a completely fiat-free charitable campaign we chose Alice for Children.

As we mentioned before in our post, the seemingly under-developed Kenya is quite advanced in terms of digital payment adoption. While the “normal” banking system does a poor job in slums, applications such as M-Pesa, which doesn’t even require internet connection for sending money, or BitPesa, which works in a similar way but also allows using Bitcoins, help the locals out. This sets the stage for a faster AidCoin adoption (and crypto adoption in general) by local businesses and individuals.

That’s why even with AIDChain’s requirement of paying to charity’s partners in crypto as is Alice for Children didn’t have a hard time: a service provider who’d accept crypto payments was soon found and the campaign got up and running!

About the campaign: Alice Italian Food Academy

The main goal of this specific fundraising campaign was to buy a power generator that would ensure uninterruptible energy supply for the facilities used at Alice for Children’s Italian Food Academy in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Italian Food Academy by Alice for Children in Nairobi. The picture was taken during AidCoin Founder’s trip to Kenya where he helped the charity to receive and transfer crypto, as well as find a service providers who’d accept it

Since AidCoin is promoting a brand-new, transparent approach to charity, it’s essential that we educate and help charities who for the most part have never dealt with crypto. Then it’s equally important to assist them in finding service providers who’d accept crypto payments through AIDChain ensuring full accountability of funds management.

That’s why AidCoin CEO and Founder, Francesco Nazari Fusetti, set aside some time to personally visit Kenya and hand-hold Alice for Children through the process of accepting AID, arranging the deal with the power generator’s vendor, transferring him AID and explaining ways to cash out afterwards.

AidCoin Founder together with Alice for Children’s President attending a school sponsored by the charity

Full accountability of funds management on AIDChain

Eventually, the 315,000 AidCoins derived from the auction had to be paid to the Service Providers involved in the campaign: the local power engine vendor in Nairobi, Evaton Power Technology, and CharityStars who arranged the auction for fundraising.

In order to receive the funds, both providers had to register on AIDChain and go through a KYC. Once their profiles were approved by the AidCoin team, Alice for Children could transfer them the needed amounts in crypto. Now anyone can see these transactions on the campaign’s page on AIDChain or on Etherscan (screenshots below).

In order to further amplify the level of transparency and bind the digital identity of the vendor with his physical one, Alice for Children has uploaded the receipt provided by the generator’s vendor on its campaign page. As anyone can see, the total cost of the generator was 1,400,000 Kenyan Shillings, which amounted to 14,176 USD or 252,000 AID on the day of the transfer, September 28.

While the generator’s vendor is going to cash out through AidCoin partner-exchange, Bitfinex, in the following days, Italian Food Academy is already enjoying the new power generator and a much better quality of classes!