FAQs for nonprofits

Many cryptocurrencies are highly volatile assets, and can appreciate quickly. When they are sold and converted back into dollars or other fiat currency, income taxes may be owed on any gains. Such taxes, however, can be avoided, if appreciated crypto is donated to charity, rather than converted back into regular currency. For owners who have seen their crypto grow dramatically in value, the tax benefits of donating part of their windfall to charity are substantial, helping them avoid capital gains taxes and maximize the impact of their charitable giving. Such donors may also be able to receive federal income tax deductions, up to the full value of the gift, if they have held their crypto for more than a year.

Owners of cryptocurrency tend to be younger and more urban, and represent an opportunity to court active donors in their 20s and 30s who may not have been on your major giving radar in the past. Research suggests that they are more charitable than other types of investors.

If your organization isn’t set up to accept crypto donations and doesn’t know how to get started, you’re not alone. More than 90% of nonprofits don’t currently have a crypto solution. While they know there is growing interest in crypto giving, nonprofits lack the technical expertise and exchange accounts they need to accept most (or any) crypto donations, and their staff may need training to feel confident in even discussing the topic with donors. And many of the nonprofits who are positioned to encourage and accept cryptocurrency donations nevertheless lack the knowledge to manage their holdings of these relatively volatile assets. 

Crypto for Charity’s solution overcomes these common hurdles, allowing nonprofits to accept crypto donations without first establishing an exchange account, providing educational resources and training for their personnel, and mitigating market and volatility risk by liquidating donated crypto assets immediately. Nonprofits instead simply receive the proceeds of crypto donations in cash, while their donors automatically receive an emailed tax receipt. 

Crypto for Charity is brought to you by the same team that developed FreeWill. In the same way FreeWill allows anyone to leave a bequest to their favorite charity while creating a will, we wanted to create a public site that would allow donors to easily donate their crypto to the nonprofit of their choice. 

Cryptocurrency assets donated through the Crypto for Charity platform are initially received by an intermediary nonprofit organization, which maintains a cryptocurrency exchange account and wallet.  This intermediary provides donors with a tax receipt for their donation, liquidates the donated cryptocurrency, and passes the net cash proceeds on to the ultimate nonprofit beneficiary organization. 

That’s up to you! If donors reach out to you asking if they can make a crypto donation, send them to cryptoforcharity.io and ask them to select your nonprofit. You can also feel free to incorporate the link into your website, wherever you list giving options. We’re working on bringing you more ways to integrate crypto into your major giving strategy.

Of course!  

Suggested email or website copy:

Thanks so much for your interest in donating cryptocurrency to {our organization}. You can direct your gift through cryptoforcharity.io, which will allow you to make a tax-deductible gift of crypto that is converted to US dollars and sent to us so we can put your gift to work toward our mission.

Suggested language for Twitter:

We now accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrency donations!

• Go to cryptoforcharity.io.

• Pick {organization} from the list.

• Donate crypto and get a tax receipt.

Donations of appreciated cryptocurrency don’t trigger capital gains taxes, and may be tax-deductible for the full value. 

We currently accept donations on behalf of the largest 50,000 US nonprofits listed in Guidestar. If your nonprofit is not listed, but you would like to be included in our database, please reach out to us at support@cryptocharity.io and include your organization's name and EIN, as well as the name and email address of your finance department.

Likewise, if for any reason, your nonprofit does not want to receive cash liquidated from crypto donations, please just let us know. We’ll remove your name from our database. You can reach out to us at support@cryptocharity.iowith the subject line “Remove [ORG NAME] from Crypto for Charity”.

You may have heard that crypto mining uses a lot of energy, as miners set up large server farms dedicated to validating transactions posted to the blockchain in order to potentially mine new cryptocurrency tokens as a reward. ​​We understand that this is a concern for many nonprofits. We're closely following research and the efforts being made to shut down outdated farms and focus on renewable energy sources.

Email crypto@freewill.com or fill out the form below.