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Archives => Archived Proposals => Topic started by: orphandefender on January 05, 2018, 10:09:28 PM

Title: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: orphandefender on January 05, 2018, 10:09:28 PM
BLOOM (Be Love Orphan Outreach Missions) is a 501c3 Christian charity which works to serve orphans and vulnerable children in 3 ways:

1. Sponsorship for food/education/clothing and other emergent needs in Uganda and Sierra Leone (We currently have 29 children in Christ Children's Care Orphanage in Sierra Leone who need sponsors; 10 who are in emergency status in our Side by Side Ministries Program in Uganda)

2. Sustainable farming projects and teacher training programs in these countries in order to help wean orphans off sponsorship and get their orphanages to be self sufficient. The goal is also to  engage the local communities to care for their own by creating jobs, therefore locals can generate income, and as a byproduct, we get extended family reunification and thus less orphans.

3. Orphan hosting programs in Poland and Ukraine where orphans come to live with American families for 4-5 weeks twice a year on an "exchange" where they receive the love of a Christian family while learning English, getting medical checkups, and possibly even finding an adoptive family.

Now that you know a little about BLOOM, let's focus on this proposal, which will be for sponsorship support in Sierra Leone and Uganda.

A. Our Side by Side Ministries Program rescues children from abusive situations in the Rakai, Uganda area where they are at risk of being beaten, raped, and neglected by unofficial "foster" families and other negligent guardians. Our team rescues the child, then transfers them to a Christian boarding school while looking for extended family reunification opportunities or a Christian foster family. The cost to sponsor a child for boarding school is $88 per month and it includes all their private school fees, room and board, uniforms, food, medical care, hair cuts, etc.

I have applied for a separate grant to cover 10 children in emergency status for 3 months, so I would like to request 880,000 BBP ($2640) to cover those 10 children for 3 more months of this year to start, and then that will give us time to grow BBP to cover the next 3 months and so on, at which time I'll submit another proposal (or I will find another sponsor later this year).

B. Our Sierra Leone Sponsorship program provides 3 healthy meals per day for the children, including while they are at school, every day each month for $36/mo. These children attend a school at the orphanage, so there are no extra boarding/schooling costs for them. These are children orphaned from poverty and the remnants of the Ebola outbreak that happened there a few years ago.

I am requesting 108,000 BBP ($324) to feed 3 children 3 meals daily for 3 months. Each month that BBP does well or each time a superblock is reached, I'd like to add 3 more children from this orphanage to this list.

You can read more about our sponsorship programs here
http://www.bloomworldwide.org/orphanchild-sponsorship/

and see photos/bios of the children who need sponsorship here.
http://www.bloomworldwide.org/sponsor-a-child/

I am happy to coordinate with you all and/or my volunteers at BLOOM to get the information needed to integrate these photos/bios to the BBP site.

Also of note is that we can often have children's grades or a letter from them sent to us at BBP as the "sponsors", depending on what's available at that particular school. And I, personally, along with my Director of Sponsorships, make sure all our letters are delivered to the kids electronically when they have internet access available (which is not often because, well, it's rural Africa, but it is possible on occasion!).

In sum, I'm requesting:
880,000 BBP ($2640) to cover 10 children in emergency status for 3 months in Rakai, Uganda (ideally to continue in 3 month increments for same 10 kids)
108,000 BBP ($324) to feed 3 children at the Sierra Leone orphanage for 3 months (ideally to continue in 3 month increments for same 3 kids, and possibly add more kids each time a superblock is reached)
Total Request: 988,000 BBP

Please let me know if you have further questions or need any clarification.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 06, 2018, 03:11:49 PM
Although in general, I support expanding our ministry to multiple charities, however, I think there are a number of issues we currently have that bleed over into this proposal being paused or approved right off the bat.

1) We have a $10,000 deficit with Compassion and have not even minted our first superblock.
Why dont we wait for that to occur, before adding a new risk.  That occurs at block 24600.

2) We have 189 children with compassion who are not paid a cent in advance (IE if we miss next months payment we lose them all).  Some of us here like 616West have suggested that we pay at least 6 months into the future for these children, as it is really frowned upon to start up new sponsorships with kids from Bloom when we have not even paid a few months in advance with the kids we have committed to.

3) We dont even have an exchange online right now accepting bitcoins.  I think its a bad idea to set a precendent to ask for half of our charity budget right off the bat, when our price is uncertain.  Lets try to get a pulse on our average price after c-cex comes back online for a couple weeks first.

4) I think it would be a good idea to sponsor One orphan with bloom and see how the relationship works out.

5) Im not sure if Togo asked you about this, but here is one huge question.  We currently have IT integration where we can view an orphans Bio by clicking a link.  Would we receive IT integration with bloom for the one new orphan?  Could we write letters electronically?  Could the orphans handwritten letter/reply be stored as a PDF so our pool could show the inbound letter to the user?

6) I think the food program sounds a little pricey, why so much per month for a childs food program? 

7) Is there any PR bloom could give us once we instantiate a relationship of more than 5 orphans per month?

Thanks!  I wonder if starting small will work! 

Please dont take offense to these points, the problem is we are new and our currency is not worth a lot yet, so we have to be very cautious, and make our small amount go a long way.

God Bless you.

Rob
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: togoshigekata on January 06, 2018, 04:47:40 PM
Responding to Rob's Feedback

=========

Quote
1) We have a $10,000 deficit with Compassion and have not even minted our first superblock.
Why dont we wait for that to occur, before adding a new risk.  That occurs at block 24600.

December 2017 Compassion Expense Reimbursement (Monthly Orphan Premiums)
http://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=53.0
2,894,609 BBP

Extra to Orphan Fund
http://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=66.0
400,000 BBP

My understanding is that the December Charity proposal would bring us current on any expenses?
3,294,609 BBP is going towards Compassion expenses for this 1st superblock.

I do see the risk with the superblock though, hopefully it goes smoothly super early Sunday morning.
But if it doesnt, it could potentially cause days of delay and extra work,
which means more days the funds wont be able to go towards expenses still racking up.

==========

Quote
2) We have 189 children with compassion who are not paid a cent in advance (IE if we miss next months payment we lose them all).  Some of us here like 616West have suggested that we pay at least 6 months into the future for these children, as it is really frowned upon to start up new sponsorships with kids from Bloom when we have not even paid a few months in advance with the kids we have committed to.

616west and I both saw the monthly behavior as high risk in the bitcointalk forums long ago,
616west being more vocal lately about it, but do you have plans to change this behavior?
and start budgeting months in advance or adding cushion?

