The pandemic has been horrible on businesses, schools and has almost crashed economies. This has meant that key services to citizens have been hampered in certain degrees and new normals have been forced on us over the last few months. Non-profit organizations have stepped in to fill gaps that desperately needed to be filled and lots of them accept crypto donations now.
Pandemic related loss of revenues
One such non-profit is the “The Giving Block” which is headed by Alex Wilson. Organizations such as his have lost revenue as well due to the pandemic and are looking to bounce back. According to Wilson, the pandemic has been a major catalyst for organizations like his to accept crypto donations. Though non-profits have been accepting crypto sporadically over the last three years, the pandemic period has seen the number of organizations accepting crypto, rise.
“Interestingly, the last six months or so, COVID has actually been a pretty major catalyst for nonprofits accepting crypto because a lot of them are looking for different ways to offset lost revenue, but also diversify their revenue into new things like crypto.”
Tax incentives for crypto accepting Non-profits
Prior to the COVID-19 era, a number of non-profits warmed up to crypto donations as a way to offset capital gains taxes at the height of the crypto boom of 2017. According to Wilson, some non-profits were hamstrung at the time because they had no idea of how to accept crypto.
“One of those ways was actually to donate crypto to charity, except that I noticed people wanted to donate to nonprofits, but most of them [the nonprofits] had no clue how to accept crypto.”
To help more non-profits accept crypto donations more easily, Wilson and his friend Pat Duffy built a crypto giving-on ramp that would help address the challenge non-profits were having in accepting crypto. The ability to receive tax incentives was a big motivation for them to get started on the project.
“That kind of tax benefit was really a driving trend behind it, or a driving motivation behind it. We didn’t really launch the company until about last year 2019, was really when we launched it publicly, and now we work with about 100 different nonprofits,” explained Wilson
New stream of income for Non-profits
Wilson further explained that their new on-ramp system is just not just a payment service but also a new stream of income for non-profits.
“One cool thing about the crypto donations has been that it’s mostly completely new donors for them, so it’s not cannibalizing any other of their other existing forms of donations. It’s a totally new revenue stream for them.”
A service like Wilson’s only adds to the usability of cryptos and gives them more credibility in the eyes of users. Though services do exist that can convert crypto to traditional fiat, Wilson stated that donors preferred to send in contributions in crypto form due to volatility concerns.
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