Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), has partnered with Bitnob to raise charity for its mission work. Bitnob is a Nigerian cryptocurrency app that lets users buy, save and invest in Bitcoin. Raising donations in Bitcoin gives the ministry the ability to receive payment from anywhere in the world.
What you should know about ECWA:
- ECWA dates back to 1893 when Canadian and American missionaries Walter Gowans, Thomas Kent, and Rowland Bingham came to Nigeria to start the Sudan Interior Mission (now Serving In Mission), the bodies under this mission came together in 1954 to form a single indigenous body known as ECWA.
- The church has a strong charity arm that caters for the needs of internally displaced persons, provides education to the less privileged, and empowers members with vocational skills.
- The ministry has over 6,000 congregations and a membership of about 10 million, making it one of the largest Churches in Nigeria and West Africa.
Why the switch to Bitcoin?
Annual inflation rate in Nigeria accelerated for a fifth straight month to 18.6% in June of 2022, Trade Economy reports. This translates as an acute increase in the process of goods and a reduction in purchasing power.
ECWA paints a vivid picture in these words “assuming the organisation had N10m in its coffers in July 2021 — a year ago, with a parallel market exchange rate of N510/$, at today’s exchange rate of N640/$, the organisation would have lost almost 30% of it’s reserves to inflation, just like that.”
Yes, just like that.
- In a bid to gain a hedge over the inflation, ECWA now switches to a currency with inflation-resistant characteristics to beat the recession in Nigeria. This is because the value of Bitcoin is not determined by a few stakeholders, rather, it is responsive only to global economic changes.
- By using Bitnob, ECWA stands to enjoy a higher purchasing power and care less about the ever rising market prices in Nigeria.
- ECWA had considered opening a GoFundMe account but the obvious problems riddling the Nigerian space such bureaucracies, censorship and seizure of funds were deterring.
ECWA will now continue its mission to help the displaced out of poverty even as the World Bank predicts that 6 million Nigerians will be in poverty by the end of the year.
