Ever heard of crypto philanthropy? In this Q&A, Church.Design speaks with The Giving Block's co-founder, Pat Duffy, and Vance Roush, CEO of Overflow and board member at Palo Alto, California's VIVE Church, to learn more on the subject, which has the potential to impact church donations and fundraising into the future.
The Giving Block develops solutions to help nonprofits fundraise using cryptocurrency, while Overflow is an online stock donation platform that helps churches and nonprofits accept donations of publicly traded stock. Overflow counts Elevation Church and Meals on Wheels among its clients, while The Giving Block is the choice of 4Kids, Action Against Hunger USA, and others.
Here's what Duffy and Roush had to share.
Church.Design: Crypto philanthropy is relatively new. How does it work and how can churches take advantage of this type of donation?
Duffy: Today, donating cryptocurrency that has appreciated in value is the most tax-efficient donation method for millions of Americans. For builders hoping to assist churches with additional funding sources, crypto philanthropy is a great option. However, organizations must be equipped to accept, convert, and reconcile crypto donations—that’s where The Giving Block comes in. After that, crypto fundraising best practices unlock additional potential.
Church.Design: How did VIVE Church introduce this kind of giving to their congregation? Was everyone on board initially?
Roush: VIVE Church, which started in the heart of the Silicon Valley, has always aimed to be at the forefront of innovative approaches to ministry, worship experiences, serving the community, and facilitating generosity. Even before crypto philanthropy, VIVE was early in working with Overflow.co to accept stock donations at scale from their generous members. Crypto was a natural extension to that and another exciting and growing asset class which members wanted to give. Because of that, Overflow and VIVE partnered with The Giving Block to enable this.
"The encouragement to the congregation was that they can now 'give from their gains' as another option to participate in the building project."
Appreciated stock and crypto assets have a lot of tax benefits when given. The encouragement to the congregation was that they can now “give from their gains” as another option to participate in the building project. With the exciting campaign, education around the tax-efficient way to give with stock and crypto, and members’ ability to be more generous in this way, there was a really enthusiastic reception to unlocking this new channel of giving.
Church.Design: What are The Giving Block’s platform features and how did it integrate with VIVE’s existing donation streams?
Duffy: It’s taken The Giving Block four years to develop our team and resources, which include excellent support. On the product side, some nonprofits use our widget directly, others use an integrated solution where our API allows our crypto donation method to integrate seamlessly into platforms like Overflow, which is a nonprofit fundraising platform that makes it possible to donate stocks directly to nonprofits. In this case, VIVE uses The Giving Block through the Overflow solution. The process was seamless once set up by our team.
Church.Design: The Giving Block focuses primarily on donations of cryptocurrency, how can churches inform their members about this type of giving to assist in building project fundraising?
Duffy: Churches who sign up with the giving block don’t just get our tech, but they get access to crypto philanthropy specialists that help them engage their members and effectively fundraise crypto from them.
Over the past four years, The Giving Block has turned cryptocurrency into the fastest growing donation method, according to Pat Duffy, co-founder.
Church.Design: What are some of the biggest challenges when onboarding churches to The Giving Block? Do you provide resources to help donors understand how the cryptocurrency is transferred, converted, and funds donated?
Duffy: The biggest challenge tends to be organizational buy-in. Many U.S. Christians use crypto, yet churches have leadership that are frequently out of the loop. When you tell a church that there are as many people using crypto as PayPal, they don’t believe it. Once they read up a bit on the size and scope of crypto, churches are more convinced that crypto philanthropy is a viable option. But it’s pretty shocking how few churches accept it—even in 2022.
"The biggest challenge tends to be organizational buy-in. Many U.S. Christians use crypto, yet churches have leadership that are frequently out of the loop."
Church.Design: Are cryptocurrency donors able to take advantage of the same tax benefits?
Duffy: The benefits from crypto donations [are] more benefits. Not only do they receive the right off they get when they give cash, they don’t have to pay taxes on the crypto they donate. That’s up to 30% additional tax savings.
Church.Design: How is crypto philanthropy assisting with building campaigns in other regions (that aren’t located in the heart of Silicon Valley)?
Duffy: We now have nearly 1,500 clients, all across the U.S. and expanding internationally. With an average gift size of 11,000 on The Giving Block, word spreads fast.
Church.Design: What does The Giving Block want churches to know about crypto philanthropy?
Duffy: Crypto philanthropy is a legitimate asset class. Between the size, scope, and tax incentives, it is plausible that churches can increase donations for regular giving, building funds, and more by taking these types of donations.
"This donation method is far too large to ignore."
The Giving Block will be releasing an industry report this year that touches on this, but our biggest donor-advised fund partner raised hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto alone last year. This donation method is far too large to ignore.
Church.Design: What are the special needs surrounding non-cash donations to churches?
Roush: My observations around the success of Overflow + The Giving Block serving the church space at large is that Pastors have been longing to empower their church for a while now to be able to give generously through non-cash assets to resource important campaigns such as the purchases of buildings for worship and a hub for serving the community. For years they have accepted gifts such as land, stocks, and other alternative assets, but it's always been clunky, taken a lot of administrative effort and expense, and took a long time to facilitate the transaction. This led to a poor donation experience and lack of motivation to do it again. Overflow and The Giving Block's platform removes a lot of the manual work expectations from the donor and streamlines it through technology. In addition, Overflow and The Giving Block have become important thought partners with these churches and nonprofit organizations, educating and empowering them on the best ways to introduce these new ways of giving to their supporter bases.
Find more information on crypto philanthropy here:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-christians-are-called-money-truth
