ScholarChain — Blockchain-Based NGO Scholarship Fund Transparency System

ScholarChain ensures transparency and accountability in NGO scholarship fund management:

• Donors donate to the NGO’s on-chain fund (contract balance).
• NGO Admin records scholarship allocations on-chain (tamper-proof audit trail).
• Student documents + user data are stored off-chain (MongoDB).

Tech stack

• Frontend: Next.js (React) + Tailwind (existing project UI)
• Backend: Node.js + Express + MongoDB + JWT + RBAC
• Blockchain: Solidity + Hardhat + MetaMask + Ethers v6

Monorepo layout (existing folders)

contracts/        # Hardhat + ScholarChain.sol
backend/          # Express API + MongoDB
frontend/         # Next.js (React) UI

Setup (local)

1) Smart contract

cd contracts
npm install
cp .env.example .env

Deploy to Sepolia:

npm run deploy:sepolia

Copy the deployed address into:

• frontend/.env.local as NEXT_PUBLIC_SCHOLARCHAIN_ADDRESS
• backend/.env as SCHOLARCHAIN_CONTRACT_ADDRESS

2) Backend API

cd backend
npm install
cp .env.example .env
npm run dev

3) Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Key pages

• /register, /login
• /dashboard (admin/staff)
• /donate (MetaMask donation; optionally records tx hash in MongoDB)
• /students (staff/admin add students; admin verifies)
• /allocate (admin allocation via MetaMask; records tx hash in MongoDB)
• /audit (DB transactions + on-chain allocations)

Environment variables

• Frontend (frontend/.env.local)
  • NEXT_PUBLIC_RPC_URL
  • NEXT_PUBLIC_SCHOLARCHAIN_ADDRESS
  • NEXT_PUBLIC_BACKEND_URL
• Backend (backend/.env)
  • MONGODB_URI, JWT_SECRET
  • SEPOLIA_RPC_URL, SCHOLARCHAIN_CONTRACT_ADDRESS
  • NGO_ADMIN_PRIVATE_KEY (optional; only needed if backend submits allocations)
• Contracts (contracts/.env)
  • SEPOLIA_RPC_URL, PRIVATE_KEY, ETHERSCAN_API_KEY (optional)