Executive Summary / TL;DR
The overall context of this article is accepting non-cash donations in the charity space.
It is easy to equate ‘fundraising’ with ’raising money’ and to think fundraising means raising as much money, or cash as possible. Today it is much more complicated than that. There are many products beyond cash. In this article we look at some of these non-cash elements, and consider why they should be included in your funding strategy.
In this article we look at a number of non-cash products, and consider some summary statistics
Cryptocurrencies (crypto)
Currently, there are over 22,000 cryptocurrencies in existence, and the crypto space, at the time of writing, is worth around $2.79 trillion)
In 2021, crypto philanthropy was valued at over $500 million in the US
> 60% of crypto users are under the age of 40
56% of the top 100 charities accept cryptocurrency donations as of January 2024
The functionality and capability that these technologies enable is significant
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
The record price to-date of an NFT was digital artist Pak’s creation Merge in December 2021, which fetched US$91.8 million
Donor Advised Funds (DAFs)
In the US, grants from DAFs to charitable organisations reached $52.16 billion in 2023
Stocks and Shares
63% of contributions to Fidelity Charitable (US) were in the form of non-cash assets (eg stocks) in 2023
$22.2 billion in additional funds for charitable causes by Fidelity Charitable since its inception in 1991
The bottom line here is that ignoring non-cash options will be reducing your potential revenue. Consider
How much of your existing revenue stream is from non-cash donations?
What is the potential loss of revenue resulting from inadequate attention to non-cash?
Is non-cash adequately covered in your funding strategy?
Background
At the outset, it is significant to note the difference in non-cash activity in the United States vs that in the UK. It seems the US is by far most active. If you are looking for statistics, you will find lots on US data and much less on UK data. This will inevitably change as the uptake of crypto and of regulation beds in and becomes more mainstream.
Before looking at non-cash and the value of that non-cash, let’s consider what we mean by ‘value’. This is surprisingly difficult to pin down, and surprisingly nebulous and multidimensional. I want to keep this brief, so I won’t go too far down this rabbit hole. But we need to look more closely at value in order to gauge and understand whether it is worth paying attention to the non-cash space. We’ll come back to this point later.
What do we mean by ‘value’?
There are various types of value
Intrinsic Value - the inherent worth of something, independent of external factors or perceptions, eg gold
Extrinsic Value - derived from what it enables. For example, money has extrinsic value because it can be used to buy goods and services
Market Value - determined by what people are willing to pay for it, eg the price you could get for your house in the current market
Perceived Value - this is the value that a consumer believes a product or service has. This can be influenced by branding and marketing. For example, designer clothing and other brand name merchandise
Cultural Value - this is based on the significance of an item or practice within a specific culture, eg traditional art or artefacts
Social Value - this is based on the perceived value to society, eg volunteer work
Value will be determined by various factors
Scarcity - limited availability, eg rare collectibles or limited-edition items
Demand - as the demand goes up, the value goes up, eg house prices in more desirable neighbourhoods, or consumer electronics
Utility - the more useful a thing is, or the greater the benefits it can bring, the greater the value, eg smartphones
Quality - the better the quality the greater the value, eg in hand crafted items by a skilled maker vs cheap-and-cheerful mass produced
Reputation - the better the reputation of the maker or provider the greater the (perceived) value, eg luxury brands like Rolex
Aesthetic Appeal - the attractiveness or beauty of an item can contribute to its value, eg art or music
It is easy to equate value with price. After all, here in the UK, an average loaf of bread costs something like £1.20. Hence the value of an average loaf of bread is something like £1.20.
But value and price are not at all the same thing. We will pick this thread up again later when we look at the price and value of crypto and other non-cash assets. This is especially significant when distinguishing between the value of crypto and the price of crypto.
There are two more concepts to be aware of in order to understand the scope of this crypto / NFT space.
What is Web-3?
For context, Web-1 (roughly 1991 to 2004) was characterised primarily by static text. Another primary feature was that it was a one-way publishing medium. Web-2 is what we have today. The key features of Web-2 are dynamic content, responsive to user input, and two-way communication. Users can comment, users can select content specific to them. This enabled what we see today - e-commerce, social media, blogging, gaming… One common thread of this is that it is controlled by a handful of big tech players - Facebook (Meta), Google, Paypal, Amazon, Apple, Visa… These are the entities who predominantly control how things work, what happens, and what the costs are.
