149. Cryptocurrency + Fundraising: The Next Frontier? - Pat Duffy

6:36PM Jul 26, 2021

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Jonathan McCoy

Keywords:

crypto

nonprofit

cryptocurrency

bitcoin

people

blockchain

dollars

donors

fundraising

big

technology

groups

build

created

cryptocurrencies

sector

give

stocks

super

world

Hey, I'm john. And I'm Becky. And this is the we are for good podcast.

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So let's get started. Hey, Becky, john,

we know a lot about nonprofit we've been in the sector for probably 20 years, there's some stuff we just do not know. And today we are diving into it with cryptocurrency so we have a true expert on the podcast not only about cryptocurrency, but how to navigate it through the nonprofit lens. And so we are so delighted to welcome Pat Duffy, who's co founder of the giving blog to the podcast today. And Pat has this really interesting story because he began as a federal consultant for pharmaceutical companies. And he had some focus on collaboration with the nonprofit industry there. And then he completely shifted over to the nonprofit sector where I give a group whoop, thank you for coming over, we need more passionate people in the sector. And he just started focusing on executive leadership and fundraising. And then he gets really interested in Bitcoin. God bless you, Pat, because I'm glad somebody is interested in it. And clearly the forethought in it was very, very smart, because Bitcoin is exploding right now. And from that the giving block was born. And they are creating the turnkey cryptocurrency donation solution for all of us and us by charities around the world. So they have raised over a million dollars for nonprofits via cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and so many other platforms. And so we are so excited to dive into this. I know this is a really interesting topic for so many of our listeners, Pat, educate us, we are here to learn, and we are excited to know what the heck this is. And now I can hang on Reddit and understand what people are talking about with crypto.

Yes, 100%. One One note on that we actually, it might be some legacy content on our site or something. But we raised 3 million last month alone for nonprofits. Oh, my gosh, numbers are Yeah, the numbers are climbing the market growth is is helping out all this stuff. And then I would also be remiss not to mention that the reason I got into crypto, and the crypto side of this equation is much better covered by Alex Wilson, who is my co founder at the company. So he's the one who got me into trading. Originally, when I was kind of nonprofit guy turned crypto, he was crypto guy turned nonprofit guy. So that's definitely a part of the story as well.

I can't wait to dive into all this. And I feel like Michael Scott, where it's like he pulls somebody in and says, explain the budget to me like I'm a five year old. And that is what I want you to do today for all of us. And I'm just really curious about your journey. We read in the intro that you were in the pharmaceutical company tell us Yeah, kind of about your career journey that led you here today.

Yeah. Fell into nonprofit space, which is like however on always says they land that people say that in pharma consulting. Also, I feel like a lot of industries. But yeah, I was a guy who did policy and communications in school thought it was going to be all politics all the time internships on the hill and whatnot, wrote a thesis on socio economic school integration, had a bunch of big dreams that I thought were really interesting and then ended up working pharmaceutical sector that just kind of the biggest lobbying power I thought that would be like a really good jump off point for government affairs stuff. And I did what's called Alliance development. So helping the you know, the for profit companies in the pharma space work with the nonprofits, like volunteer health associations, like the the American cancers, and you know, ACS, ALS, all those kinds of groups like lobby the hill to create faster pathways and get the right policies approved. So just ended up working with a lot of nonprofits and of jumping out of the nonprofit or the pharma sector into the nonprofit sector. And then literally first year working at a nonprofit. Alex Wilson, buddy from from school originally got me into trading crypto, that being 2017. The first like real big blow up of Bitcoin adoption, and then November, December timeframe, there was like a little over $100 million donated to charities in a matter of weeks. So like that, you know, red flag immediately, we were like what's going on here? And we just realized, okay, there's a huge tax incentive to donate crypto, same property, asset designation to stocks and whatnot. But like a really young, interesting donor base that was growing really fast and it's super easy to get so We went out and tried to set my nonprofit up to take crypto, everything was horrific from the technical solutions. There were no automations, there were no products or services. And then when it came to the actual setup, getting in place, there was nothing out there for like fundraising best practices, says we're building it at my organization. Now, it's like, kind of looked at each other. We're like, this is probably something we could scale up and bring some more curves.

