IDEAS FOR GOODPicking up trash left on the roadside. Placing change in a donation box upon shopping at a convenience store. Taking part in a local volunteer activity on your day off. These small activities, which can be practiced in your daily life, could collectively become great driving forces to change the world.
However, currently there is no indicator that demonstrates who is taking part in such activities, to what extent. Unlike work, there are no clear standards for social contributions, such as salary or position as in businesses. So it’s hard to evaluate how much a person has contributed in doing good deeds. It’s even more so for people who go unnoticed in their volunteer and donating activities.
Actcoin, a visual form for social contributions
Perhaps we can change such circumstances. There is a project that uses blockchain to visualize individuals’ social contribution activities and consequently increase social actors (people who take part in social contribution activities). It’s called “actcoin”, developed by Social Action Company Inc.
Actcoin is Japan’s first service that traces social contribution activities made by individuals. It grants original tokens every time a user contributes socially. These activites can include volunteering, making donations, or sharing their project activities on social networks. 1 actcoin is worth 1 yen and a total of 203 billion of these tokens have been issued.
The project was materialized by Social Action Company Inc. that specializes in developing social contribution services using IT technology. It is cooperating with Nippon Foundation CANPAN Project, which supports non-profit organizations. The project kicked off by releasing an iOS version of the application in December, 2018.
Using actcoin
When users register at actcoin, they can participate or donate towards NPOs’ projects. These projects consist various themes, including education, welfare and international cooperation. Out of the organizations that are registered on the Nippon Foundation CANPAN Project database, the list of NPOs that come up in the application are limited to those that disclose sufficient information. Thus their reliability is assured. Moreover, each project corresponds to 17 SDGs, and people can search for their own areas of interest.
1,000 coin is given for every hour in volunteer activities or seminars at actcoin. Furthermore, you receive 100 coin if you share the project on Facebook or Twitter. Also, if you make donations towards an organization, you receive coins equivalent to 10% of the amount you donate.
Users are able to see how much coin they possess through the apps’s dashboard, as well as the social contribution activities they have participated in the past. The data is also open for other users to see, so users can see at a glance what projects people have taken part in, to what extent, and how much coins they possess.
Future plans for actcoin
In the beginning, the coins only exist to visualize how much individuals took part in social contribution activities. They are cannot be used for purchasing and converting into money. However, Social Action Company Inc. is thinking of applying a value of 1 yen per coin in the future. This will allow users to make donations to non-profit organizations or use it to exchange it for commodities that are kind to the environment and the society.
On this occasion, IDEAS FOR GOOD interviewed Masataka Sato, CEO and founder of Social Action Company Inc. which developed actcoin. We asked him about actcoin, how it works and what kind of vision he has in mind.
Making “Thank You” a visual form
Q: What made you develop actcoin?
I was involved in developing a service for non-profit organizations at the company, Rita Works, around 2016. A person came to help us, who used to work at a major manufacturer where he worked for the company’s CSR division before retiring. He was in volunteer work after early retirement. It was through our conversations that I came to realize there was a lot of feelings of gratitude among people involved in social contribution activities. However, none of it was visualized. No assets could prove that those feelings existed too.
For example, if you look at your passbook, you know at once how much money you have just looking at the numbers. On the other hand, you can’t see “how much good deeds you have done to people,” or “how much you have contributed to society”. Therefore, I thought it might be good if we could create something that could measure social contribution activities.
Q: Why did you think of using blockchain?
Like I said, I wanted to visualize social contribution activities. It was in late 2017 when I came across blockchain technology. I felt I could create what I wanted to by using it. From there, it progressed extremely fast. In May, 2018 I established a new company under the name “Social Action Company” and here I am now.
Q: I understand you want to make it so that users can donate and purchase commodities through actcoin in the future. How do you intend to gather the funds necessary for that?
After the launch, the coins only existed as tools to measure social contribution activities, and you couldn’t actually use or purchase them. There are more like points which you can receive for free if you took part or donated in volunteer projects.
But this year, we hope to undergo a large update. We want to allow users to use their coins for donation or for purchasing commodities that are kind to environment and society. We hope we can establish a foundation for the fund needed to make this possible, so that donations can be made through the foundation.
In order to gather the funding for the foundation, we are considering cooperation with non-profit organizations that already exist or collect it from various fundraising methods like crowdfunding. Moreover, there are possibilities that corporations may provide the funding. We have already received some feedback from some of these corporations saying that they want to take part in the foundation.