Web-3 is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralisation, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Blockchain as a concept is attributed to David Chaum in his doctoral thesis in 1982 [ref], and developed in Nakamoto’s whitepaper [ref] published in 2009 that kicked off Bitcoin and the crypto revolution (see later). These three concepts have the potential to revolutionise how the World Wide Web operates, and what becomes possible. For example, Web-3 won’t just streamline existing financial activity. It’ll also unlock new use cases in finance that currently aren’t possible due to the illiquidity of traditional assets. Imagine a world where you could sell fractional ownership of physical assets like real estate or vehicles. Sellers would be able to access capital they can’t today, while buyers could invest in those assets more affordably via partial ownership. Web-3 can make that happen [ref]. Who can say what functionality will be mainstream in ten or twenty years time?
What is Decentralised Finance (DeFi)?
Decentralised finance (DeFi) is an emerging financial technology based on secure distributed ledgers (blockchain) similar to those used by cryptocurrencies [ref]. It uses emerging technology to remove third parties and centralised institutions from financial transactions allowing people to transact financially with each other. It is early days, but it is already a significant feature of the blockchain / Web-3 space. For example, DeFi activity exploded in 2021, peaking in Q2 at nearly $4 trillion in transaction volume [ref].
A new development in DeFi protocol categories involves real-word assets (RWAs)
and decentralised physical infrastructure (DePin). As an example, more than $1 billion worth of US treasury bonds are now tokenised on public blockchains [ref].
This is not a flash-in-the-pan thing. It is here to stay, and as these technologies and developments bed into everyday life, their impact will only increase. A hugely significant part of this is how it will impact philanthropy and donations. If your fundraising strategy and activity remains focused on cash, you will be missing out on an increasing slice of social and financial activity.
Cryptocurrencies (Crypto)
The cryptocurrency world is relatively new. The first and most well-known cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, created in 2009 by an anonymous individual (or group) using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The next most significant cryptocurrency is Etherium, conceived in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin. A key feature that Etherium introduced was smart contracts. Today, there are over 22,000 cryptocurrencies in existence, and the crypto space is a multi trillion dollar global asset (at the time of writing, $2.79 trillion.)
It is a rapidly developing, dynamic, volatile, continually changing space. Consider, back in early 1989 the http: protocol did not exist, the World Wide Web did not exist, e-commerce (as we know it today) did not exist (though online shopping was a thing from around 1979 using phones). Then Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented a prototype World Wide Web and http (etc) the following year. Then someone looked at the potential of what that technology could do and e-commerce exploded. In 2023, the global revenue from the e-commerce industry was over $6 trillion (ref).
We are in a comparable place with the technologies underpinning crypto (blockchain, Web-3, decentralisation), as we were when http and the World Wide Web were moving into the public awareness. Who knows what it will, in time, enable? Already it is having huge impacts across society. Consider how decentralised finance (De-Fi) is challenging the existing financial systems, crypto currencies, digital currencies and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), cross-border payments, financial inclusion and banking facilities for the unbanked across the world, smart contracts and automations, blockchain and Regulatory technology (RegTech), NFTs, metaverse ... An interesting and exciting development is the merging of crypto and AI (eg, in crypto projects like FETCH, Render, NEAR, ASI …)
Not only has the global value of crypto grown, but it is becoming more mainline accessible.
The recent approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US enables funds to be traded on stock exchanges, with more crypto ETFs in the pipeline (for example Etherium, maybe Solana and XRP and who knows what others). All of this will, in time, spread beyond the US. This is likely to bring more capital into the crypto space, eg institutional investors. (For more on this thought, check out what Cathie Wood of ARK Invest has to say about Bitcoin, eg see here)
The global market cap of gold is something like $15 trillion. Some analysts (more detail available on request) predict that the market cap of Bitcoin and crypto could exceed that of gold as a global asset. That gives some ball-park notion of how significantly the value of the crypto space could grow.
A significant question to ask is, who is holding this crypto wealth and what do they want to do with it?
In 2021 there was a massive increase in crypto philanthropy, reaching over USD 500 million in the United States. Also, the age demographic of the holders of this wealth is getting younger. More than 60% of crypto users are under the age of 40, whereas the average age of traditional donors is between 45 and 65 [ref].