Togo August 17, 2017
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2042657.msg20973656#msg20973656

It looks like you might be in the process:
http://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=53.msg917#msg917

==========

Quote
3) We dont even have an exchange online right now accepting bitcoins.  I think its a bad idea to set a precendent to ask for half of our charity budget right off the bat, when our price is uncertain.  Lets try to get a pulse on our average price after c-cex comes back online for a couple weeks first.

So far I believe this is just a pre-proposal for discussion, so no actual proposal has been entered into the blockchain yet.

April so far has requested 667k BBP, which would be 23% of Decembers Charity budget.

Also a note, this current superblock, about 123k BBP is going to be burned because we didn't get enough proposals.

Having no exchanges is up is really bad though, because we have no way to sell Biblepay coins into Bitcoin into Dollars to pay for expenses. CoinsMarkets hopefully comes back up in the next few days as they upgrade their servers from too much traffic, and C-CEX hopefully comes back up end of January.

==========

Quote
5) Im not sure if Togo asked you about this, but here is one huge question.  We currently have IT integration where we can view an orphans Bio by clicking a link.  Would we receive IT integration with bloom for the one new orphan?  Could we write letters electronically?  Could the orphans handwritten letter/reply be stored as a PDF so our pool could show the inbound letter to the user?

Im not sure if BLOOM has this ability.

I think this requirement is going to be harder for any small business/nonprofit/charity to do, programmers are expensive, but I do think it is a really cool ability that you have spent time integrating into the pool website and that Compassion offers (and its one of the awesome features of the BiblePay coin).

Im just worried a lot of the smaller charities/nonprofits may not be technologically advanced nor have the money for API support for letter writing. (Compassion had 617 million in revenue in 2013). Do we want to risk keeping most if not all small guys from getting funding due to this? (most businesses are small businesses).

I wonder if we could get a programmer position to help charities/nonprofits with this Letter API ability?

==========

Quote
7) Is there any PR bloom could give us once we instantiate a relationship of more than 5 orphans per month?

I think this is a good question, but on the flip side so far to my knowledge Compassion hasnt given us any PR (whereas they have been getting some PR from us), do you plan to also ask Compassion for PR?

==========
==========

Overall I share most of your main concerns Rob, I do think it would be wise to wait on any and all proposals while the exchanges are down and the 1st superblock hasnt paid out successfully yet. But I do believe this is still just a pre-proposal to get feedback / start discussion.

I think this would be a beneficial starting relationship with BLOOM, Im not sure how many other christian charities/nonprofits are going to be comfortable writing a proposal and handling funding in cryptocurrencies.

I hope everything works out, I believe it will, and I hope we can all learn and grow and help as many in distress as possible!

Thank you Rob and April!
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 07, 2018, 09:29:23 AM
Really quick on two of the points as I believe they are mission critical:

Togo, on the "deficit" with Compassion, that $10k deficit was up to the day before I entered the 2.8M proposal for this superblock, so Yes, we would not only be paid up to date, but paid into the future, however, I do want to say this also:  The January payments are already almost due (they are due on the third friday of the month, around Jan 19, and our *next* superblock is not until February 7th, so keep that in mind also).  But to summarize this situation, one exception I make for record keeping with orphans, since its our core business, is I log every bitcoin transaction in Orphans|Fundraisers, and every expense paid to Compassion in Orphans|Expenses Paid.  So it will be extremely easy to see the state of Compassion in about 15 days.  The reason we have such a huge problem this month is we cant even withdraw the BTC we sold this month due to the ccex vacation.  Its just an extrordinarily complicated month.  But around the end of this month, all of that will be recorded in detail. 

Regarding pre-payment, yes, Ive confirmed that is a risk and that we will not be adding new sponsorships to compassion, we will prepay them instead.  And I plan on using any surplus obtained this month for only prepaying them in the future.  But that is part of my point, we havent prepaid any yet, we have a $10k deficit, I havent withdrawn the BTC yet, and the $7100 bill is due in 10 days, so there is not really a ton going to prepayment(I think, we will see shortly).    Its not going to be a huge amount left over for it, as generally I crash the market when I sell these coins.  But with our higher price, lets see how it goes and we can regroup on it towards the end of the month.  My basic summary above-is it sounds reckless to pay anything higher than two new orphans until I see our state Has changed and we start generating surpluses. 

130k of unburned coins yes, but we were overbudget in our departments.

Regarding free PR, this is just a question for new partnerships and leverage.  Its the same idea as what Fios will give you if you dont have fios.  They might give you free channels to sign up with them, but if you are existing customer, they wont give you anything.  We are existing customer of Compassion, so we can ask April for something free as we arent with Bloom yet.

Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: togoshigekata on January 07, 2018, 11:38:17 AM
I think I can agree that any new charity proposals should be paused until we are current/up to date financially with Compassion. Id hate to lose any current orphan sponsorships! Thank you for risking your own personal money to keep it going Rob!

===

PR wise for charities/nonprofits, it would be cool to get a shoutout on Facebook/Twitter/Blog (Social Media) and maybe even get a Logo image that links to us on their websites with a short description.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: orphandefender on January 26, 2018, 04:08:18 PM
Although in general, I support expanding our ministry to multiple charities, however, I think there are a number of issues we currently have that bleed over into this proposal being paused or approved right off the bat.

1) We have a $10,000 deficit with Compassion and have not even minted our first superblock.
Why dont we wait for that to occur, before adding a new risk.  That occurs at block 24600.

*This should be good to go now, am I correct?

2) We have 189 children with compassion who are not paid a cent in advance (IE if we miss next months payment we lose them all).  Some of us here like 616West have suggested that we pay at least 6 months into the future for these children, as it is really frowned upon to start up new sponsorships with kids from Bloom when we have not even paid a few months in advance with the kids we have committed to.

*We are caught up now, correct? I have proposed 3 month sponsorship increments and adjusted the amounts/number of kids/program according to our biggest needs right now.

3) We dont even have an exchange online right now accepting bitcoins.  I think its a bad idea to set a precendent to ask for half of our charity budget right off the bat, when our price is uncertain.  Lets try to get a pulse on our average price after c-cex comes back online for a couple weeks first.

*C-Cex is back up now. All good?

4) I think it would be a good idea to sponsor One orphan with bloom and see how the relationship works out.