Okay, wow, it's really fascinating. And it's I love like, how fast it's evolving, and how, you know, the people that are just stepping into it are seeing some of this windfall, because they are so fast to the market with it. Would you kind of even take three steps backwards? to just kind of underlie this conversation? There's talk of the blockchain, right. That's the underlying technology. If I understand it, right, then there's the cryptocurrencies and there's lots of different ones happening. Give us like the 40,000 foot view, what is this? Where does it live? Who owns it? Is it and just start at the beginning? Because I think we just need that so we can understand who the donors are, that are going to have this and want to liquidate it and give through the giving block?

Yeah, 100% kind of underlying the the technology itself also just kind of a good thing for folks to understand on both sides of the equation is cryptocurrency is yes, super innovative technology leverages blockchain for immutable transaction records. cryptocurrency very desperately needs the nonprofit sector, like the biggest kind of hurdle to cryptocurrency adoption is kind of being taken seriously. And being legitimately integrated into an ecosystem. The incentives are all there for crypto, and then for the nonprofit ecosystem, like desperately trying to not be technological laggards, they want to be you know, technologically forward thinking and be on the actual front end of an adoption curve that one of the most transformative technologies of the generation so like, those things kind of underlie the conversation inherently which we find like, really easy for us and then tied to our mission. The the cryptocurrency then, like what you're talking about the technology that is blockchain and cryptocurrency then inform that approach even further, in the sense that what blockchain pretty much allowed was the ability to move value assets digitally, online with no intermediaries and like the the formal contract structure that you need through banks, blockchain pretty much set up this this ecosystem where for Bitcoin, the first real blockchain use case, we were able to see giant ecosystems of transactions going from every country in the world moved in a matter of seconds, you can move billions of dollars around the world and, you know, minutes. And for now, over a decade, since Bitcoin was originally invented, there have been literally zero transaction records ever changed. So that becomes harder. As it scales, you'd have to take over more than half of the computers that mined Bitcoin, we don't think I like that much into the weeds. But pretty much all the computers tied to the Bitcoin network, you would need to be in control of more than half of them to change even one transaction record. So that's kind of what blockchain is, it's this beautiful technology that pretty much allows a growing network to become more secure as it scales. And more impossible to kind of mess with that, plus the fact that you can't print any extra Bitcoin, the National scarcity kind of builds in makes it a really interesting asset, you can move it really fast, it's really divisible, I can send $1 or I can send a billion dollars, no one can change the transaction record. And if I'm holding a bunch of that no one can print more that scarcity means it's a pretty good store value. So when you talk about people investing in it, like what's the idea behind it, people pretty much say it's, in some ways a better form of money, a better form of gold at a better form of kind of stocks, property assets, you would transact in and out of on kind of a speculative framework.

And if you're just caught this path, just call it beautiful. And so you know, you have an expert when he called the blockchain beautiful. And I'm going to trust the tech expert of how beautiful this is.

And the great paradox to me is you have something that seems so progressive, it is so uniquely innovative, and it's completely tech driven, paired up in pet saying this, you know, it needs nonprofit. And I love that this is pushing us to like if you're going to embrace something like cryptocurrency, you are going to succeed because it moves so quickly. And because the transactions I mean, anybody who's ever worked in trying to divest stocks, like a stock gift for your nonprofit, it takes a while to get the forms over to do all the little things and have the bean counters do all the things. This is immediate. And so I see what you're saying about if we can get in here and not be afraid, which I think fear is probably the thing that keeps us as nonprofits from being creative time probably does too. And I just think this is a really interesting conversation. And so you you kind of teased at the beginning that you have this very interesting founder story with your partner and I would just love to hear about the giving blocks, you know, early inception. And just the opportunity that you and your co founder saw back in 2018.