The GivingBlock, a crypto donation system, predicts that, based on the last five years of bitcoin price data, charitable crypto giving to nonprofits will come to a substantial $10 billion by November 2032, with over $2 billion estimated to have been donated using cryptocurrency as of January 2024. Also,
56% of the top 100 charities accept cryptocurrency donations as of January 2024
There are estimated to be 580 million crypto investors worldwide as of January 2024
The average size of a cryptocurrency donation was $10,455
As a result of all of this, there are rapid changes in donor demographic and behaviour, as well as the technologies that go with it. The whole digital asset space is changing rapidly. So too, the regulation and complexity that goes with it. This represents a significant fundraising opportunity for nonprofits
Consider the value of the crypto space. It is easy, especially if you are not familiar with it, to think the Bitcoin bubble burst a long time ago. Or, to look at meme coins like Shiba Inu or DogWifHat and conclude that there is no value in this space, and it is all just hot air.
However, take a look at one recent example of activity [ref]. There is a new blockchain being developed (MegaETH), which has raised $20 million in a seed funding round (June 2024). The token valuation is at least $100 million. MegaETH is built on Etherium (ETH). The layer-1 Etherium network can process around 15 transactions per second (TPS) [ref]. MegaETH, through use of clever technology, is aiming at around 100,000 TPS. Once again, who can predict what this will enable?
As another example, the AI-crypto startup Santient has recently (July 2024) raised $85 million in 3 months, despite only being in the early stages of development [ref].
The point of these examples is to highlight the amount of funding going into this crypto-related space. Venture funding for crypto-related companies in the fourth quarter of 2023 totaled $1.9 billion [ref]. Also, the technological developments happening in this space are astounding. However, unless you are paying attention to this space, it is easy to assume there is nothing happening in the crypto space, and that it is not worth paying attention to. From the perspective of a fundraiser, it is easy to overlook this crypto-space, and remain unaware of the magnitude of the potential.
One of the significant risks in the crypto space is volatility. Prices are very volatile. However bear in mind that price is not the same as value. I go more into the risks associated with non-cash in another article <link-here>.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
What is an NFT? A non-fungible token is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded [ref].
What is ‘fungible’? The word fungibile comes from the Latin fungibilis, from the verb fungī, meaning "to perform". It is related to words such as "function" and "defunct" [ref].
In the NFT sense, ‘non-fungible' has two parts:
It cannot be exchanged. A can of baked beans is fungible. If you pick one up with a ding in it, you can change it for one without a ding in it. A can of baked beans is fungible, it can be exchanged. An NFT is specifically non-fungible, it cannot be exchanged. It is unique.
It can be split into components that together have the same overall value. For example you could split a twenty pound note into four five pound notes. Or two ten pound notes - and you have the same value of cash. Cash money is fungible. An NFT is not splittable.
If you are new to this space, it is difficult to get your head around this NFT thing and what it means. Let alone judge what its value might be.
NFTs are commonly linked to art or music. You might read about NFTs like CryptoPunk, or BoredApeYachtClub and dismiss NFTs as hype with no value. However, NFTs are becoming more widespread and mainstream. For example, director Kevin Smith’s budget horror film Killroy Was Here was accessible by limited-edition NFT [ref]. The Coachella music festival uses NFTs to sell lifetime concert tickets.
Yes, NFTs do have ‘value because some celebrity says so’. For example the digital artist Pak’s creation Merge fetched US$91.8 million on NFT platform Nifty Gateway in December 2021 [ref].
But there is more to it than that. You also run into the issue of what a piece of art is worth. It is very subjective. Some might put a huge price, others might put a price of zero.
NFTs are increasingly being used in the gaming industry, especially in being able to use NFT related purchases between games. Don’t underestimate the significance of the gaming industry as a technological driver. Revenue from the gaming industry in 2024 is expected to reach US$455.30bn [ref]. Also, It is widely acknowledged that video games have contributed to the worldwide development of computer hardware more than any other application [ref].
It is easy to look at NFTs and assume they have relevance to art and games and not much more. But, bear in mind how recent they are. The first NFT was only minted in 2014 [ref].
