What is EarthFund? A Look At The Blockchain-based Donation Platform and DAO

Philanthropy is an interesting use case for blockchain technology. Public ledgers can make it easier to track how donations are used and improve the confidence of the people who make those contributions. 

EarthFund is one platform that uses the blockchain to manage donations while enabling users to join communities to support charitable causes. Let's take a look at EarthFund and how the platform works.

What is EarthFund

EarthFund is a blockchain-based and decentralized crowdfunding platform for charitable causes. The platform aims to make a positive change in the world by enabling users to donate crypto directly to projects, as well as become a member of its Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and have a say in how their treasury is managed.

The platform allows people to choose which causes get listed for crowdfunding by joining smaller communities within the ecosystem. The project was started by Adam Boalt, who got the idea after seeing a news story about reforestation using drones and wondering why it wasn't being done on a larger scale. 

Adam got into the crypto space around that same time and realized that a DAO that housed a treasury would be a good step towards tackling charitable causes on a global scale.

The idea behind the platform is to allow users to donate directly to a cause instead of an organization. For example, donating directly to an initiative to reduce carbon footprints (i.e., by planting trees) instead of donating funds to an organization that plans to do so. 

How does it work?

The platform mainly works by enabling users to donate funds to charitable causes transparently using the blockchain. For example, users can contribute to causes using the stablecoin USDT, which is pegged to the dollar and less volatile than regular cryptocurrencies.

In addition, donations can be tracked on the blockchain to see how they're moved and where they end up. This way, users can know how their donated funds are being used.

There are currently two causes live on the platform:

Mental Health 

Includes 2 funds, 30 members, and 4 projects with $116,023.93 total raised so far. This cause was founded by Poonacha Machaiah, Gabriella Wright, and founders of Never Alone, and Deepak Chopra, co-founder of Never Alone, The Chopra Foundation, and Chopra Global. This cause focuses on mental health and well-being.

Carbon Removal 

Founded by Lucy Tweed and currently includes 30 members and focuses on improving the environment by restoring forests, protecting ecosystems, and working on new carbon removal processes.

Initially, the platform will focus on five main categories of charitable causes that aim to improve the world. These causes are the following:

• Environmental causes and removing carbon from the atmosphere.
• Green technology includes renewable energy, composting, vertical farming, and more.
• Social issues, including the reduction of inequality worldwide.
• Public health and well-being, including providing funds to improve healthcare facilities worldwide.
• Preservation of global ecosystems.

Communities will be at the heart of the platform, with DAOs allowing users to propose new causes to be added to the platform for funding. The platform will also house a treasury, which we'll look at next.

Treasury

EarthFund houses a treasury, with DAO members deciding how the funds will be utilized. For example, DAO members can submit proposals for a portion of the funds to go towards a specific cause. A 5% fee is deducted from the contributions every time a user donates the platform. The fee is then broken down with 2% going towards staking rewards, 2% for the team and platform development, and the remaining 1% funding the treasury.

As mentioned earlier, EarthFund has the main DAO alongside smaller, specific cause-related communities. The smaller communities will be able to use funds from the treasury to fund causes related to those communities.

The 1EARTH token

While users can donate to causes on EarthFund using stablecoins, they have a native token, 1Earth, to power and govern their DAO. The main feature of the 1Earth token is staking, which rewards DAO members with additional tokens for providing liquidity and securing the network. 

Members can also stake the 1Earth token on EarthFund to receive governance tokens (Gov1Earth). DAO members can then use governance tokens to vote on different decisions within the platform.

Conclusion

EarthFund is a blockchain-based fundraising platform and DAO that allows users to donate to causes transparently. Users can also join specific communities and have a say in how treasury funds are used on the platform.