Yeah. So those two things tie together. really nicely too. So the technology itself and kind of what we want, as individuals would then kind of the the advent of the company and the opportunities that we're saying. Ultimately, like the biggest barrier, like you said, is fear or like the the education barrier for nonprofits in general. But that education barrier exists on the crypto side. And that was kind of a big part of our our founders story in general, like Alex and I both feel really strongly that like the adoption of cryptocurrency, worldwide, like the more we can expedite that, like there's immediate value for for human rights, you can think about like political actors in China and other countries around the world who like can't gain access to bank accounts or get, you know, financially removed from ecosystems for for speaking their voice, you can think about co twinspires a group we we serve, they teach women to code in Afghanistan, and then pay them in Bitcoin because women can't have autonomous control over their financial accounts. You can think about if governments could collect taxes, not necessarily in Bitcoin, but any blockchain based cryptocurrency, even it was stable, pegged to the price of the US dollar. If they collected them that way, and then disseminate them that way on the same blockchain, you could literally audit every dollar that's spent by the government, where it goes when it comes in, what department it's at, and why. I just think Yeah, for for human rights reasons. And then for all the fraud of the financial system, like it's really important that it gets adopted. So we're very pro crypto, and we want to see that adoption happen. And then on the nonprofit side, we believe really strongly that like, you should be most incentivized to make money. First and foremost, if you're working at a nonprofit or profit service provider, in that industry, like we should be much more comfortable with people building a career, building an irrigation system in Africa than, say, pumping oil out of the ground and then up into the atmosphere. We think there's like perverse incentive models economically. And we think the intersection between cryptocurrency and nonprofits will lead to both of those things, faster crypto adoption, and then a nonprofit sector that one leads like we're saying on technology, and helps move the sector forward and you know, balance the budgets and push their revenue up. But then too, we think it's also going to lead to an intersection between like a deeply you know, financial technology that will drive kind of that culture, the nonprofit sector of like, okay, like, fundraising and money isn't necessarily the root of all evil. We should be incentivizing like more capital going into nonprofit organizations specifically, because why would you want it to flow anywhere else?

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Well, I think I'm at their a little bit of a curveball, but you know, just in some of the global discussion of it with so much energy that it takes to do this what is like the forecast for how is that gonna get under control? I saw some stat the other day that it was compared to the entire countries right, like ability to compare the energy that it takes to power this blockchain versus entire country's ecosystems. How does this not self implode? You know, and like how does how does this move into a more sustainable practice that everybody could get behind? Because we have a lot of organizations listening that are fighting really hard to be reduced carbon footprint. So how do you work with a technology that's seems counter to that right now?

On percent so this is it's counterintuitive. And at first glance from 30,000 feet, it's it's a classic kind of logical fallacy you see it and other things where it's like, a perfect example. It's called a Nirvana fallacy. And then there's like extensions of that, but you pretty much compare something to an absolute ideal versus its alternative. So compared to like the traditional financial sector, like there's no comparison, like Bitcoin has no skyscrapers. There's no cars, with millions of people commuting into an episode, but I try to do that. Yeah, authorized transactions. You have to develop all that software. There's factories everywhere, building out computers for people to then work from in these like there's there's a million things going on, too. Print dollars physically and then even the digital side of it is like so gigantic and completely again like unscalable and untenable so it's it's very similar and then algae always uses like Tesla's because it's a new thing you we end up with a Nirvana fallacy happening very often people will see kind of a Tesla just like on autopilot hit some woman on a bicycle, like on a highway and everyone's like, we definitely need to shut down the production testers, it's like, shouldn't we just look at how many driving hours Tesla's have versus human beings on average, because if it's like 10 times less likely than somebody it said, like, we should still only have Tesla's even if they occasionally, you know, hit somebody. Bitcoin is very similar in that sense, like, it's it's definitely not as good for the environment. But it's it's a fantastic level up. And then a lot of these cryptocurrencies are one like using significantly higher percentage of renewable so 75% of miners already use renewables like significantly higher rate than in the traditional financial sector. And that a lot of these cryptocurrencies are converting from what's called a proof of work system to proof of stake, which is dramatically more efficient. So Bitcoin is the first attempt at, you know, using blockchain with again, a proof of work system that requires a lot more electricity and power to operate it, the renewable rate is catching up really quickly, even if they didn't change the underlying system. But these systems are going to continue to grow and evolve and become more efficient. I think the Human Rights side of things. And also the comparison to the traditional financial sector makes it a no brainer.

