Our Plan to Give Away 3,000 STEEM: Criteria x Capacity = Cultural Capital
Decision Time Approaches
Thanks to our collective teamwork, we now have two essential lists: 1) Nonprofit organizations, candidates capable of implementing projects with the 3000 STEEM we’ve accumulated, and 2) Criteria by which we will compare and decide which one organization will receive the STEEM.
Now’s the time for us to reach out to the candidates and determine how willing and able they are to work with us. Then, when we have all of their responses, we will hold in-depth discussions and select a recipient.
3,000 STEEM Awaits the Selected Organization.
Over the past two-to-three weeks ago we developed project ideas. In the past week, we’re developed criteria for ranking them. But there’s still a LOT we don’t know. Do the potential recipients see our ideas as consistent with their own missions? Do they truly have the capacity to implement what we propose? Will they bring other resources into play? We have these and many other questions to answer to get to a point where we are comparing projects like, as they say, apples to apples.
It’s an experiment in crypto-philanthropy that promises transparency, innovation, engagement.
Below are the projects that we’d like to see happen. If we had the resources, we’d want to fund each of them in some way. But we don’t and we can’t. We need to select one. So what will happen next? Our team members (students) will contact the nonprofits associated with each of these project ideas presented and ask them to respond to a series of questions.
• Create Paid Internships at Art-Reach
• Deploy the Public History Truck to Document the Temple Stadium Project
• Develop Community Led Oral Histories
• Fund the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia
• Support the Philadelphia Black History Collaborative
• Advance the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance’s Museum and Interpretive Center
• Develop Walking Tours that are Free, Relevant and Engaging
• Teach the Creatives of Today How to Fish in Tomorrow's Pools
Here are the questions for potential recipients based on the criteria we developed:
• Is the project a good fit for your organization’s mission?
• Does your organization have the desire and capacity to implement the project?
• Will the implementation of the proposed project leverage additional resources?
• It the project community driven?
• Does the project promise community impact?
• Will the project have scale and/or sustainability?
• Will your project increase access? Will that access be affordable?
Last, but not least, since the winning organization will receive 3,000 STEEM generated with our Steemit accounts, we will urge the winning organization to commit to continue on Steemit, blogging to get the word out and continuing to accumulate additional resources. Will they?
The Schedule
March 19-22: Initial contact made with prospective organization
March 23-April 6: Follow-up contact; Q & A
April 13: Response Deadline
April 16-18: Deliberation
April 19: Decision Announcement
Upcoming Posts:
- FAQ for the Finalists
- Your Organization Received an Award for 3,000 STEEM. Now What?
- Imagine: Philadelphia’s Cultural Community Going Full Steem
- Profiles of the Finalists
100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program, is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.
I'm excited to see how the organizations respond to our offer. We have our own criteria, but as you noted, they'll need to be wiling to accept Steem, not $. In other words, they need to be willing to work with us as much as we're willing to work with them. Even though we can only fund one organization, hopefully most will be intrigued enough by our offer to look further into the world of blockchain.
As I say above: we're especially keen on not only funding the "best" project, as defined by our criteria, but the one that will continue to leverage STEEM and the power of Steemit. I don't expect that it'll be easy, but we're trying to craft an incentive package. What do you (or others) think such a package would need - to be
effective?
There is none. If an organization doesn't have the interest, time or capacity to participate, then that's that. If we're not looking for the most impactful, worthwhile or civically-minded project and only for one that will conform to this notion that cryptocurrency is the way forward, then we should just eliminate those projects up front and narrow our list even more. Further, some of these proposed projects (including mine) could not possibly work given our limited STEEM offer and how tenuous/changeable the STEEM market itself is.
3,000 STEEM is currently worth about $6,500. That amount is nothing to sneeze at! And if the market changes, the USD could well be worth less, or possibly twice that amount. Why eliminate good ideas and a possible partnership before proposing to the organization we've been considering? Let's let them make the choice! If we cannot find a willing partner to continue to work on the Steemit platform, well, then we'll have no choice but to support their cashing out and applying the resources to their mission.
Congratulations @phillyhistory, this post is the eighth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superuser account holder (accounts that hold between 1 and 10 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superuser account holders during this period was 1628 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $7020.91. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.
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Thank you for being transparent throughout this process and for sharing your schedule too! This is a great model for engaging the classroom and surely others will use this as an example. Reading more into the proposals and will respond more thoroughly soon...
You know, the lack of transparency in managing what is the public trust (and, of course, what is in the public interest) runs so deep that we take for granted that it is normal and right. This project challenges and questions that tradition/assumption. What do funders have to hide? Shouldn't be anything, right? It's all in the public interest... or should be.
Also, we're especially keen on not only funding the "best" project, as defined by our criteria, but (I hope, anyway) the one that will continue to leverage STEEM and the power of Steemit.