1/Welcome to Web3forGood!
A weekly roundup of the ways Web3 tech is being used to make the world a better place.
Welcome to Web3forGood!
Whether you’re completely confused by what Web3 is or you’ve fallen down the rabbit-hole like us, you’ve probably noticed that keeping track of what’s new in the space is extremely HARD. New projects launch every day, and news from last week feels ancient - never mind staying up-to-date on all the opportunities to get involved.
That is why we - two friends working in the tech for good world - decided to create this newsletter. It’s the weekly roundup that we wish we had, a way for us to communicate and share with each other what makes us so excited about the potential of this rapidly evolving technology, and now a way for us to share what we find with you too.
Our hope is to share a mix of links, opportunities, and original content (think: deep-dives, exclusive interviews, project round-ups, and more) each week. We know there are legitimate concerns about the hype surrounding Web3 and its impact on the world, but we believe that, in the long-run, Web3 tech will be here to stay. It’s up to us to use it to make the world a better place.
Consider this first edition of the Web3forGood newsletter our MVP (minimum-viable-product). What did you like? Hate? What do you want to see more of? How can we help you? Send us a note at web3forgood@gmail.com. We’d love to know what you think.
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
📚 What We’re Reading
🚀 Opportunities
🌊 Deep Dive: Cryptophilanthrophy: The Evolving Giving Landscape
📣 Latest News
The Sandbox partners with World of Women to drive female education and mentorship
Unstoppable Domains Giving Away $10M in Domains to Support Women in Web3
Shift4 Buys Crypto Donation Firm The Giving Block for Up to $300M
Toyota part of $7m funding for blockchain carbon removal marketplace Nori
Idena partners with Amasa to amplify proof of person income streams and grow web3
📚 What We’re Reading
In an age where people are (rightfully) demanding more supply-chain transparency from brands, blockchain technology could make the fashion industry more transparent, but there are ethical and sustainable barriers to its implementation.
Medical debt for low-income families is being erased via the sale of toilet paper NFTs. The project started out as a joke, but since launching has contributed over $90,000 to the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt. The organization used the funds to purchase debt in bundled portfolios and wipe medical debt worth $7 million dollars.
Founder Andrew Wang discusses how his NFT project Reli3f raised $1 million for Ukraine humanitarian aid in 30 seconds, his work advising politician Andrew Yang on his Web3-oriented political lobbying DAO, and more in this interview. Notably, Yang’s involvement is a high profile push for Web3 on the Hill involving the masses, and not just the big players.
Thwarted by the Taliban and blocked by banks wary of violating US sanctions, NGOs are using cryptocurrency to deliver much-needed financial aid to starving Afghans. Code to Inspire is a non-profit that pays recipients in BUSD, a stablecoin tied to the US dollar, and women then convert it to afghanis, the local currency. Refugees can take their assets with them without risk, and humanitarian agencies can bypass banks and provide cash to those in need.
In a world dominated by the myth of the 20-something college dropout founder, Web3 could unleash innovation by overturning age bias in startups. Web3 creates an environment where you can “draw on the energy of the up-and-coming and the expertise of industry vets to drive a level of change not seen since the invention of the internet”.
🚀 Opportunities
Donate - The Giving Block has created a list of nonprofits fighting for women’s rights, empowerment, and equality that accept cryptocurrency.
Funding Opportunity - WIT Capital NFTs is looking to support 50 women-led projects by investing/buying $10,000 worth of their art. (WIT Capital NFTs)
Apply - The Giving Block is hiring for several positions in sales, marketing, tech, operations, client success, and more. All are fully remote.
Apply - Gooddollar.org is hiring a Design Lead (Remote, Israel), DeFi Product Manager (Remote, USA), and a Developer Evangelist (Remote, UK).
Apply - Celo is hiring a Head of Strategy and Adoption (Remote) and Product Marketing Manager (Remote).
🌊 Crypto Philanthropy - An Evolving Giving Landscape
In the past year, bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption has gone up by over 880%. As adoption and gains grow - we have seen a similar trend in crypto philanthropy.
Since cryptocurrency uses a decentralized system to record transactions, it has gained the trust of a number of charities leading to an exponential growth in these donations, and startups like the Giving Block and BitGive are emerging that allow anyone to make these transactions safely and easily.
Blockchain technologies remove the intermediary and allow for better accountability mechanisms, there is a push for crypto philanthropy for those looking for a more trustworthy and efficient system, and we see this reflected in the trends.
We have seen the Giving Block, and Endaoment pave the way to push more nonprofits to accept cryptocurrencies but this field is only growing with organizations such as GiveTrack and Alice building mechanisms for accountability.
