Question: Why should I not donate my cryptocurrencies directly to some projects I like? All it involves at their end is having a cryptowallet, which is typically gratis. Why go through through your foundation?
Answer: If a project has set up the right infrastructure and is up for it, sure. But while the financial expertise and administrative expertise for handling regular donations is pretty common and reasonable to expect, the ability to properly handle crypto assets is far less common - at least just yet. Natural fluctuations of cryptocurrency valuations tend to trigger all kind of undesirable effects for the rest of their operations. At present, cryptocurrencies in non-trivial amounts can be a nightmare to deal with, both for individuals and in the books of any type of organisation.
By having anything crypto asset related dealt with professionally, and making traditional donations through a well-known charity we avoid unnecessarily exposing the people and organisations whose work we want to support to any such risk.
Question: Why won't you donate to projects directly?
Answer: Very simple. We don't deal with money directly, and leave the fine-grained selection and handling of projects to professional grant makers. This is transparent and cost effective, and keeps operations of the trust to an absolute minimum.
Question: I work for another charity, and we are interesting in cryptocurrency donations. Would you be open to handle these donations for us?
Answer: Yes, we are happy to handle donations for organisations provided that they are mission-aligned with us. If e.g. you work on free and open source software/hardware, open content or open data, that is very likely the case. And we can at the very least share expertise and help you on your way. Please contact us to discuss what the options are.
Question: I love your approach and want to donate cryptocurrency for, but my preferred topic of choice does not fit in the current User Operated Internet domain. Are you open to launch and operate other funds?
Answer: If you want to dedicate a significant amount of cryptocurrency to the public benefit, we are eager to help you make the most of it together with our partners. We will handle the trust part, while a charitable partner can help establish a thematic fund, a regional fund, or a named fund - whatever is the most suitable. Please contact us to discuss what the options are.
Question: You have an awesome mission. I want to write about the Technology Commons Trust so that more people are aware of what you do. Where can I find a logo?
Answere First and foremost: thank you. We don't want to waste money on advertising, so this is really important for us. We have prepared a style guide for you to use, which includes logo's in vector formats, etc. Do reach out so we can provide you with any information you may need... we are happy to help.
Contact us
If you have any questions or remarks about our work or this website, you can send us email through contact [@thisdomain].
Please note that we do not handle individual grant requests for your project, as explained elsewhere we only work through intermediaries which are established public benefit organisations. If you are seeking a grant, we would kindly like to refer you to the User Operated Internet Fund.
If you would like to send us physical mail, our postal address is:
Stichting Technology Commons Trust