Charity Wall — a strategic partner for We Encourage
We Encourage is excited to announce a new podcast featuring Luca Busolli, one of the co-founders and CEO of Charity Wall on the 26th May. We were also fortunate enough to be able to interview him for this blog in order to dive deeper into the processes and founding of Charity Wall.
What is Charity Wall?
Charity Wall aspires to return trust to charity donations by guaranteeing transparency and security for social projects and donations. It is a Social Marketplace that applies Blockchain to the fintech sector. It ensures the exchange, traceability and certifiability of goods, documents, services and donations (in both crypto and national currencies). This helps verify the development of social projects and creates a multitude of advantages for both donors and non-profit organisations.
The aim: to return trust to charity donations.
Donors can trust they are donating money or goods in total security and have the ability to see how that donation is used. All registered users can also monitor and comment during each passage of the donation. This transparency and traceability, favours donations to social impact projects that agree to Charity Wall’s values and ensures donations actually reach those who need them. Non-profit organizations can use Charity Wall for accountability, to demonstrate the use of donations, document flows and as a medium to receive donations. They are also developing new features such as the web API for third parties, an escrow system, utility token, payment token and e-wallet.
Most importantly, Luca said “With Charity Wall it will always be possible to know and be sure of the use of donations, and you can have confidence in the third sector again.”
Blockchain for beginners: What is blockchain?
Blockchain and its use can be confusing to many people, but Luca broke it down for us. Blockchain refers to a decentralised public ledger that records transactions across many computers, with no central point; making it harder to steal data. It is useful due to its immutability and security, with a replicated transaction log via a peer to peer network. It cannot be modified, as it is distributed and resilient. All public information is also verifiable and accessible by anyone, even if some nodes (a copy of the ledger) are offline. This makes it ideal for Charity Wall’s aim of transparency and traceability.
The Creation of Charity Wall
Charity Wall was born during a dinner, when the three founders, affected by the SMS scandal for earthquake victims in Italy, started talking about the donations they had made and found they were unsure how their donations had been used or if they had been useful. They believed that a “right to donation” must be guaranteed, donors must be sure that their money is used properly to build the common good and to develop a community based on the principles of reciprocity and unity. They each had skills; Luca’s in management and networking, Alessandro Giuntoni’s (CIO) as a Blockchain expert and Simone Borghini’s (CTO) as an IT developer. These skills could be used to help create transparency in the charity sector in order to prevent scams and deceptions from damaging it.
The start was not easy, working other jobs whilst working on Charity Wall and having advisors give false hopes that created frustration. But despite different backgrounds, work experience and perspectives they were able to work together through their trust in the project and respect of each other. Their values were vital in enabling them to obtain their goals and great results. These results include being the winners of the Smart Cup Liguria (2018), an invitation to the National Innovation Award, being invited to Blockland Solutions in Cleveland and being recognised as one of the 20 best EU Blockchain based start-ups by Block.IS (organised by Horizon 2020).
Unfortunately, despite positive market research suggesting a need for Charity Wall’s services, very few non-profits were ready to use their tool when it was released. However, this was not a deterrent. Instead they pivoted to their donor’s needs, companies who wanted to donate transparently. They added new features such as direct currency donations, tracing donations and donors being able to comment on project developments. In the future they aim to expand their market in the EU and to the US. In doing so they wish to become a standard and change the rules of the charity sector; reducing charity costs by reducing intermediaries.
As a company they are still seeking an increased knowledge of Blockchain on the part of the clients. There are also some legal grey areas that are not up to date with technological advancements, so they hope for an adaptation of national and international laws. Finally, they are seeking new partners who can help them grow their product and apply it to new and different contexts, both nationally and internationally.
We Encourage has joined forces with Charity Wall to enable the transparency and trust for the donations.
If you are interested please check out Charity Wall here.
Text by: Emily Stamp
Visuals by: Kristina Mancheva