*You sponsored a ton with Compassion initially. Is there something about them (personal relationship, or they have a direct involvement in supporting the advancement of BBP that led to you starting with a large number with them?) We are smaller, more personal, and willing to work with you. Sounds like Compassion got lucky that you are the one doing all their integration work for them.  ;) Other big organizations probably won't take the time to just work with you for one orphan sponsorship either, or any for that matter, as they can make a ton of money and get more sponsors just advertising like they always do, and their sponsors will use their existing interface, and they won't have to do ANY integration. Also, big organizations are less likely to help you with PR. Trust me, I know how non profits work and what they're willing to do to partner with people. I have worked for big and small ones in many capacities. Smaller ones like us and this new Cameroon One are more willing to think and work outside the box.  :)

*Thus, I think committing to more than that with BLOOM for 3 month increments is fair. If you don't want to take the plunge with 13, I understand. Perhaps just 5-10? Honestly, it's not feasible for me to maintain this relationship on my end for just one orphan at a time. I'm willing to work with you guys on integration with my nearly all-volunteer staff. This is a huge time sacrifice for us when we won't get anything in return as an organization. All my staff except 1 already works for free to serve these kids, so if we are to do this, we need it to be for a bigger commitment. Not to trivialize your offer, which we appreciate, but I have to look at our business side too, and our limited resources available. Working with you on one child will take about the same amount of staff time as 10 kids if you're asking us to handle integration, whereas finding an individual sponsor somewhere else for one child will take no extra staff time in terms of maintenance or integration. Not to mention my time and BBP investment to create these proposals. I hope you can appreciate and understand where I'm coming from. Perhaps if we don't have to do integration, we can consider 3 orphans to start?

*Lastly, if there is enough money available to sponsor all the kids I'm proposing, why not sponsor them starting now? Where else will those funds go? Meanwhile, the kids will stay hungry or won't be able to attend school.  :-[

5) Im not sure if Togo asked you about this, but here is one huge question.  We currently have IT integration where we can view an orphans
Bio by clicking a link.  Would we receive IT integration with bloom for the one new orphan?  Could we write letters electronically?  Could the orphans handwritten letter/reply be stored as a PDF so our pool could show the inbound letter to the user?

*Yes, depending on how easy it is. If it's complicated, we may direct the people who want to write letters to our director of sponsorships directly. Again, we're an all-volunteer staff except for myself. But I have very complicated, detail and time intensive orphan hosting programs to run myself and with my volunteers, so we will have to keep the integration time investment small and simple.

6) I think the food program sounds a little pricey, why so much per month for a childs food program?

* Can you please be more specific and see my updates above? I disagree that any of our programs are pricey for what the children receive. Kids are receiving 3 healthy meals per day for 30 days for about $1 per day. Can you eat that well for that cheap (aside from Ramen?  ;D ) Food in Africa is more expensive than here in the US if you buy it retail instead of grow it (hence why we're trying to do our sustainable farming project). Also, our kids in each program are very rural and it takes quite a bit to rent a truck, go into town, and buy the food. It's also not in bulk since we have smaller programs. If you think it's expensive, perhaps you're comparing to mega programs where they bring in food in bulk or have lower quality/smaller quantity of food per day the kids are getting fed.

7) Is there any PR bloom could give us once we instantiate a relationship of more than 5 orphans per month?

*What kind of PR are you looking for exactly? Right now, I think our audiences as we are each currently promoting our company/organization are completely different, so doing any kind of PR for each other would not add value for either of us. We also have not identified the utility of this coin clearly to the public. We must also identify the utility of BBP to my audience. I would want to have more of a handle on our PR strategy for BBP before making this decision to make sure that working together on PR makes sense. I would also need for there to be a minimum of about 10-20 kids consistently sponsored to consider PR. And I would want to see Compassion and other partners equally sharing in the PR responsibility and agreements so it's a fair relationship.

Thanks!  I wonder if starting small will work! 

Please dont take offense to these points, the problem is we are new and our currency is not worth a lot yet, so we have to be very cautious, and make our small amount go a long way.

*No offense at all! Likewise for you to my points. I'm sure we can come to a fair compromise.

God Bless you.

Rob

Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 26, 2018, 09:29:24 PM
Thanks for the detailed reply. 

"*Yes, depending on how easy it is. If it's complicated, we may direct the people who want to write letters to our director of sponsorships directly. Again, we're an all-volunteer staff except for myself. But I have very complicated, detail and time intensive orphan hosting programs to run myself and with my volunteers, so we will have to keep the integration time investment small and simple. "

So let be me a little more specific on the IT requirements:
1) We need a publically visible web biography link for each child so the users can click on the bio and see who we sponsored.
From the sounds of the reply, you have no plans to do this until after we sponsor children (if ever).
2) We need a restful web page to transmit a letter to your home office so that it gets translated and sent to the child.  Our users do not print and mail letters.
3) We normally want letters from the children sent electronically to us.  We could potentially wait on this feature until later.

Please address these IT issues, if the features exist, need written, need a custom programmer, would be done before we sponsor etc.

Regarding "starting small", I find it a little disturbing that you reference in your proposal that these children will be "starving" because nothing is being done, yet it appears that you would be very willing for us to not come up with the money for the next compassion payment (but instead divert it to BLOOM).

Lets say we are very happy with compassion and I think our money is going to a good cause currently.  That means that I want to prioritize the relationship we have with our existing 190 children before bringing more on.  That means desiring to prepay for all of them six months out, at the very least.

We owe $7100 per month to compassion and have only broken even, so no, that does not mean "our problems are over" - as should have been pretty clear - its only been 25 days since I said the comment.

I believe we can afford one child for 3 months, with a total budget of approximately $120 for BLOOM at this time.

I think we need to come up with $21000 for Compassion in surplus, before we expand our relationship to something in the scale you propose here (980,000 BBP with no IT integration promises).

As it stands, Ill be voting no for all of these reasons, and would consider voting yes if *all* of these reasons were cleared up.   


Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: orphandefender on January 27, 2018, 11:11:58 AM
Can you explain what type of programming is necessary? Is there an instruction manual? If not, I doubt any organization will be able to integrate.

We do or can, however, have all our kids' bios up on our website which is public. I am happy to provide those links to embed wherever you need so we don't need to create unnecessary work. And if anyone wants to write a letter back to the kids, they can type or write them and we're happy to pass it along. Again, though, it's not clear how we are going to get this information. Should I just copy and paste from this site somewhere?

And just to clarify so I understand, you are requiring a custom programmer for nonprofits with limited budgets in order for them to receive sponsors for the kids? But you were willing to provide the programming for 190 children for Compassion? 
*Can you clarify this please before we agree to move forward?

If this is the case, I would highly suggest a solution to this problem. I really don't foresee non profits going through this type of hassle just to get one child sponsored. Most Non profits don't have the resources to do something like that. If your goal was to just have Compassion and provide all their integration and PR, then that's fine, but if you'd like to give other kids a chance, then it will need to be easier and more fair for  others to participate.
*Can you clarify your goals on this as well?

Lastly, I am quite offended by this assumption:

"Regarding "starting small", I find it a little disturbing that you reference in your proposal that these children will be "starving" because nothing is being done, yet it appears that you would be very willing for us to not come up with the money for the next compassion payment (but instead divert it to BLOOM)."

Where did I suggest I was willing for you to "not come up with the money for the next compassion payment, and instead divert it to BLOOM?"

