Today, we’re celebrating 5 years of The Giving Block. Since our company’s founding, we’ve raised over $125M for nonprofits via crypto, NFTs, stocks and DAF gifts. It all began with crypto.
In 2017, I was working at a charity, and Alex was moonlighting as a crypto investor, networking his way into early-stage crypto investments.
After months of sidebar debates in DC dive bars, he convinced me to read The Bitcoin Whitepaper. I learned about the double-spend problem, cryptographic proof of work, and how the 51% attack threshold made it the most immutable record keeping system in human history. After a year of steering anyone who would listen away from crypto, I went from Warren Buffet to Michael Saylor in a matter of hours. I was all in. We both were.
After we began trading crypto together, we noticed a problem. Cryptocurrency was changing the world…and nonprofits were missing it.
At that time, there were tens of millions of crypto users, and hundreds of billions of dollars invested in it. But crypto users didn’t know it was a more tax-efficient way to give than cash. And nonprofits didn’t know how to fundraise it.
We saw an opportunity. If we could bring nonprofits and crypto users together, the nonprofit sector would see a massive infusion of capital, and these stories of crypto as a force for good would propel cryptocurrency into the mainstream. It was a win-win. We just had to make it happen. In 2018, we created The Giving Block and got to work.
The journey over these past five years—from side project to startup to full-fledged company—has been nothing short of amazing. We’ve celebrated major milestones, established game-changing partnerships, built a team that has become our family and played a role in what we feel will be looked back on as one of the most transformative periods for charitable tech.
Key Milestones
2018
- Launched Crypto Giving Option
- Signed our first nonprofit client
2019
- Michael Earley joins The Giving Block (our first hire; he turned us from a project into a startup)
- Created the directory of nonprofits accepting crypto (becomes TheGivingBlock.com)
- Launched the first Crypto Giving Tuesday
2020
- Passed 100 nonprofit clients
- Passed $1M raised for charity
- Passed 10 team members
2021
- Passed 1,000 clients
- First $50M raised for charity
- Ben Pousty joins The Giving Block (he turned us from a startup into a company)
- Passed 25 team members
2022
- Merged with Shift4, one of the world’s largest payments companies, to help nonprofits lower their credit card fees.
- Passed 2,000 clients
- Passed $100M raised for charity
- Launched Stock Giving Option (with Ren)
- Launched Credit Card Giving Option (with Shift4)
- Passed 50 Team Members
2023 (so far)
- Launched DAF Giving Option (with Chariot)
Beyond 🚀
- Money is changing.
- There are more people using Apple Pay than checkbooks. There are more people using Coinbase than Charles Schwab.
- And so giving is changing.
- Card donations are moving to digital wallets.
- Stock and DAF giving have gone digital.
- Crypto & NFT philanthropy are here to stay.
- And we are the one platform built to embrace all of it.
- Today, the average age to become a millionaire is 37, yet the average nonprofit donor is 64 years old. Charities are going to need to bridge this gap.
- The Giving Block is now the most future-proof fundraising platform on the planet. And we intend to be the platform that builds the bridge.
- Our eyes are set on helping nonprofits raise the next $1B across crypto, stocks, DAFs, cards & digital payments.
Let’s continue to work together to modernize fundraising and—above all—make a lasting difference.
Pat Duffy
Co-Founder
The Giving Block