It gives me a lot of hope, just for how we can innovate and pivot in the industry. And, you know, I think about just a little nonprofit right now, who's listening to this conversation and feeling super overwhelmed with all that we're talking about? Where is a place that a nonprofit could start if they were really interested in either accepting cryptocurrency, or just getting into this game? Where if you are going to talk to someone, where would you tell them to start right now?

Yeah, if you're a really small nonprofit, this isn't going to be what groups want to hear. But generally speaking, they're really small number have to reach out to us we recommend that they focus on other things besides us and what we're working on. But I feel when when we get outreach we're really small nonprofits is it feels kind of like a moonshot where just like, Can I show up to someone who knows much about like this cool new free money of the internet and just like, write a checker or build something, and then just start getting money, instead of like figuring out how to build an effective individual giving program or grow my social audiences or activated Google Ad grant. Like there's a lot of like, easy, low hanging fruit stuff out there, where they have just like, a completely non mobile optimized site, or like their donation page is completely broken, it's impossible to find they have no social presence. So generally speaking, if you're like a really small nonprofit, now we will, we'll have to innovate to the point where we think the amount of effort it takes to get into crypto is still worth it again, like something like Google accurate, where you can click through in a handful of minutes. And now you have something that adds value for your organization. cryptos a little too much of a lift for that for like a group that say, you know, a quarter million dollar budget or below that is usually where we have those combos for anyone above that, for the most part, like the two big questions. We asked her like, do you have an active Twitter account? And then like, you know, somebody who's managing that, and then it's like, do you have like a stable revenue budget and fundraising program? It's like, if you're fundraising effectively at all already, and you're using the internet effectively, then yes, crypto is a great thing to layer in, you can set it up almost immediately. And then the ways that you activate is really just again, like layering it into stuff you're doing already. You don't have to build, like a crypto fundraising program from scratch with completely different strategies and technologies way simpler than people think. It's just a matter of like, if you're trying to figure out fundraising period, and you want to figure that out with cryptocurrency first and work backwards to traditional individual giving programs. I think that's more friction than than is necessary.

That is brilliant. I appreciate you laying it out like that. And it's just it's wise because you got to start somewhere else. Like again, this is I don't know if tactics even the right word, it's a method of payment, right? So it's making it accessible. And you need to fix a lot of other problems before you get to that one. So great love the kind of advice there you specifically called out Twitter is that just from a social media progressive standpoint that someone's active and they are staffing Twitter? Or do you see gifts come through Twitter or something

specifically? I'm curious when you said that, yeah, it's just kind of the the main place that crypto users hang out. In general, there's like your Reddit telegram, discord, Twitter. Things you can think like gamer culture is another example. But both of those things are ultimately you know, Gen Z millennial, just more common places where people have conversations. There aren't a whole lot of people in their 20s He's on Facebook, just like hanging out these days.

Yeah.

I mean, I would love to hear a case study of maybe one of your nonprofit clients who is doing this really well and how they were able to leverage crypto to benefit their mission.