There was NO place I suggested that AT ALL. I asked if you were caught up, and from what Stephen has told me, there is a LOT of room in the budget for more sponsorships. I also gained that from your last replies that you'd be caught up. If you are accusing me of this, please clarify. Seriously, that's offensive and untrue. I can't help but think you're purposefully trying to find ways not to sponsor BLOOM kids, which is sad. How did we get off on the wrong foot here?

It sounds to me like there is a lot of discrepancy in what is available in the budget. Perhaps if that was more clear, we could make proposals that are more reasonable without offending each other.
*Can you please outline what IS available so we can clear this up?
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: 616westwarmoth on January 27, 2018, 11:41:04 AM
As a stop gap, I would suggest the following.

On the side of the coin:

1) Continue pre-paying existing commitments first, strive to have a six month window pre-paid
2) Be open to new ideas, but choose duration over quantity, that is to say, sponsorship of 3 children for 6 months is better than 18 children for 1 month
3) Be amenable to minor changes is how we do things, such as receiving documents via email then uploading them manually during a test period
4) Start a new thread every month that is updated (edited) showing how much we have in the budget and where it has been allotted so far (I'll do this today)

The maker of the proposal to sponsor new charitable items should be willing to do the following during a test period.

1) Create the document needed for the Biblepay system (electronic  bio)
2) Have an email address that can handle electronic response of letters, and then be willing to print them or whatever the standard for the new charity is.
3) Digitize and upload/email any new documents needed (such as response of children)
4) Develop a clear commitment from the charity during the test period to conform to the existing system if chosen as a long term partner
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Alex on January 27, 2018, 07:35:39 PM
I'm fine with supporting charities with no IT integration with us as long they are willing to work with us to add the necessary transparency to know where the money is going and how it is used which is what BLOOM seems to be willing to do. I would be fine with it just being relevant documents/PDFs. We could probably also figure out the letter writing the same way.

I may have missed it but would it be possible have some numbers about BLOOM (number of children currently sponsored, volunteers, money raised, etc?). I am just trying to get an idea of the size of your organisation and its current impact.

I think the small non-profits we're looking for are probably the ones that give the most to those in distress. Having said that, it will also probably mean that their administrative/IT/budget is quite small and it would be a big burden to have the IT integration. I think it (the IT integration)  would also make us highly centralised which is interesting for an entity that tries to be as decentralised as possible.

If we really want the IT integration, maybe we could fund the development of something that any charity could just install to do  to integrate with us?

Edit: Just thought about it now but would BLOOM be willing to accept the payment in BiblePay and convert it to fiat or would we have to do it? I think accepting the payment in BBP directly could be a great step for us towards decentralisation.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: 616westwarmoth on January 27, 2018, 11:13:50 PM
If we really want the IT integration, maybe we could fund the development of something that any charity could just install to do  to integrate with us?

I was thinking something along the same line, such as building /revising the core components of orphan sponsorship into API, and then documenting how to utilize them.  That way a small or large organization would be able interface with us without an undue burden on either party.

That would actually lead to a good line I've talked about several times, which is to separate the pool software from the governance side (which would be both the proposals as well as the charity).
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: jaapgvk on January 28, 2018, 02:48:35 AM

Quote
If we really want the IT integration, maybe we could fund the development of something that any charity could just install to do  to integrate with us?

Great idea!

And April: I'm sure Rob can clarify what he said. I find it sometimes difficult to communicate online, and it can be hard to get a clear picture of someone. I can also sometimes be wary of the motivations of people online. It can be hard when you don't see someone in person. But I'm sure it will work out.

In my view, we should start slow, and be thankful for every new potential partner, and definitely don't have to ask time and recources consuming requirements from the get go. That's why I really like the  idea of developing a stand alone program that can help charities integrate into BiblePay.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 28, 2018, 07:43:48 AM
Can you explain what type of programming is necessary? Is there an instruction manual? If not, I doubt any organization will be able to integrate.

We do or can, however, have all our kids' bios up on our website which is public. I am happy to provide those links to embed wherever you need so we don't need to create unnecessary work. And if anyone wants to write a letter back to the kids, they can type or write them and we're happy to pass it along. Again, though, it's not clear how we are going to get this information. Should I just copy and paste from this site somewhere?

And just to clarify so I understand, you are requiring a custom programmer for nonprofits with limited budgets in order for them to receive sponsors for the kids? But you were willing to provide the programming for 190 children for Compassion? 
*Can you clarify this please before we agree to move forward?

If this is the case, I would highly suggest a solution to this problem. I really don't foresee non profits going through this type of hassle just to get one child sponsored. Most Non profits don't have the resources to do something like that. If your goal was to just have Compassion and provide all their integration and PR, then that's fine, but if you'd like to give other kids a chance, then it will need to be easier and more fair for  others to participate.
*Can you clarify your goals on this as well?

Lastly, I am quite offended by this assumption:

"Regarding "starting small", I find it a little disturbing that you reference in your proposal that these children will be "starving" because nothing is being done, yet it appears that you would be very willing for us to not come up with the money for the next compassion payment (but instead divert it to BLOOM)."

Where did I suggest I was willing for you to "not come up with the money for the next compassion payment, and instead divert it to BLOOM?"

There was NO place I suggested that AT ALL. I asked if you were caught up, and from what Stephen has told me, there is a LOT of room in the budget for more sponsorships. I also gained that from your last replies that you'd be caught up. If you are accusing me of this, please clarify. Seriously, that's offensive and untrue. I can't help but think you're purposefully trying to find ways not to sponsor BLOOM kids, which is sad. How did we get off on the wrong foot here?

It sounds to me like there is a lot of discrepancy in what is available in the budget. Perhaps if that was more clear, we could make proposals that are more reasonable without offending each other.
*Can you please outline what IS available so we can clear this up?

"Can you explain what type of programming is necessary? Is there an instruction manual? If not, I doubt any organization will be able to integrate. "
-> If you doubt any organization can do it, then it doesnt sound like you are willing to go the extra mile to work with us.  Yes, if we had an integration session, I could provide that to your programmer.  Compassion has gone the extra mile and does have an API, so the statement you made is false.

"It sounds to me like there is a lot of discrepancy in what is available in the budget. Perhaps if that was more clear, we could make proposals that are more reasonable without offending each other.
"

-> Im sorry that you feel that way, but there was no discrepency, and the numbers have been available on our web site since we started if you took the time to read them. 
To see them, click Orphan -> Expenses from the Pool.  To see the fundraisers, click Orphans -> Fundraisers. 


We have just broken even with our compassion expenses, However, we have 190 orphans to pay, 40 day superblocks, (meaning that our Charity budget is only 2.8 MM per month ) that is available.  We crash the market when we convert these funds to cash each month.

