What is EarthFund? A look at the Blockchain-based donation platform and DAO

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Isaac Benson

Blockchain technology is changing the world and I am here to document it

Philanthropy is an interesting application area for blockchain technology. Public accounts can make it easier to track how donations are used and improve trust in people who make those contributions.

EarthFund is a platform that uses the blockchain to manage donations while allowing 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 charities. The platform aims to make a positive change in the world by enabling users to donate crypto directly to projects, as well as become members of its Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and have a say in how their treasury is managed.

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

Adam entered the crypto space around the same time and realized that a DAO housing 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 your carbon footprint (ie by planting trees) rather than donating money to an organization that plans to do so.

How does it work?

The platform mainly works by enabling users to donate funds to charity 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 are moved and where they end up. In 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 a total of $116,023.93 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 case focuses on mental health and well-being.

Carbon removal

Founded by Lucy Tweed, it 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 reasons are the following:

• Environmental causes and removal of carbon from the atmosphere.
• Green technology includes renewable energy, composting, vertical farming and more.
• Social issues, including reducing inequality worldwide.
• Public health and well-being, including providing funding to improve health services worldwide.
• Conservation of global ecosystems.

Community 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 will take a closer look at.

Treasury

EarthFund houses a treasury, with DAO members deciding how the funds will be spent. For example, DAO members can submit proposals that part of the funds should go to a specific cause. A 5% fee is deducted from the contributions each time a user donates to the platform. The fee is then split with 2% going to effort rewards, 2% to the team and platform development, and the remaining 1% funding the treasury.

As mentioned earlier, EarthFund has the main DAO along with smaller, cause-specific communities. The smaller communities will be able to use funds from the treasury to finance purposes linked to these 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 to provide liquidity and secure 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 various decisions within the platform.

Conclusion

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