Yeah, we have a huge range of groups. So like, in general, pretty much 100% of nonprofits who take Griffin our doing so with us, which is fantastic. And then like 80% of donations, we process come through our site, not the nonprofit site. So like, despite the fact that we have United Way, Save the Children, american cancer, a bunch of universities kind of like these big blue chip groups with giant audiences. In terms of case study, like one of the cool things about what we do is like, as a company, we think this is really unique for nonprofit service providers, but like setting up nonprofits with a tool to then like clip a ticket on their existing donor base. And then it's like, let the chips fall where they may like we are actively creating the majority kind of cryptocurrency donation volume and like the cryptocurrency gaming ecosystem, the tools and stuff that comes through. So the case studies begin with a lot of nonprofits were like, We want a technical solution to take crypto. And that's it. Like we're not trying to build a crypto giving program. We don't have super high hopes for this, like my boss wants it. And I don't know how it works, just turned it on, take the headaches out. That's a big chunk of the groups we serve. And they still do you know quite well, just from a matter of the imbalance of crypto users and crypto donors to the number of nonprofits trying to get in front of them is so out of whack. Like I think I bet there's a lack of understanding of the scale where it's like there's trillions of dollars in cryptocurrency, there's over 100 million users. You know, there's billions donated, and there's 300 profits realistically who are fighting for that headspace at all. So just being on the list on like, our platform where most people are coming to give has been super helpful for a lot of these groups. But then, of course, the groups that do really well, are the groups that do build up a program, which ends up being a lot easier than I think thing, or people think, recent case that it would be like American Cancer Society. They're super big, but how they leveraged it, it wasn't just a matter of informing their existing audience, they actually went out to kind of the crypto community and an effective way and worked with us to build that out. Number one, they named their program so the cancer crypto fund, they decided to like formalize real smart. So we came up with a name together, we created incentives for you know, you donate X amount, here's what happens. So the naming rights are still available for that cancer cryptic languages. Amazing. But yeah, they they named all that stuff, they had a press release about the fact that they were actually fundraising crypto, they'd actually been accepting crypto for years and just didn't get any. And now they're at a point where literally their cryptocurrency posts that like we work with them on how to like, activate around New kryptos they're taking and stuff that's going on, like their Dogecoin announcement, for instance, I think is the the best performing tweet they've ever had. So in terms of like kind of natural content, it's their best performing content by leaps and bounds. So they're growing their audience most effectively by taking crypto, it's like the fastest growing revenue pillar. And it's becoming a part of the voice in a really light lift way. That's just, you know, helping them kind of get younger.

JOHN, I don't know how you're feeling right now. But I am like Geeking, out over the fact that marketing and public relations were like the linchpin of getting ACS to come out with their crypto. I mean, think about it. If you're a nonprofit right now, you've got like the super innovators, early adopters into technology and the process and then you've got like the laggards. You know, maybe most of us are down on the laggard side. But I'm telling you right now, if you are someone who is interested in this, and I really, and I want you to go into your like, what the giving blog does and your services, because I want people to understand how you do that. And the last step, but I'm just saying right now, if you are curious about this, now is the time because this is a really interesting case study with ACS about them going in my mind to an entirely new audience in the crypto world who may have never really thought about ACA, you know, American Cancer Society. And they have found a way to say, Hey, we accept this. And we want you to come in. And here's ways that you can really affect our mission through this really innovative technology. And I just think leveraging the giving block, leveraging how you know how to navigate this world with some really smart marketing and messaging, gets the right messages in front of people who want to connect with your mission. And I'm hearing that if you can do this now, like there are not many to market right now in the nonprofit sector. And this is a time

