Verified Donation Use

VIA Don Bosco invests around 9 million euros in education and employment in Africa and Latin America every year. About half their funding comes from the Belgian government, and the other half comes from donations from individuals, companies, and foundations. It is of utmost importance to have full sight over and management of the spending of such donations

Full Transparency and Reduced Overhead

Ensuring fraud-free transactions with non-delayed settlement times based on validations becomes increasingly necessary.

Simple and Easy User Experience

School accountants use their smartphones and interact with Facebook Messenger to enter expense data via an automated chatbot guiding them through the expense submission process. The new infrastructure should thus mimic the ease of chat-based data transfer.

• With the implementation of a new blockchain application, powered by the SettleMint Platform, the NGO takes the next step towards ensuring that every donation is used properly and most effectively. VIA Don Bosco believes that blockchain technology can help them not only optimize their financial processes, but also significantly decrease or even eliminate fraudulent use of funds.
  
  
• The immutability of data ensures that the whole system is tamper-proof and thus fraud-resistant. Moreover, only information that is already compliant with the rules associated with the funding and donations is accepted into the system (compliance by design). This simplifies the process of reconciliation, verification, and validation of financial information, and drastically reduces the administrative overhead by 70%.
  
  
• Where blockchain technology can appear complex, the system itself is set up in a very user-friendly way. Since chat-based data transfer is very lightweight, they can even complete the process from the most remote areas.
  
  
• Proof and reporting are done via a simple website. Once information is submitted, it is immediately visible throughout the approval chain. Depending on the role of the user in the system, they can submit, add information, review, accept, or reject financial proof for expenses. The reporting tool offers a complete and transparent audit trail for spend, reducing the time needed to check the financial information for every school and every office in every country from 6 months to mere seconds.
  
  
• The SettleMint Platform fully handles the connections from the Facebook chatbot and the reporting website to the underlying blockchain technology. This allowed VIA Don Bosco to implement the solution without an IT department.