ICO Review: Cherr.io

Cherr.io is a blockchain solution for charitable donations.

As the winners of Futurehack 2018, their platform was selected during the first ever blockchain oriented hackathon during the World Economic Forum.

Their b2b platform hopes to cater to charitable organizations by expanding their outreach, optimizing their fundraising process, and rebuilding donor trust with built-in transparency. As an ETH-based solution, Cherr.io is looking to raise a hard cap of 15,000 ETH for their new nonprofit solution. Here’s what we think about their whitepaper:

The Basics

Cherr.io is a fundraising platform with the goal of streamlining the process of identifying people in need and raise funds. They aim to utilize blockchain to provide a secure and transparent method of raising and delivering funds for charities, as well as to offer a program of incentives for participants of the community and ecosystem that will facilitate the organic growth of the platform.

The main actors on the Cherr.io platform will be charitable organizations alongside CHR token holders (also known as Cherrions). With charitable organizations as the target audience, the platform also looks towards patrons/cherrions to be those that promote the charities. Both the charity and cherrions will be responsible for activation of a campaign.

After fundraising is complete, the majority of the funds will be transferred to the charity, with some funds going back into the community. If a project doesn’t reach its target, the donor will have the option to get their tokens back or choose to place them in an emergency pool for urgent occasions.

Proof Of Charity

Proof of Charity is the gamification for users to be attributed points for their donations. This serves as a basis for all mechanisms on top of it, as a driving force behind the community. The goal of Proof of Charity is to reduce the cost of advertising for charities. Here are a few examples of how scoring works:

1. Twitter mention (#cheerio) is 25 points
2. A Twitter/Facebook follow is 100 points
3. Reddit activity is 100 points
4. A new organization is 3000 points

Starting A Campaign

Launching campaigns are handled differently depending upon if it’s coming from an organization or an individual. Both will need to list a cause, set their target/duration, and make a strong case for their cause. A wallet will be created for the duration of the campaign, which the raised funds will be released when the campaign finishes successfully. Furthermore, the organization will be required to deposit CHR tokens to publish campaigns.

Tokens will be locked with a smart contract for three months and then returned to the organization.

Activating A Campaign

The activation process is optional for verified organizations and mandatory for individuals when encompasses raising 1 percent of the target ETH amount in CHR tokens. These tokens are not a part of the fundraising and will not go to the beneficiary of the campaign but instead returned to the activator.

Activators are entitled to reward distribution at the end of a successful campaign, with the goal of getting more individuals to start and promote campaigns. Furthermore, activation by individuals is capped at a max of 5 percent of the whole activation amount per individual. Activated campaigns will start out with a target amount of funds to be raised, including:

• 10 percent of total raise for the project to be considered successful.
• 60 percent of the total raise for the activation fees to be returned.

Emergency Pool

One feature Cherr.io looks to offer that’s unique is an emergency pool to be used for fast response times. Cherrions will be able to donate to these pools directly or indirectly, where if a campaign ends unsuccessfully, the donor can decide for the money in a cause. Furthermore, funds from emergency pools will be transferred into campaigns based upon community voting.

Ending A Campaign

A campaign is deemed a success if it raises at least 10 percent of the expected funds.

Fraud Protection

To combat fraud, Cherr.io looks to enable a mechanism of community ratings and milestones. Depending on the rating of the receiving organization, the raised funds will be released at the same time or in three milestones. Ratings will be 1 to 5, and the average value of all ratings will define the final of an organization. Organizations are also required to submit documentation that shows how and where the funds were spent. Those with a rating above 4 will receive all funds automatically, but if not the milestones will be triggered upon community approval in three tiers.

Our Thoughts

Although a lot of companies are looking to enter the nonprofit industry by introducing a blockchain fundraising platform, Cherr.io is the obvious frontrunner. Their system has the most reliable foundation in regards to their offerings, as their ecosystem runs full-circle on their incentive model, as well as how they treat charitable contributions. One area of note to look out for is how exactly they implement their social media promotion tool listed above. Other than that, Cherr.io is a solid fundraising project that you should keep your eye on.