SDF Donation Matching Program with Lumenthropy

The world is facing an unprecedented crisis, and at the Stellar Development Foundation, we believe we’re in a position to help. As our CEO Denelle Dixon pointed out in a blog post last week, we are fortunate to have some stability during this uncertain time, and it’s a gift that we’re not going to take for granted.

There are medium- and long-term solutions that SDF and the Stellar community can, should, and will consider, but many of those require time to coordinate or implement, and there’s an immediate and urgent need to step up. So, we’ve been asking ourselves: what can we do in the short term? What can we do right now?

The SDF has XLM reserves. Stellar has an active community. With the combined power of those two things, we can work together to help organizations that are creating vital change in the world, and we can help them today.

To do that, we’re announcing an XLM-donation-matching program for the month of April with Stellar-based Lumenthropy. We’re committing 2.5M XLM to support a select group of charities that are set up to accept lumen donations today. We’ll kick it off with 100,000 XLM donations to each charity, and we’ll use the remaining funds to match lumen donations made by our community. Eligible charities are UNICEF, The Tor Project, Heifer International, Watsi, Freedom of the Press, and Women Who Code, all of which we believe are relevant to some of the pressing challenges we’re facing during today’s crisis.

Here’s the step-by-step of how this will work:

1. Visit Lumenthropy to learn more about the charities
2. The SDF will monitor the charities’ Stellar accounts, and every week, we’ll send matched funds
3. We’ll regularly share status updates.

We’re grateful to Lumenthropy for their partnership because their work represents the amazing impact this network and this community can make, not just in this time of crisis but well beyond. The time and effort they’ve put in to bring non-profits onboard with our technology is an inspiration, and we’re excited that they are in conversations to expand this service to even more organizations.

We frequently talk about the importance of community with regard to blockchain and Stellar. There is no better time for us to collectively leverage the power and strength of our community. Help us fund initiatives that are finding new ways to finance health care, fighting to end poverty, protecting free speech from censorship, and providing opportunities for independent education by donating today.