Just this past week, we have seen how much crypto philanthropy has grown with over $100 million donated in cryptocurrencies to support Ukraine. The quick-connectivity and the inherent transparency of blockchain activity makes it an ideal platform for humanitarian aid hence, large NGOs such as Mercy Corps and Save the Children have been pushing for crypto donations as well to support response to the situation in Ukraine.
Trends
The Giving Block and Endaoment, two of the largest cryptogiving platforms, just released their annual reports which provide an interesting snapshot of how the numbers have changed over the past year. On the Giving Block alone, total donation volume has gone up 1,558% with the average donation size increasing by 236% in 2021.
Endaoment also reported that the new funds created on their platform went up from 22 to 336, and the number of unique donors increased from 40 to 485.
The number of cryptocurrencies accepted by these platforms have also increased exponentially, however, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD Coin make up the large bulk of it. According to the GivingBlock, 85% of their 2021 donations were under these currencies and there has also been a shift over the years with more users donating in Ethereum as opposed to Bitcoin.
Fidelity Charitable, which is a donor advised fund that allows people to make donations today for tax purposes and recommend charitable grants at a later date has seen an increase in its crypto donations with them receiving over $150 million in 2021, up from $21 million in 2020 and $13 million in 2019. Engiven, another charitable donation platform received its largest single bitcoin donation as well: $10 million bitcoin to an undisclosed faith based organization.
Why move towards crypto philanthropy?
GiveTrack is a platform that allows you to donate cryptocurrencies and track the impact of your donation. This screenshot from their website largely summarizes the benefits of this new form of donating.
Low to no fees are a key benefit. The transaction costs associated with accepting crypto donations are very low compared to the large giving platforms such as JustGiving and GoFundMe that often come with a large commission or fee about 2-8%, which eats away at the donation and reduces the amount that is actually transferred. The following table summarizes some of the costs of using other platforms or even transferring directly on the charity website:
Access and speed: Anyone with a crypto wallet can make a donation and track it in real time, which makes donating easier and more gratifying. This ties in well with the profile of your average crypto donor, as defined by Pat Duffy, the CEO of GivingBlock. The crypto donors are in their late 20s and early 30s, and this system appeals more to them. In her words, given their relative youth - “They have a long lifespan across which they can keep giving to nonprofits — and using crypto, well, that’s not just their money, it’s their culture.”
Transparency in real time and security: Speaking of the donor profile, millennials also want greater control over their giving and transparency about its impact hence, web3 is the perfect solution for them.
Through the blockchain, you have an immutable, secure, and publicly available database of transactions that can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection. GiveTrack and Alice are two new platforms that allow the flow of donations to be tracked.
According to the CEO of Alice, “We are facing huge social and environmental challenges yet current systems are fundamentally broken. It’s extremely difficult to get reliable evidence that social projects actually work, so Alice reboots the system to provide true transparency.”
This transparency leads to other benefits: nonprofits are traditionally seen as inefficient and old school, many Americans believe too much is spent on overhead as opposed to on programming. As blockchain technologies allow removal of a third party and for better mechanisms to track impact, this will further improve trust in the system and increase overall payments.
In addition to crypto philanthropy solutions being a good alternative to traditional fundraising, another aspect of this cultural shift to consider is that as cryptocurrencies have grown, individuals have amassed a high amount of wealth. Jason Watters, chief financial officer of GiveDirectly, which provides cash transfers to those living in poverty, has stated that, as the wealth generated is in crypto, it only makes sense that the sharing of the wealth is being done in crypto. For example, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ehtereum, donated 50 trillion tokens which were worth $1.2 billion to India’s COVID Relief Fund.
Researchers at the Grand Valley State University’s Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy shared that as young, generally male, and tech savvy individuals build wealth in crypto, they are interested in giving since they now have the funds to do so, but have not established giving patterns yet. Given that cryptocurrency donations are also tax deductible and allow donors to avoid capital gains tax on the dollar value of their donations, this further creates a favorable context for crypto philanthropy. According to Giving Block’s Duffy, “Now that crypto is so easy to transfer, so accessible, and such a high percentage of people are now holding onto it, it's just becoming more a part of the conversation with traditional tax advisors.”
Even though there are nonprofits and people that still do not trust or find cryptocurrencies useful, this is a space that will only grow as the technology evolves. As more mechanisms that allow for a greater tracking of impact such as Alice are developed, this will become an even more important use case. Given that the average traditional charitable gift on the Giving Block is $128 for traditional donations compared to $11,000 in crypto, there is a clear outpacing, and this gap is expected to grow in the future.
Have donated cryptocurrency. Why or why not? Leave a comment and let us know.