Meaning that our budget is very close to break-even currently, and as I said above, I think we have $120 available for a project like this.

You have already said that is too small to work with, so I suggest coming back in 6 months and checking with us again since its "too small".

I feel like we should be working with Positive players, who Want to integrate with us, not starting out by calling us deceptive, and resistant to integrate, and have a very bleak outlook on other charities.









Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Alex on January 28, 2018, 08:14:52 AM
Hey Rob,

I think the issue is that (from experience also) most smaller organisations don't have programmers nor even official "IT departments" as it is too expensive and not their "core business" which is helping people in distress. It's usually some volunteers who take care of the "basic" IT needs and the rest (such as the website) is outsourced to contractors or companies specialised in that.

Now that would make sense (and actually be a good sign to me) as I would rather have them use the funds to take care of more children rather than just having more employees.

Now, I might be wrong, but it is my understanding that Compassion did not specifically integrate with us (by that I mean creating an API just for us) but instead had already spent the money to create an API available to everyone. If we want to work with smaller charities, this just will never happen. They don't have the funds nor the HR for that.

IT integration with the pool is not something I would consider mandatory to me as there are other way to do it. It would also remove a lot of power from the masternodes as should masternodes not be able to vote for charities that don't integrate with the pool?
It would limit us to only the bigger charities which will not work with us on a personal level (which I think would be greatly beneficial for BiblePay). They would just have an API to use that everyone can use anyway and we would just be another donator.

I think it would be the best if you entered the budget you need for Compassion soon. Do you plan on using all the 2.8 mil coins? Right now, this is approximately $16000, plenty of room to pay Compassion and more. I understand the risk and volatility of the prices and it maybe being the reason you're waiting. If you plan on asking for all the charity coins, we could wait until we're closer to the Superblock and maybe add the "leftover" coins to the charity budget. Use them either for Compassion, Bloom or any other charity proposal that may appear.

I asked Bloom but if they would accept the payment directly in BiblePay, that could also be to our advantage as we wouldn't have to do the conversion ourselves even thought I am not sure how it would work for them (taxation wise).
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 28, 2018, 08:09:45 PM
Hey Rob,

I think the issue is that (from experience also) most smaller organisations don't have programmers nor even official "IT departments" as it is too expensive and not their "core business" which is helping people in distress. It's usually some volunteers who take care of the "basic" IT needs and the rest (such as the website) is outsourced to contractors or companies specialised in that.

Now that would make sense (and actually be a good sign to me) as I would rather have them use the funds to take care of more children rather than just having more employees.

Now, I might be wrong, but it is my understanding that Compassion did not specifically integrate with us (by that I mean creating an API just for us) but instead had already spent the money to create an API available to everyone. If we want to work with smaller charities, this just will never happen. They don't have the funds nor the HR for that.

IT integration with the pool is not something I would consider mandatory to me as there are other way to do it. It would also remove a lot of power from the masternodes as should masternodes not be able to vote for charities that don't integrate with the pool?
It would limit us to only the bigger charities which will not work with us on a personal level (which I think would be greatly beneficial for BiblePay). They would just have an API to use that everyone can use anyway and we would just be another donator.

I think it would be the best if you entered the budget you need for Compassion soon. Do you plan on using all the 2.8 mil coins? Right now, this is approximately $16000, plenty of room to pay Compassion and more. I understand the risk and volatility of the prices and it maybe being the reason you're waiting. If you plan on asking for all the charity coins, we could wait until we're closer to the Superblock and maybe add the "leftover" coins to the charity budget. Use them either for Compassion, Bloom or any other charity proposal that may appear.

I asked Bloom but if they would accept the payment directly in BiblePay, that could also be to our advantage as we wouldn't have to do the conversion ourselves even thought I am not sure how it would work for them (taxation wise).


I guess Ill have to be clearer here so we can communicate on this in a more granular fashion.

I realize Compassion had an API, thats why we used it - making the IT integration much easier.  Its either Us or Them, and if one exists it makes the job 90% easier.

To me, its of paramount importance to talk about IT, because we are a cryptocurrency.  (Were not a brick and mortar church).  One of our biggest features is clicking on the orphan Bio, so we can see who we are sponsoring.

Web sites are so prevalent, I argue that any charity worth their salt should be able to create BIOs for us.

So I disagree with your assumption that it cant be done - anything can be done if we both agree on it.  If we are willing to help the children, then put one of your IT people on the problem.

I realize parts 2 & 3 of the IT integration may not be possible (the letter writing interface).  But - I need a person who says Yes, meaning that someone will find a way to accept a typed letter in the mail, and we can have you and 616 mail them out personally once per month.

The $16000 you mention is hogwash.  Please go to Orphan -> Fundraisers, sum the list, and find the average before posting that here.  Its insulting.  I think its more like half that.  We dont raise 100% of our coin liquidations on our last-leg exchange.  We raise half when we crash the market.  I typed that earlier but its possible you missed it or didnt know what I meant.

So, therefore, again - we dont have a surplus, we can afford $120 of new orphans, and I prefer IT integration because I prefer to set a high standard with Biblepay.


Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Alex on January 28, 2018, 10:36:31 PM
Rob,

I based my $16000 on the price of 2.8 mil coins with our current new average price. I will also have you notice that we have now a nice average 24h volume of more than 2-3 btc, if you do it slowly, you won't "crash" the market by selling it now. You would have to wait 24h+ to sell everything which doesn't seem to be that difficult.

Explain your calculations if you don't agree with that because I think it is pretty straightforward. Look at the price of bitcoin, look at the price of BBP, look our average 24h trading volume.  So no, what I said is not "hogwash".

I said that IT integration the way you want is not necessary. A charity could have volunteers work with us on a personal level (which I think would be more beneficial for us). Bloom said that they have or could have a Bio page, photos and everything . It would just not be integrated with your pool.

My assumption, and I think what you also said to 616, is that what you are thinking of may expensive and costly (creating an API). We either have charities develop something for us or us develop something for the charity. I'm sure we both agree that it is expensive in both cases. I think you already expressed your point of view on having us develop something for charities.

My point is that small-medium charity will never work with us because they just don't have that kind of resource to develop an API for us. But they all do have a website with bio, pictures, etc so what I said in previous post is we can work with them in other ways that the "IT Integration" you're thinking of.

Edit: Also forgot to add that I didn't say to split the 2.8mil coin charity budget. I said that if there is "leftover coins" in the superblock (from other budgets such as PR, etc), that it could be good to redirect them to the charity budget and use that for Compassion, Bloom or any other charity proposal that may pop up.

