We can support a school, a religious organization, and any non-profit by simply doing what we already do: browsing the web. Imagine that every time we do anything on a web browser, we support our favorite non-profits. We can achieve it through cryptocurrencies.
How it works
We probably spend at least one to two hours using a web browser for personal reasons. Some of us probably use a web browser six to eight hours a day for work reasons. Even if we can earn five cents per hour when using a browser, we can donate at least $1 per month. That becomes $12 per year that we can donate by doing what we already do.
Introducing the Brave browser
The Brave browser allows us to do this. The browser is based on the Chromium browser. This is the same base that the Google Chrome browser uses. Anyone using Google Chrome would feel at home with the Brave browser.
The Brave browser was designed with privacy and speed in mind. It blocks trackers, ads, and other things that invade our privacy. As a result, web pages load faster.
Introducing Brave Rewards
To fund their development, Brave has a reward program. They anonymously serve ads as browser notifications. Whenever we get an ad notification, we are compensated with an amount of the Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency. We can choose to exchange BAT for a fiat currency (e.g., USD), hold them until they appreciate in value, or spend them on a service that uses BAT.
We can also choose to contribute BAT to any Brave Creator. Brave Creators earn BAT whenever someone visits one of their websites, gets a tip, or receives a designated monthly contribution. A non-profit can start earning BAT when it registers as a Brave Creator, and Brave browser users contribute BAT.
Doing our part
We need to take some steps to start contributing BAT to a non-profit. We will review how to set up the Brave Browser, opting in for Brave Rewards, and setting up monthly BAT contributions.
We download the Brave browser from https://brave.com. We run the installer as we typically would on our operating system.
We are given the option to do a welcome tour which we can skip if desired.
We are also prompted to enable Brave Rewards. Once enabled, we can access the Brave Rewards settings by clicking the Brave Rewards icon to the address bar's right. We can also type brave://rewards/ into the address bar.
We click the Brave Rewards icon and click the "Rewards Settings" link.
We go to the Ads section and click the ads settings button.
We configure the settings per our preferences. (I chose to get the maximum number of ads.)
We can enable Auto-Contribute if we want to donate BAT to any Brave Creator website we visit. We are leaving this off so we can control how much BAT we donate and to whom.
We need to visit the Brave Creator's website to enable monthly contributions or give tips. For illustration purposes, we will use MiguelACallesMBA.com as an example.
When we visit a Brave Creator's website, we will see a checkmark on the Brave Rewards icon. When we click it, it will allow us to set up the monthly contribution or give tips. We do either or both, depending on our preferences.
We will see a "Verify Wallet" status on the Brave Rewards dropdown. We may safely ignore this if we plan to donate all your BAT. If we plan to use any of the BAT for other purposes, we will need to create an account on Uphold.com and connect it to Brave Rewards.
The non-profit's part
We must encourage a non-profit to become a Brave Creator and have an Uphold wallet for all this to work. They may be hesitant to accept cryptocurrency donations. We must help them understand this is similar to receiving other non-cash and asset donations (e.g., stocks, clothes, household items, and trusts). The BAT cryptocurrency is easily exchanged to a fiat currency (e.g., USD). They might also increase the donation's size if they hold it until it appreciates in value---although there is no guarantee that it will. We will review the process to become a Brave Creator.
The non-profit should first sign up at Uphold.com and create a business account. This step is important because they will be unable to convert BAT to a fiat currency without a valid Uphold wallet.
After they have a valid Uphold account, they sign up as Brave Creator. Once they create their Brave Creator account, they can link their Uphold wallet.
Now that they can receive BAT funds, they must create a channel to receive contributions and tips.
A channel can be a website, YouTube channel, Twitch channel, Twitter account, Vimeo channel, Reddit channel, and GitHub account. These are the channel types available at the time of this writing.
We should encourage them to enable as many channels as they have available.
Each channel type will require verifying ownership of the channel. For example, a website has two verification options.
Once verified, they can choose to enable the ability to serve ads. This possibility allows them to earn additional BAT from visitors who visit their channel.
Conclusion
We can use Brave Rewards to earn the Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency while browsing the web using the Brave browser. We can donate BAT to our favorite non-profits when they enroll as a Brave Creator. The non-profits can convert BAT to a fiat currency (e.g., USD) or hold it until it appreciates in value.
Originally published on MiguelACallesMBA.com
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
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