Yeah, and just to layer on that a little bit. I feel like I skipped past part of it. There's layers this thing so like first and foremost, like if you don't Take cryptocurrency I just talking to nonprofits, especially those that don't take stocks, but even wants to take stock. So it always kind of surprises me. But there'll be like, I mean, they can just convert their crypto right and send us a wire. So it's like, no, that's a taxable event. So like, that's the first and foremost thing like when we say they're, you know, almost $2 trillion, or whatever you crypto right now, it's like anyone who wants to give you crypto is giving you crypto usually, because it's their most appreciated property asset. If someone has a million dollars in Bitcoin, a million dollars in stocks and a million dollars in the bank, the million dollars in the bank is worth a million dollars, it's worth a million dollars at Lowe's, it's worth a million dollars to buy a home, it's worth a million dollars post tax those stocks and cryptocurrency are not actually worth a million dollars. So you're going to have to pay capital gains tax when you move out of a position. And then the amount of tax you pay is based on how much that has gone up. So when you look at something like a volatile asset class like crypto where it goes like 510, x and a year sometimes, like your stock donors, if they have crypto, they're not giving stocks, they're giving crypto, if they're giving you a wire, they've never given stocks or crypto, they're probably gonna start giving property assets this year, because the offset is so big. And if there's someone who gives you a million dollars, and they have all three, again, if they give you the million in the bank, it's worth a million, they give you a million, you get that million, they get a million dollar write off, if they give you the million dollars in stocks, they give you the million you get that million, they get the million dollar write off and maybe they raised like 50 grand in capital gains tax. But if they give you the million bitcoins, they could be erasing, you know, $200,000 in capital gains taxes on top of whatever the right office like if you tell that person to give to you in some other way, like they're not going to give to you. And then if they're giving us five different groups that they usually get stocks, but they bought a bunch of crypto and that went up a lot this year, if you're the only one of the big five that they're giving to like maybe they're taking all five gifts and funneling to you that year. So like, the tax incentive is really strong and really important. Like if you don't take it, you're completely off the menu for one. And then kind of the second layer is what you're talking about the marketing. So it's like now, people are looking for a place to give crypto to who's trying to get in front of those people and how to do that effectively. Like that's where a lot of our time and energy goes in all of the clients that we serve still a small proportion of the actively crypto fundraising, especially when it's not as fun and exciting. Like maybe they'll start marketing when the markets going up for a day. But the save the children's the No Kid Hungry, some of these kind of blue chip programs we've been working with for years, they've built up a really big conservative crypto following. And then especially at times, like end of year like they disproportionately benefit from this community that is hyper tax incentivize?

I mean, super fast. And I think you you do a really compelling narrative there of when it makes sense. And honestly, that's the first time I've had it explained that way. So I appreciate you laying that out like that. Just one, we always love to hear stories of how you've been connected or hooked into philanthropy. But for that, I'm just curious, just your thoughts of who are the main players in this space? Like I mean, as you're thinking about, if a nonprofit is positioned that they are ready to take this next step, they have their online game figured out this they have the revenue streams figured out this makes sense for them. Who are people targeting primarily? Who are the people that are moving the most money in the crypto space right now? Is it a set group like that? Is it easy to put your arms around? Or is it too broad?

No, yeah, it's not like, and then the groups that are and individuals that are notable, they usually have relationships at this point. So it's more just kind of getting in front of 50 users more generally, we have like a different tiered approach. We say we have like crypto users, and then we have tgb cryptid. owners, then we have the nonprofit donors. So like our approach to crypto fundraising touches on all three, like what we start out and the foundational component that our clients don't see as much, we probably need to tell them more actively about stuff that we're doing. But like the integrations on crypto exchanges, crypto wallet providers, portfolio management, applications, tax software companies like all of these really key points for like people to potentially donate crypto or interface with charities, like actively building those partnerships and integrations that funnel folks in like we have crypto exchanges that individually account for like 15% of our site traffic. So like those sorts of things are really important. So like creating tracks in the places where people have their money to nonprofits. We do a lot of bridge building there. So that's kind of like crypto users in general. And then the second thing we do is we build crypto fundraising opportunities. So we created Bitcoin Tuesday, which is the GivingTuesday foundations. Thank you. Community campaign for crypto fundraising. We created the crypto Giving Pledge to get people to lock in to give crypto year over year we've created a founder circle out of that with a bunch of the biggest crypto companies and key opinion leaders. That's like layer one. So like getting crypto users lined up and charitable we build that user base up then to is like our crypto donors. So people who come through our site and actively fundraising crypto, we just create a bunch of opportunities throughout the year. Do campaigns and the like. And then the third piece is just like what you guys are talking about where it's like the nonprofit's marketing, there's two aspects of that one is pointed inward. So people have major gift prospects and donors, they have existing donor communities, they've a newsletter or other stuff like making it clear to those folks that you take, not just crypto but even stocks with other property assets that are tax incentivized, like people might not be thinking that or having that conversation, if you're the first one to introduce it owner to that tax incentive, they might start giving that way, which definitely are usually I guess, would be safer means larger gifts. And it's a much bigger incentive to earn them away from other nonprofits who might be competing with and then to the the active marketing piece for crypto is the easiest, no brainer. The best example being like the Lupus Foundation gala, when we did that the the guy who was the emcee was like where my crypto people out, and there's like a table in the back, like all pumped up, like gonna happen with credit cards are where my stop? Yeah, the last piece there is what you have with crypto donations is it's not just a donation method, it's a donor demographic, at a very active and young donor demographic that you can use to activate and enhance the reach of all things you do. So the incentive there to market more activities, you know, really point blank.