Edit2: I also want to add (in case there was confusion on that part), that's the $16000 are for the superblock coming up, not past. I said that number after accounting for our new price and volume, we didn't have an exchange "working" for nearly 2 months.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: 616westwarmoth on January 28, 2018, 11:34:10 PM
I realize parts 2 & 3 of the IT integration may not be possible (the letter writing interface).  But - I need a person who says Yes, meaning that someone will find a way to accept a typed letter in the mail, and we can have you and 616 mail them out personally once per month.

I'd be more than happy to set up a PO Box to allow for physical mailings.  I've got a pair of MFP machines, can print in color or B/W and would be honored to be the physical point of contact for such items.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 29, 2018, 07:34:23 AM
Rob,

I based my $16000 on the price of 2.8 mil coins with our current new average price. I will also have you notice that we have now a nice average 24h volume of more than 2-3 btc, if you do it slowly, you won't "crash" the market by selling it now. You would have to wait 24h+ to sell everything which doesn't seem to be that difficult.

Explain your calculations if you don't agree with that because I think it is pretty straightforward. Look at the price of bitcoin, look at the price of BBP, look our average 24h trading volume.  So no, what I said is not "hogwash".

I said that IT integration the way you want is not necessary. A charity could have volunteers work with us on a personal level (which I think would be more beneficial for us). Bloom said that they have or could have a Bio page, photos and everything . It would just not be integrated with your pool.

My assumption, and I think what you also said to 616, is that what you are thinking of may expensive and costly (creating an API). We either have charities develop something for us or us develop something for the charity. I'm sure we both agree that it is expensive in both cases. I think you already expressed your point of view on having us develop something for charities.

My point is that small-medium charity will never work with us because they just don't have that kind of resource to develop an API for us. But they all do have a website with bio, pictures, etc so what I said in previous post is we can work with them in other ways that the "IT Integration" you're thinking of.

Edit: Also forgot to add that I didn't say to split the 2.8mil coin charity budget. I said that if there is "leftover coins" in the superblock (from other budgets such as PR, etc), that it could be good to redirect them to the charity budget and use that for Compassion, Bloom or any other charity proposal that may pop up.

Edit2: I also want to add (in case there was confusion on that part), that's the $16000 are for the superblock coming up, not past. I said that number after accounting for our new price and volume, we didn't have an exchange "working" for nearly 2 months.


I'm sorry for sounding rushed, but Im working on a proposal whitepaper and proof of concept for a new relationship and dont want to lose this new value add for biblepay - The value I am referring to is "missed opportunity value".  We have a very valuable opportunity right now that I dont want to see pass us by.  This opportunity is probably worth more than 70 million market cap, which could help over 50,000 orphans.  So I need to keep this at a high level so we dont miss the forest from the trees.

The reality is we dont have a trader who is going to sit in front of our only exchange and sell at 24 hour peaks.  Sure, OK, I will cave and sell the 2.8MM compassion coins a little slower, but again, your asking me to do more work.  Maybe we can set up a system to have a volunteer run the trade desk, its possible, but my plan is actually to work with the other group and get on the big exchange, so that problem actually solves itself.  I raise payroll on bittrex, and it doesnt move a cent when I pay my guys.  CCEX moves about 50%.  If we sold 20% for 5 days it would move 25% and backfill each day, I know that.  Ill give that a shot during the next budget.

Either way I want to make my point.  Last month I was able to raise .87 BTC for 1.7MM coins.  Yes, that is a huge improvement.  As you can see our price dropped 35% this morning.  Lets ground ourselves in reality boys.  We can not guarantee .87 is going to happen every time, even if you are the chincienst of the cincy.  So that means we most likely will raise about .87 for 1.7MM, and even if we did, I was under the impression we wanted to pre-pay the orphanage sponsorships for 6 months before taking on new risk?  Where is the money coming from.

(I based my scathing reply at the top primarily because of that understanding - prepaying our current 187 for 6 months first and opening the door slightly, a crack, slightly for competing vendors, sure the crack can be wider if the org works with us - in some way shape and form).

But, Its reckless to try to blow 1 million out of our 2.8M charity when we have not paid one month up front for any orphans yet.  That is my main point.  Its not that we cant squeeze more out of the market.  The other thing to take into consideration is our 40 day superblock average due to slow block times.  That adds up to a 25% delay in compassion payments.  25% is a big number!  Why do you think I error on the conservative side?  That is equivalent to missing a payment once every 4 months.



So yes, its possible we have an extra 500K budget, but I would rather get a lock on my vendor caving on at the very least - Partial IT integration - Orphan Bios, and the ability to receive mailed letters.

As West just said he would hand mail a letter.  (Thanks West, thats great!)
   That would make me happy, then the investors could click on the links like any other link and we could have a column for Charity populated (actually we have that already).




Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Alex on January 29, 2018, 07:44:35 AM
Hey Rob,

I think there is some communication issue happening.

I was not saying we should split the 2.8 mil coins charity budget. I was only talking about unused coins (from other budgets) when close to the superblock that could be used to fund charity proposals (Compassion, Bloom or others).

I know about the volatility of prices as I said in my first post but I think the prices are actually much higher in the morning (for me) than they are in the evening (now) so we will see if the pattern is confirmed. I understand about it being more work for you and that's why I asked Bloom (for example) if they would accept payment directly in BBP, as it would lift up that burden from you.

Concerning the risk you're talking about, I think it was talked about not sponsoring more orphans through Compassion and instead prepaying for the ones already sponsored. I don't think this was excluding looking at other charity proposals (while still making sure to pay Compassion).

I'm personally waiting on numbers from Bloom to make my own personal decision.

Edit: To make it clear, I would like the 2.8 mil to go to Compassion first and if we have leftover coin from other budgets, to possibly use it towards Bloom.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on January 30, 2018, 08:35:29 AM
Thanks Alex, well why didnt you say so, LOL, just kidding.

OK, I see where you are coming from.  I had a strong consternation against taking away from the 2.8M from compassion originally, as I knew that real danger of not prepaying in advance, but this comment above paints it in a different light.

We are basically saying lets consider this proposal for payment outside of the charity budget - at the expense of some of the other categories.  Since we are a compassionate organization, well then Yes, I say Yes to that in Jesus name.

April said the following in summary:

880,000 BBP ($2640) to cover 10 children in emergency status for 3 months in Rakai, Uganda (ideally to continue in 3 month increments for same 10 kids)
108,000 BBP ($324) to feed 3 children at the Sierra Leone orphanage for 3 months (ideally to continue in 3 month increments for same 3 kids, and possibly add more kids each time a superblock is reached)
Total Request: 988,000 BBP

She wants us to sponsor 10 children in emergency status for 3 months, and feed 3 children in Sierra Leone for 3 months.

