Spring has sprung! (well, for some at least...)
In the Northern Hemisphere, spring is here – and spring is all about new beginnings. Plants are transformed from apparently lifeless roots under the ground to green shoots of life, or colourful buds that dot trees. Lambs and calves gambol in the fields and the strange warmth of the sun (in the UK anyway!) starts to make you consider shedding a layer of clothing!
Change is good. Not change for changes sake, but change that makes a difference, change that moves things forwards. Development is good. And this month’s newsletter has ideas about change for charities – how and when to make it – and change for Angel Giving. As we launch new features and improve our services even more. Charles Handy’s ‘sigmoid curve’ theory as it refers to change has always been one of my personal favorites and you can read more on that below.
Office Hours: We held our first ‘office hours’ last month and while it was useful, it is apparent that we need to promote this more. Office hours is a live streaming session with one of the team here, where you will be able to watch and then message questions, get help or just watch demos and listen to the replies to other attendees questions.
We shall do more of these in May. Keep an eye out for more information.
Impact
It’s great to see nonprofits on the marketplace using the funds for direct impact. Donors always like to see how their funds are being used, and that is maybe doubly so for donors in the blockchain world. Part of the reason they are in that space is because they like the transparency that blockchain provides.
So, If you are an Angel Giving nonprofit reading this, please let us know when you have used funds and what impact they have had – you can add video or images to your social media and send those. Or let us know more for an article. Here are some examples of how nonprofits and the Angel Alliance are doing this.
- NFT raffles – we have three NFT raffles happening as I speak – Plan for Hope International, 5Gyres and Leap Labs Science Centres will all be benefitting. The NFT minters contributing are part of the Angel Alliance and either created an NFT mint that will just keep on giving every time an NFT holder buys/sells the NFT or are holding raffles/sales so that all proceeds go to the charity. Last month, Yellow Boat of Hope, Yamba Hearts Uganda and Liberated Youth benefitted. (So if you aren’t on the marketplace… you have no chance of being found!)
Innovation
“Be afraid of standing still. Forget your mistakes, but remember what they taught you. So how do you become better tomorrow? By becoming better today.” Benjamin Franklin
The Angel Giving team never stands still! And we are always looking to improve what we do and how it is done. So either available now or coming soon are the following developments.
- Sigmoid curve: Get ahead of the game. The key to future success is to have the foresight and discipline to see the opportunities in what you are doing in the present cycle and then to make your moves while things are going well.If you act too late, you may be in the downward curve and not able to turn things around.” As promised last month, Read more on our recent blog article about how important the sigmoid curve is for charity and nonprofit change.
- Donation Widget: Use a short piece of code to add as many widgets you want to your website. Fully customisable, you can choose the parameters you need to create a widget for every occasion! Take a look at Foodbank.co’s widget! Although note that very soon, we shall enable fiat donations as well as crypto! Want to try it out? Ask Gabriel how (see below)!
- fiat!: 💲Coming very soon – nonprofits will be able to accept ‘fiat’ currencies such as dollars, pounds, euros into their endowment account. So you can promote the benefits of the endowment to more than only crypto donors. This means that you could, if you wish, replace your current separate fiat and crypto donation tools with our single Angel Giving donation tool, and reduce your costs quite significantly 💷 💶 💴
- A move to the Polygon network: When we restarted Angel Giving last year, we used the Juno network as it was the quickest to set up and meant that we could start getting all the services back on track. During May, we shall move to a new blockchain, Polygon, that will simplify some aspects of the administration, increase resilience and still be cheap to administer. It is a highly respected blockchain and being used by blue chips and companies such as Mastercard, Adidas, Starbucks, The NFL and Walt Disney. More details on how this will work in due course.
We are really looking forward to the future.
There’s so much going on. I hope to maybe see you attend the ‘office hours’ as well!
New Social Media Acounts
PLEASE take a couple of minutes to follow our new ‘Angel Giving’ social media accounts. 🙏
New T&Cs – important
1) PLEASE take a look at our new T&C for charities – note that continued use of the platform will constitute acceptance of these.
2) Fees: Once yield returns in late May, we shall apply fees. Information about those can be found here
3) Ask Gabriel! The on-page Angel Giving chatbot is is your first port of call for any queries about anything!
Validator income:
Every month, we receive income from our various blockchain validators. Read all about this last quarters (Q.1 2023) income and how is has been spent.