# Blockchain startup offers transparency tool to track donations to charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/05/04/blockchain-startup-offers-transparency-tool-to-track-donations-to-charity/
- Published: 2017-05-04T16:25:20+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Social tech startup Alice has launched a new tool using blockchain technology 
that will show donors to charity exactly what impact their money makes. **

The London-based startup is running a first appeal using the technology for homelessness
charity St Mungo’s.

[Alice](http://www.alice.si) works by “freezing” donations until charities can prove
they have achieved their donation goals. The tools founders hope that this “will
encourage more giving and support greater transparency in the third sector”.

## Advertisement

This means that when donors give to a charity project on Alice, their donation is
guaranteed to make an impact, or they get their money back.

 

![St Mungo's appeal using blockchain fundraising site alice.si](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.
cloud/2017/05/alice-blockchain-fundraising-st-mungos.jpg)

_St Mungo’s is pioneering alice.si’s blockchain-based fundraising platform_

 

[St Mungo’s](http://www.mungos.org) appeal, called Street Impact: 15 Lives, aims
to help lift 15 people out of long-term homelessness through intense personalised
support. On its appeal page on Alice, St Mungo’s lists a number of specific goals
it needs to achieve in order to unlock donations, such as helping individuals find
and then stay in a new home.

The appeal has already raised £11,136.

The pilot is being delivered using grant funding from Nominet Trust’s Social Tech
Seed programme. 

Vicki Hearn, Director of Nominet Trust, commented: “Alice has real potential to 
rebuild public trust in charities thanks to its innovative use of blockchain technology.
Nominet Trust is proud to support Alice in piloting this platform, helping to lift
people out of homelessness, and raising the bar for the transparency, accountability
and security of charitable giving.”

> Alice is live! Check out our first appeal to help London's [#homeless](https://twitter.com/hashtag/homeless?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> here: [https://t.co/A9iGIb0JXq](https://t.co/A9iGIb0JXq). Remember, you only pay
> if it works!
> — Raphaël (🐳,🐳) (@simple_raph) [April 25, 2017](https://twitter.com/simple_raph/status/856836481951944707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

 

## Blockchain smart contracts

Blockchain technology has been used to benefit charities in the UK and further afield
for several years. RNLI for example is one charity that has piloted accepting donations
via blockchain-based cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Alice goes further by making greater use of blockchain, in particular its ‘smart
contracts’ function, to track donations, to help demonstrate impact, and even to
cancel the donation if its impact can’t be demonstrated.

The company’s founders describe its service as “a major step change in ethical fundraising”
which should “help redress the decline of public trust in charities and tap into
donor demand for more information about their impact”.

The benefits of Alice are to:

● Make the performance of charity projects public, and fully auditable

● Ensure performance data is secure and extremely difficult to falsify or hack

● Manage the conditional payment of donations based on charity performance

Donors who respond to appeals such as Street Impact: 15 Lives can track when goals
are met and when their gift is paid to the charity. Each appeal specifies how goals
are verified, and who validates them.

## Ethereum

Alice’s smart contracts are built on the public blockchain Ethereum. This enables
donors to make donations in pound sterling, using debit or credit cards, thereby
avoiding the volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

This ability to apply the blockchain to fiat or “real world” currency is run partly
in partnership with the Financial Conduct Authority, within its sandbox programme
which aims to foster innovation in the financial services industry, and with Tramonex
Labs, a fintech startup that issues e-money on the blockchain.

## Building trust

Raphaël Mazet, CEO, Alice, said: “The charity sector is currently going through 
a crisis of public trust. We want to address that by helping trailblazing organisations
like St Mungo’s, who are committed to transparency, to raise more funds for the 
amazing work they do.

“We’re excited to be launching this first pilot with an appeal that will make a 
really positive difference to the lives of 15 people. We hope to scale the project
to help many more people if it’s successful.”

Rebecca Sycamore, Executive Director of Fundraising at St Mungo’s, said: “This pilot
gives us more flexibility than usual commissioned services do. This allows us to
give these people the personalised support that we know will help them rebuild their
lives away from the streets. 

“We’re very pleased to help pilot this innovative funding platform, working with
Alice and partners in Westminster and the Greater London Authority.”

![Loading](https://fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/page-views-count/ajax-loader-
2x.gif)

## Comments

### By: HowardLake

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/05/04/blockchain-startup-offers-transparency-tool-to-track-donations-to-charity/#comment-2987
- Published: 2017-05-10T18:24:00+01:00

The “decline of public trust in charities” is not the given that it is sometimes
presented as. Here’s some research that counters that ‘decline’:
 [https://twitter.com/woods\_rob/status/862196255564460032](https://twitter.com/woods_rob/status/862196255564460032)

### By: Raphael Mazet

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/05/04/blockchain-startup-offers-transparency-tool-to-track-donations-to-charity/#comment-2988
- Published: 2017-05-12T11:11:00+01:00

That’s interesting as not consistent with the recent CAF report: [http://www.hantscf.org.uk/media/261992/CAF%20UK%20Giving%20Report%202017.pdf](http://www.hantscf.org.uk/media/261992/CAF%20UK%20Giving%20Report%202017.pdf)
Let’s see what the Charity Commission says later this year.