So if you want to bend my arm, I still have 4 small issues Id like to take care of- if we can knock these out I would vote YES:

1)
   From an IT perspective, what I would like to do is :  See a bio for these 10 children from an HTTP link, so that I can enter these 10 children in our database if this proposal passes.  All I need is a public HTTP page with 10 links for these 10 children. 
2) I would like an address where we can mail physical letters to - one concentrated address, so that our online letter system may dump this to paper, and Ill ensure the letters are mailed to  Aprils letter address.
3) I would like bio links for the 3 children in Sierra Leone we are feeding, but in this case, I will modify our system so investors can see the category desgination  (something like MEALS_PROGRAM) or something -   In summary for #3, just the ability to click Bios of these 3 kids also.
4) April will handle the liquidation of the BBP from her organization, and spend it for us, Rob will not need to convert BBP -> BTC for BLOOM :).

April, would you be able to make these 4 things happen?  If so Ill vote Yes on this proposal.

Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: orphandefender on January 31, 2018, 04:03:15 PM
**Give me a couple days to work with the volunteer who does our website and with our Sponsorships Director. I think it's do-able, but I'm not a website guru so I want to make sure we can set those up, even if on hidden pages.
2) I would like an address where we can mail physical letters to - one concentrated address, so that our online letter system may dump this to paper, and Ill ensure the letters are mailed to  Aprils letter address.
**We can take electronic letters (that would be easier) but just not sure how that could work. Can your online system dump to an email address? If so, [email protected] and she will forward those to our orphanage partners. We rarely get mail to them since they're rural and customs is far from them. If you want a physical address though, we can scan and send them to the kids:
Jennifer Borsh
PO Box 319
Villa Rica, GA 30180
Just to make sure on expectations though, how often do you need letters back? Usually we can get them once a month for Uganda, sometimes twice a month for Sierra Leone.
3) I would like bio links for the 3 children in Sierra Leone we are feeding, but in this case, I will modify our system so investors can see the category desgination  (something like MEALS_PROGRAM) or something -   In summary for #3, just the ability to click Bios of these 3 kids also.
**OK, awesome, let me work on that.

4) April will handle the liquidation of the BBP from her organization, and spend it for us, Rob will not need to convert BBP -> BTC for BLOOM :).
**Sounds like I'll need to create BLOOM a c-cex account and then a coinbase account to then convert to $$? Give me a few days to look into that as well, or let me know if you know of an easier way?

Thanks again for bending a bit to help make this happen! I really do appreciate the consideration. :)

**Adding another few thoughts that I just had after posting this initially:

1. What happens if BBP tanks (knock on wood) and we end up with a huge gap in the cost for sponsorship in the middle of when the proposal was requested or funded, or before I could transfer the funds out of BBP and into USD$? Maybe you guys have addressed this before, but if so, would you please briefly re-explain what we would do in that case? Would the proposal amount be reconsidered?

2. Alex, I just saw what you meant by "numbers". Thank you for asking. We have one very part time employee - her salary is more of a "thank you" and she puts in so many hours she maybe makes $5-7/hr when all is said and done? That is Jennifer, our sponsorships director. Then there is myself who is paid part time salary but I actually work full time on BLOOM. After the hours spent once our hosting programs are taken into consideration, I make between $5-10/hr any given month. I'm basically a glorified program manager for that program, but it's my heart. I also do all our marketing and PR. I occasionally pay a contract grant writer hourly to help us obtain grants to cover our bigger projects such as sustainable farming, and the teacher training program (not yet public), and also sponsorships and hosting. Our accounting is usually done by me and the board treasurer, but I am actually hoping to contract a bookkeeper asap as the hosting programs get complicated financially. I'm going to ask one of our major donors if they'll consider covering this cost for us. That may be more info than you needed, but I do like to point that out because we both really care about the organization and the kids served, and are willing to volunteer hours above and beyond what we're paid according to market value.

We do have between 5-8 volunteers any given month as well that help us run the programs (excluding the board). Our board volunteers regularly though, and we have one regular volunteer who helps Jennifer with Sponsorships and the farming project. We have one volunteer who helps me with the website and sometimes hosting program admin. We don't currently have an actual IT volunteer (so if someone wants to apply..... ;) ) Then there are between 5-8 "hosting" volunteers each orphan hosting program which happens twice per year. They recruit host families from their churches and mentor the host families who bring orphans over to live with their family for 4-8 weeks during summer or Christmas. They probably volunteer 5-15 hours per WEEK on this program! I thank God for them every day because without them, we couldn't run this program. Hosting is our "reverse mission trip" and our biggest/most admin-intense program. http://www.bloomworldwide.org/hosting/



As for other numbers, here's a brief summary of our impact from 2017:
--We served orphans 53,655 meals among all the sponsorships programs
--76 sets of school supplies were provided to kids in Uganda and Sierra Leone
--76 children received schooling in Uganda and Sierra Leone
--89 children's lives were changed through the orphan hosting program[/li][/list]

Praise Jesus for all His provisions and blessings in 2017!

3. Rob, it just occurred to me that we could do a PR plug for you if BBP sponsors such a large chunk of orphans. We always give a shoutout in our newsletter and social media to sponsors who are OK with being recognized. I am happy to give a shout out to BBP as well. But, could I just please talk to you separately about some of the verbiage used on the site first? I really think just some rephrasing of a few things will come across better to several audiences.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on February 01, 2018, 07:07:59 PM
Dear April,
Please see my responses in Blue:


-> Thanks, awesome.

If you can do it, we will make sure its clickable so our investors have faith in us as we sponsor more children.


2) I would like an address where we can mail physical letters to - one concentrated address

". Can your online system dump to an email address? If so,
[email protected] and she will forward those to our orphanage partners. "  Alternative:
Jennifer Borsh
PO Box 319
Villa Rica, GA 30180

->  Yes, I think this SMTP option is doable.  We can modify the letter sender to send to an e-mail address.

Thanks for working on that feature.


"Just to make sure on expectations though, how often do you need letters back? Usually we can get them once a month for Uganda, sometimes twice a month for Sierra Leone."
-> We dont have specific requirements, but 30 days would be nice.  I currently run the job once per month on the 3rd friday of the month.  This job sents outgoing letters and pays a reward to the users who wrote the letters.


4) April will handle the liquidation of the BBP from her organization, and spend it for us, Rob will not need to convert BBP -> BTC for BLOOM :).
**Sounds like I'll need to create BLOOM a c-cex account and then a coinbase account to then convert to $$? Give me a few days to look into that as well, or let me know if you know of an easier way?

-> Praise God, today we are now on SouthXChange also.  Since CCEX is not accepting new users, you could now create and sell from there.

https://www.southxchange.com/Balance/Index/BBP


**Adding another few thoughts that I just had after posting this initially:

1. What happens if BBP tanks (knock on wood) and we end up with a huge gap in the cost for sponsorship in the middle of when the proposal was requested or funded, or before I could transfer the funds out of BBP and into USD$? Maybe you guys have addressed this before, but if so, would you please briefly re-explain what we would do in that case? Would the proposal amount be reconsidered?