Actcoin as an incentive for organization disclosure
Q: What kind of NPO projects can users take part in?
NPO databases throughout Japan related to the Nippon Foundation CANPAN Project connects to actcoin’s database via API. Each of the organizations in the database has a disclosure level. Those with level 4 information and above (total 5 levels) are automatically included in actcoin. Currently, there are about 50,000 NPOs in Japan, among which 2,100 have disclosure levels of 4 and over.
Q: So, you’re saying it’s limited to projects of organizations that you can trust?
We make it essential that organizations disclose their information if they want to display their project on actcoin. We hope that actcoin users will continue to increase, and make donations with their coins. When that happens, more organizations will want to participate in actcoin by raising their levels of disclosure to level 4 or above.
We as CANPAN project, have goals to increase the number of organizations from the current 2,100. The higher the number of NPOs disclosing their information through actcoin, then the more impact we can have on society.
Improving information disclosure is only part of the goals however. We also want to actively recommend NPOs that have received third-party certification such as good governance authentication. We hope we can create a framework within the application that will make this possible.
Social contribution activities under one app
Q: What about social contribution activities other than those listed in the application?
The goal for actcoin is visualizing social contribution activities of individuals, so we try to verify donations to organizations outside the application too. For example, if you want to support a crowdfunding project that isn’t listed in actcoin, you can upload a photograph of the receipt that shows the amount of your donation and apply. Subsequently, we will aggregate social contribution activities pursued outside the application into actcoin.
Actcoin rewards social actors
Q: What was most important in creating the application?
Users’ activities are listed in detail on actcoin’s dashboard. For example, you will know at a glance, how much coin Sato has gathered and what kind of project he is involved in.
This has two advantages. Firstly, users are motivated by looking at their social contribution achievements which are visualized on their dashboards. Secondly, it enables users to find projects they might be interested through connection with other users. We’re also thinking of installing functions of notification and following friends in the future.
Moreover, actcoin treats users equally regardless of one’s wealth. For example, even if a rich person donates a lot of money and collects coins, the dashboard will only reveal that the person “hasn’t
participated in a project” or “hasn’t spent a lot of time in activities.”
In addition, you’ll receive 1,000 coins if you participate in a project for an hour or receive coins equivalent to 10% of the amount you donate. Other words, it’s worth the same whether you donate 10,000 yen or take part in a project for an hour. Of course, donations are important. But more than that, we place value on actually taking part in society.
More social literacy and social actors
Q: Ultimately, what kind of world do you want to create with actcoin?
Eventually, I want to make a world in which even if you don’t have any savings, you have coins. Trust is thus assured. Right now, everyone goes to the office 5 days a week and that’s normal, right? But I envision a future in which people go to the office 4 days a week as they spend their time doing activities with actcoin and exchanging commodities with the remaining day.
In addition, I hope people will improve their social literacy to some extent through actcoin. I also hope there will be more social actors with an interest in making the society a better place. These will bring about changes, from how companies think, to what’s available in the market, to restaurants and education… practically everything!
Editorial Note
Actcoin is a very advanced and unique project. It visualizes social contribution activities through blockchain. There were many parts that I could sympathize with the world Sato foresees. Suppose we start measuring social contributions, converting it into trust. By creating a society that uses it for evaluation, people will be able to take part in social contributions more naturally, just like making money.
Also, because actcoin has standards for information disclosure for NPOs, the more user and value that actcoin has, there will be more incentives for NPOs to disclose their information. As a result, trust for NPOs will rise and cooperation between NPOs and individuals and/or corporations will emerge. I think this would be a extremely good as a framework.
Actcoin has officially launched this year. In fact, Sato has already had over 100 companies and organizations showing signs of interest in cooperating. Moreover, actcoin has already started collaborating with other corporations, such as the “FRaU×SDGs Project,” with which actcoin announced on December 20th, 2018 that it will serve as a social impact partner, on the timing that publishing company Kodansha’s women’s magazine “FRaU” will publish Japan’s first Special Number Issue that specializes in SDGs.
It’s interesting to see how actcoin will develop from here and create guidelines for new values with its users. Its future is truly something to look forward.
This article was originally published on IDEAS FOR GOOD.
Translated by Ayako Karino.