They may have started with digital assets and art. However, there is an increasing trend to digitise and tokenise any real-world asset (RWAs) - a house, a car, a diamond [ref]. Any transaction where anyone might be concerned with the identity of either party, or the security of the transaction or the value, state, authenticity, ownership, provenance of the item - NFTs enable a secure, immutable, frictionless process. It might take a while before they become a part of the mainstream, but it is inevitable.
Significant for the fundraising manager is awareness of NFTs as a donation vehicle. Another thread of NFTs is to mint your own NFT and auction them.
Donor Advised Funds (DAFs)
What is a DAF? Consider two definitions
National Philanthropic Trust UK
A donor-advised fund, or DAF, is a giving account established at a public charity. The umbrella charity serves as a “sponsoring organisation,” which manages and administers individual DAF accounts.
DAF accounts allow donors to make a charitable contribution, receive an immediate tax deduction and then recommend grants from the fund over time. Donors can contribute to the fund as frequently as they like, and then recommend grants to their favourite charitable organisations whenever it makes sense for them…
Donor-advised funds are increasingly popular giving vehicles in the UK because they offer administrative convenience, cost savings and tax benefits [ref].
Charities Aid Foundation
A DAF is an alternative to a charitable foundation. Instead of registering with the Charity Commission, you can set up a fund with our CAF Charitable Trust. This fund acts as a one-stop shop for your giving needs, enabling you to make tax-efficient, irrevocable charitable contributions, and then recommend for the fund to be invested or make grants on to organisations that you suggest over time.
DAFs offer several advantages over charitable foundations, namely cost savings, tax-efficiency, flexibility, and ease of administrative, fiduciary, and reporting requirements.
This gives you everything you get from a standalone foundation but it comes under the provider’s umbrella. It takes out a lot of the hassle associated with running your own foundation [ref].
To put this into context, in the US, grants from DAFs to charitable organisations reached $52.16 billion in 2023, a 9 percent increase from a revised 2021 total of $47.83 billion. The compound annual growth rate for grants from 2018 to 2022 is 21.6 percent.
Despite the slower rate of growth from 2021 to 2022, grants have more than doubled over the past five years [ref].
The bottom line of this, as with NFTs, not being able to take advantage of DAFs will reduce the scope and value of your fundraising.
Stocks and Shares
Stocks and shares are not related to the crypto / Web-3 space. But they are non-cash. They have been around for a long time (in case you are interested - the first modern stock market happened in Amsterdam in 1611 [ref]).
Statistics of donations of stocks and shares to charities seem a little sparse. But to give some idea of the scale, Fidelity Charitable (US) offers some insights in its 2024-Giving-Report [ref].
In 2023, 63% of contributions to Fidelity Charitable were in the form of non-cash assets, such as stocks
Through investment growth, Fidelity Charitable has created $22.2 billion in additional funds for charitable causes since its inception in 1991
Conclusion
To recap, in this article, we looked at non-cash donations to charity in the UK context. We have looked at different non-cash options
Crypto
NFTs
DAFs
Stocks and shares
We dug a little deeper into the crypto / Web-3 space and looked at the significant investment happening there, and the potential. We looked at the issues around understanding the value of that space and the differences between price and value.
We looked at what NFTs are, and the value they contain.
We looked at DAFs - what they are, and why they are significant.
We looked at stocks and shares.
So, what does this mean?
Bear in mind, the overall context of this article is in the donations to charity space in the UK context.
From the context of a trustee, it is important to recognise the scope and value of the non-cash space, and how rapidly it is changing. If non-cash is not a part of your revenue stream, it would be useful to know why not, and what is being done about it. Significant questions to ask are
What will it cost us to be able to accept the full range of non-cash donations?
What potential revenue are we losing through not being able to accept the full range of non-cash donations?
From the fundraising manager perspective, where does non-cash fit into your overall fundraising strategy? Do you have the necessary skills available (either yourself or within the organisation) to take advantage of the non-cash developments? What is the cost-benefit to the organisation of enabling acceptance of non-cash donations?
From the senior management perspective, is the non-cash component of your revenue stream adequate? Is there scope for increasing revenue from non-cash donations? Are implementation plans towards being able to accept the full range of non-cash donations on track?
Being able to accept the full range of non-cash donations is the consequence of a top level strategic decision. Has this decision been made? If not, has the value of the potential revenue currently being lost been valued?
What do you think? Where are you on your journey towards being able to accept non-cash donations?
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