It's so interesting to me, and I actually, like want to compliment you in your founder, because in my mind's eye, you have creeped, you've taken the structure of a foundation, and you have run it through a Bitcoin lens, like you've created giving circles you've created monthly giving, you've created. Like, probably you could have a plane giving path. And it's really about if you're someone whose target audience are millennials and Gen Z years, we've got to be listening to the creative ways that they want to give. And if this is where they're playing right now, it I mean, who knows, in 10 years, we may have a Bitcoin, you know, or a cryptocurrency part of our businesses within our foundations, because it could grow to be such a big thing. So it's just very interesting to me. And I just want to commend you for your creativity for coming into the space and using it for good. And I just sense just the way you talk about human rights and things like that, that this is like a passion for you. And you get a lot of joy out of taking your skill set and connecting it to missions. And I wonder if there's a story of philanthropy that has touched you, whether that's like in the crypto world or something that's happened to you personally, what's the story of philanthropy that's resonated in your life? That

it's a really good question. There were specific causes that I cared about more. But I've legitimately got to the point where like, I'm much more interested in kind of the sector, advancing more generally, and prioritizing that. So like back in the day where I would think kind of all the way down to like wanting to give you know, I give $1 to charity, or what that whole dollar to go to feeding a kid or whatever else it is, I've gone so far in the opposite direction, where it's like I would never give to a nonprofit, ever again, that didn't have serious overhead, like the idea of giving to a nonprofit that isn't putting people at desks thinking strategically about real world problems, like I just give you $1 and you give it to someone, it's like, I don't want that. Like I wouldn't want that from the companies that make my computers I wouldn't want that from any technology. It stops innovation that stops people from like earning a living. It stops nonprofits from attracting talent from sectors that are doing horrific stuff. I'm so kind of in that direction that like it's not necessarily like I would like to see more. cryptocurrency goes like this one specific philanthropic cause that I care about. It's more a matter of like, I see crypto and now I think things like, oh, crypto users actually like when nonprofits hold crypto, like what a cool difference that is where like most crypto are donors, rather, will give you $1 and say, not only do I not want over it, but I want to see like immediately where it's going and like having good impact like people will give nonprofits crypto and they'll actually demand that they hold it. And like that's creating like long term financial sustainability for that organization. There you put in like a high interest account and the crypto goes up these groups that like have a crypto endowment that like five X's over a year, it's like, that's so much more impact than like get the dollar out the door and don't think about it, which is kind of like the old school mentality. Those sorts of things getting you know, crypto and other technology companies working more intimately with nonprofits like that's something I care about getting nonprofits to build endowments. And long term funds is something I care about and then getting nonprofits to tell their donors they're wrong. And spend more money on being innovative is like what I would like to see most out of the sector.

