Taking donations for bitcoin can occur at the grass roots level and would be progressive. I don’t have to be a member to participate yet If i were a member I could donate to specific addresses or causes related to my programming that I knew about – it will likely go to the same public contributions and members fund. It’s so easy here’s a demo:
My aim isn’t to encourage every program director of public broadcasting to slap on a QR code onto each of their commercials for donations to have them cashed in…I’m asking that they hold onto the btc and spend it with btc merchants for business expenses and even consider compensating employees with it. That is a difficult pill to swallow admittedly, but if you were to go that route (in a symbiotic manner). To handle accounting, simple set BTC as a foreign custom currency in your accounting package and denote all payments in Bits which can denominate down to the satoshi fairly easily. To remember = 1 bitcoin is 1000 MIllibits. I millibit is 1000 bits…. 1 bit is 100 satoshis. Don’t try to keep these all in your head…just keep in mind that units work like the metric system (in base10 format). Keep your transactions in dollars and do the conversion at the time of purchase. When it comes time for year end calculations, just keep a consistent accounting practice for determining value – this can mean an average price for the year from a specific source, or the price of BTC at X time on the 31st of December each year – its all up to you to choose but make sure you use a method consistently or explain at least why you changed a method at one point and stick to that changed method.
I say public broadcasting because it isn’t as restrictive and there are on average, more intelligent people watching pubic broadcasting. This should translate into a greater intersection of potential donators than say, a bus stop, or a radio advertisement. By instituting Bitcoin donation QR codes in Commercials, during telethons, and before fundraisers, you have a chance to and the means to garner REAL-TIME feedback on:
- Effectiveness of your approaches
- Size of donations sent and when
- Types of programming that receives more attention than others
Perhaps you may feel that this is a wasted effort, but I beg you to reconsider. The cost of setting up a merchant account is a minimum of 1-3% You literally get this back if you accept Bitcoin. As a customer, I simply need to have my phone out and I could scan the QR code (the thing I made in the little video above) – send $5 and be on with my life…yet that’s real money in your pocket! There is a very minimal settlement time of perhaps 15 minutes – sometimes in extreme circumstances this takes longer, but usually after that first confirmation the money is spendable from most wallets. Also, the proper channels can be setup without a 3rd party involved such that you hold the money, its yours to be used – no need to bother with a bank account or Pay-pal – this money can easily be routed to a bank account though through websites like coin-base and circle though so please don’t be put off by the idea of having to maintain it all yourself (though it is minimally effortless to do so). As a case in point, I did a fundraiser a few months ago to collect donations so we could have a bitcoin neon sign in the middle of downtown portland…
Here it is is 🙂
I want you to understand, that you, the corporation of public broadcasters, seem to thank viewers like us on at the beginning and end of each show; well you have a chance to enable a next-generation payments medium freely within your infrastructure, give it a shot!!! Regular television channels rely on advertising and have no need to solicit for donations, but you do, which is why I challenge you to accept Bitcoin! Do you work for a public broadcasting company and seek innovative ways to earn more program funding? Are you curious about this idea of taking bitcoin but need more information about how it works or how to use it? Let’s talk about it below!