->  If it tanks, I suppose it is OK if you add a follow up proposal for the difference one month later.  Since you had received some to get started, it should not be a problem to vote in the remaining balance.





As for other numbers, here's a brief summary of our impact from 2017:
--We served orphans 53,655 meals among all the sponsorships programs
--76 sets of school supplies were provided to kids in Uganda and Sierra Leone
--76 children received schooling in Uganda and Sierra Leone
--89 children's lives were changed through the orphan hosting program[/li][/list]



-> Praise Jesus, Amen.


3. Rob, it just occurred to me that we could do a PR plug for you if BBP sponsors such a large chunk of orphans. We always give a shoutout in our newsletter and social media to sponsors who are OK with being recognized. I am happy to give a shout out to BBP as well. But, could I just please talk to you separately about some of the verbiage used on the site first? I really think just some rephrasing of a few things will come across better to several audiences.
-> Thats great! Actually Tom (zthomasz) is working on a new website for us (beta.biblepay.org) using the more modern bootstrap site.  I think you could PM him with the changes and he will accomodate.


Thanks a lot for being flexible and I look forward to an extremely bright future with more concurrent children around the globe!



Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: jaapgvk on February 03, 2018, 05:26:33 AM
I just wanted to drop in and say that I really like the vibe of the last few posts. I'm hoping for a bright future for everyone involved :)
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: orphandefender on February 05, 2018, 05:32:16 PM
Rob- I think it may take Jennifer and our web person a bit of time to set up the individual links, and I don't want to leave your investors without bios/photos if you were to send funds right away. Right now they are prepping the website for the Poland orphan hosting program launch, as I'm traveling to Poland tomorrow for a week and will be uploading kids' photos for that. Would it throw a wrench in things if we wait to launch this starting in March? I hate to make the kids in Uganda wait for school, but I can pull some basic food funding from our emergency funds to cover them outside school for this month from a recent private donation. The problem is, I haven't had a chance to set up a BLOOM account on any of the exchanges yet to convert the BBP over to USD, and I know it's already the 5th, so it's technically past the enrollment time frame for the kids to start school this month anyway. Also, I should hear back from the grant application I sent in to support the 10 kids in Uganda another 3 months by end of Feb, and I'm hesitant to move forward without an additional 3 months covered as backup just in case something happens and BBP can't cover them. What do you think? March gives us both more time to gear up, and seems the timing works out better for other things as well, if that's ok with you? And I think we still have to wait for a positive vote to go through anyway, right?
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: jaapgvk on February 13, 2018, 10:18:07 AM
I hope that more sanctuary-owners pitch in in the future in terms of discussion (instead of only voting), because it appears that the original proposal for BLOOM will be included in the next superblock, which is good news for BLOOM, but I'm wondering how the distribution of those coins shall be in terms of charity, seeing that a lot of angles were discussed, but the amount of BBP is based on the original proposal. (Also - of course - the value has changed in the mean time.)

Btw April, I'm absolute pro having a buffer of - as you say - a minimum of three months. I'd rather have it that things grow slow but steady, despite us being in the 'volatile crypto business'.
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: Rob Andrews on February 18, 2018, 07:20:57 AM
Rob- I think it may take Jennifer and our web person a bit of time to set up the individual links, and I don't want to leave your investors without bios/photos if you were to send funds right away. Right now they are prepping the website for the Poland orphan hosting program launch, as I'm traveling to Poland tomorrow for a week and will be uploading kids' photos for that. Would it throw a wrench in things if we wait to launch this starting in March? I hate to make the kids in Uganda wait for school, but I can pull some basic food funding from our emergency funds to cover them outside school for this month from a recent private donation. The problem is, I haven't had a chance to set up a BLOOM account on any of the exchanges yet to convert the BBP over to USD, and I know it's already the 5th, so it's technically past the enrollment time frame for the kids to start school this month anyway. Also, I should hear back from the grant application I sent in to support the 10 kids in Uganda another 3 months by end of Feb, and I'm hesitant to move forward without an additional 3 months covered as backup just in case something happens and BBP can't cover them. What do you think? March gives us both more time to gear up, and seems the timing works out better for other things as well, if that's ok with you? And I think we still have to wait for a positive vote to go through anyway, right?


Hi April,

Awesome, Im glad you are making a difference in Poland!  It looks like your proposal has passed.
SouthXChange.com has been very good lately, even though we are a fledgling small economy, things are getting brighter each day. 
To give you an idea of what I went through with compassion this month, I received 2.8 million coins and raised about .85 BTC.  So Im hoping your experience will be similar on SouthXChange with 1 mil, please, work with Togo if you need any help on that.    Since you have time now, you are free to put in limit orders at higher prices now.

As far as timing, I think its fine with us to wait 30-60 days to get started, but I would like to jump on the URLs as soon as possible.  Could you reach out to someone and have them at least start creating placeholders for the bios, so we have the childrens name and a URL?  We arent asking you all to go out of your way and write a bio for each child, we really just need something the investors can click on from our pool, so we can tie the actual orphan expense sponsorship row back to the orphan record so all of our counts match in the accountability side.

Could you please shoot for end of March for this?  Ill go ahead and make empty bloom placeholders for children and meals over the next 30 days, so our orphan count starts to increase.

Please let us know if you need anything!

Welcome aboard!  Thank you for your patience!


Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: orphandefender on February 19, 2018, 09:00:26 AM
Hi Rob (and everyone)- I'm finally back from Poland and caught up on everything. Wow, just saw the proposal was funded- THANK YOU!!! I have reached out to Jennifer, and asked her to have the urls set up by March 1st. Is that what you mean by placeholders? At that time I will send you what she created (or maybe I'll send you a couple before that so you can tell me if it's what you need). We should have at least short bios on all the kids already, so I hope to have this all set up for you sooner than end of March. What might take longer is selling at the price we want on southxchange (currently setting sell limits now). I may put some on c-cex to help move it along if needed though. It's good to know we have a bit more time.

I appreciate y'alls consideration and "yes" votes for this proposal. I'm so excited to see how we can work together to change these children's lives. I'm encouraged by this partnership already!

I'll get in touch with Tom to start discussing website verbiage. :)
Title: Re: New Charity Organization - BLOOM
Post by: jaapgvk on February 22, 2018, 03:08:57 AM
Congratulations on getting the budget  :D

It's great to see that the growth of our community goes hand in hand with the good we can do.

Maybe in a little while (maybe if/when CameroonOne can also gets some budget and after the introduction of PODC), we can start thinking about PR. It's great to hear that you are also willing to help out with the site.  I think one of our future steps should be to present ourselves in a singular way across our media.