Pat is like poking the bear and I am here for it. You really are because when I think back to, you know some of our investment policies at foundations we used to work with It's like they are set up to be incredibly conservative. And so if you get a high risk stock, you know, the investment policy demands that you divest that like immediately because of just the volatility. And it makes us think so differently about investments with crypto because the ability for it to scale and just appreciate over and over again, and especially I love that you brought up and down it's we're huge fans of endowments, and what they can do for sustainability. And this is a way that you could scale an endowment so fast. But but a lot of nonprofits are just not that I mean, there's a risk averse. So this is this is going to be a challenge for the sector to accept this new form of currency and how they're going to accept it. And all of it just seems very, very interesting to me. And I'm really glad that you put your flag down on that and created a hard stance.

What, what one thing, I do want to say that it's just because I realized the way that that comes across, if you're a nonprofit that like needs the money for something this year, like as part of your mission, like we don't encourage any nonprofits to hold. So people ask us, like, what's the best branch should we hold? Or should we auto convert, the vast majority of our clients automatically convert to US dollars, like we have a higher percentage of nonprofits who have endowments, but like, we don't actively encourage any individual nonprofit to do that, like as a sector, I would like to see that changing more when it's in keeping with your mission, and the organization decides that, okay, we've capital going into XYZ, we have a five year plan. And like putting money aside in this way, because of the market dynamics of the returns, we expect that these investments will mean better things for this 1510 year plan that we're pushing stuff towards. I don't just like arbitrarily encouraged Nebraska sold, especially if they're like something that's immediately needed for smaller groups, especially so I just wanted to make a note of that, like the majority of our clients still automatically convert, which is completely reasonable. The baby steps into even accepting cryptocurrency, I think are really fun, exciting. And I'm definitely not like all or nothing with with the adoption curve.

While I do love your notes on that you only want to give to an organization that has incredible overhead, because you see the value in that. And I think that is a huge narrative that needs to shift. And it's come up so many times this season, specifically. So thank you for that. Okay, Pat, how can people connect with you all at the giving block? where's the best place to find you online? I'm assuming Twitter. Let's go there. And where else can we find you guys?

Yeah, if you are a nonprofit, and you don't take her up, though, we can change that. So go to the given block, comm and contact off. So you can book a demo directly from there, or you can just submit your questions via the contact. If you want to learn more, you can again, follow us at the given block on Twitter, check out our blog on the site, or reach out with whatever your questions might be, generally speaking, the site is kind of all the core piece of content. Yeah, nonprofits book is mo if your nonprofit service provider and you're listening at crypto as an option, we can do that via our API. And then for I guess, donors and everybody else, check out crypto, it's good technology.

I mean, if you are someone who is interested, this is the beauty of pat in the giving block. If you're like me, you're in your early 40s, you're like I just don't want to deal with the tech, the tech of how that's going to work out I want to know about it. But I just hand it off to the giving black Pat and the team her here. They're going to do all the tough work for you. So thank you, Pat, for being here. You know, our last question that we ask everybody is, what's your one good thing. And it could be a life hack, it could be a quote, what's your one good thing that you would offer to our community pack.

One thing from this week, this definitely, I guess, isn't the overall mantra. And it sounds kind of boring at first. But like prioritize is really important. So like taking new payment methods should like have before certain things that you do, like make it easy for people to give you money would be an example in the nonprofit space. For us as a company, it's very much that like where people be like, we have a good idea. And it's like, okay, let's put all the good ideas in order and then do the most important one. First, when you look at causes you want to give to don't find a nonprofit that looks like they're doing something nice, like figure out what they're doing, and then compare them to other nonprofits like see whose impact is greater in terms of XYZ or what it is you're looking for. We think about causes social justice, even there's certain things where you'll see an issue take over the new cycle for a month. It's like is this the most important thing? And if not, let's transform the narrative and put things in order. I think, generally speaking, for me, as an individual, most of my frustration comes out of people doing awesome stuff, but they're doing number 17 on the list of 20, when they should be starting with number one, like just putting things in order before taking actions will lead to disproportionately positive outcomes.

So this has been awesome. Pat, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you, Pat. appreciate what you're doing for our sector. Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. Hey,

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