STEEMIT CHANGE THE NEWS: We could CHANGE the outcome of negative events by DONATING PROCEEDS to VICTIMS AND FAMILIES from EVERY BREAKING NEWS POST!
I believe that we could positively change the world with Steemit, so that every Breaking News story posted has a portion of its proceeds donated to victims and families affected by the negative event. This in turn would add a positive final spin on the negative story as well as aid in putting Steemit in front of a larger audience with more creative donation ideas.
The Original Idea
A few years ago I created my first startup website called Crowdsponder.com. The general idea was for the site to have breaking news stories posted, along with a community of users who would brainstorm and crowdfund a charitable response for that particular event. The intention was to 'change the news' from a negative to a positive story.
It never took off, perhaps because it was not the best way to present the idea, but more likely because I new very little about marketing at the time (...and I still do). However, I see an opportunity here with Steemit that could hopefully make my idea a reality.
Why I think it is the Best Charitable implementation for Steemit
Mainly I believe it is the best implementation because it casts a wide net to cover various charities and opens up the option for us to be creative in how we help those affected by the story (See suggestion 2. below). Not only would this create some incredible PR and popularity for Steemit, but we would be doing this for a good cause just by keeping up to date with current events and the satisfaction of knowing we were a part of it.
How it would work
I think the easiest implementation would be for users to have a certain tag - something like #changethenews- that would designate the post as donating a portion of its proceeds to a charity that is helping with the event. At the bottom of the post they could signify the percentage they will be donating as well as what charity they will be donating to, for which I have 2 ideas:
1. The author will choose the charity they will be donating to, designating it at the bottom of their post.
2. To add a more creative aspect, they could leave the donation decision to the highest voted suggestion submitted by commenters for how the money should be used (ex. Instead of just giving the money to a charity, we could order 1000 balloons to be sent to a child with leukemia (I'm not the most creative person :), but I believe crowdsourcing this with the Steemit community would produce some very interesting ideas)).
Conclusion
Those are just my initial thoughts. I'd love to hear what the Steemit community thinks about this and whether you have any suggestions for the best way you believe we could implement and achieve it.
Perhaps if someone can really set this up it will go somewhere, but there have been a few charity suggestions/posts/etcetera and even though the verbal support has been there, the funding hasn't done very much even though there are a handful of posts that would have taken care of some of these campaigns.
We're still here in early days and the lack of news articles that are actually being upvoted would currently make any donations not substantial enough, but that could change when the website picks up. Do you have any suggestion of how we could make this a thing as Steemit continues to grow? I've just edited and think a hashtag like #changethenews would be more appropriate as a marker.
My only idea right now would be to submit news stories myself (and perhaps get some other members involved) with a link and explanation at the bottom to what #changethenews means and hope it catches on.
All I can suggest is, as you said, just make the right posts and the people that share the vision need to rally together and vote each other up. This experiment is technically only a couple of weeks old so we'll see how it goes in general. I like the #changethenews tag!
Great idea! Keep it up! Great way to help people who really need help.
Thanks! I've been batting this around for years and think if we get some traction it would be a boost for the community, the affected individuals and the Steemit currency, but I am hoping to get some validation first.