Today the Children's Museum in Oak Lawn became, we believe, the first children's museum in the country to accept cryptocurrency for donations. This seemed like a big step for us, but really it was probably something we should have started looking into a few years ago. The thought never crossed anyone's mind, that was until the pandemic.
Back in March of 2020 we had to close our doors and we would remain closed, with just a brief reopening in October-November 2020, until January of 2021. A PPP loan plus a few grants and some donations, as well as revenue from memberships and admissions once we reopened, we started getting back to serving children and families.
It was only April of 2021, a full year from our closure, when I was sitting reading an article about Bitcoin where I thought, "Why aren't we accepting cryptocurrency as donations?" I had no logical answer as to why we weren't doing this so I posted it to my personal Facebook page. It was at that moment, when replies started coming in, that I realized that a lot of people I knew were into cryptocurrency.
How did I not know this before? Nobody really talked about it.
I started doing some research and floated the idea by my Board officers. There was much discussion about it but they couldn't come up with a reason why we shouldn't take it as a donation either. It really boiled down to policy and one question: If we accept cryptocurrency, do we hold it or do we sell it?
If we held it, the value is so volatile that you never know what it is going to be worth from one day to the next. When it comes to stock donation, our practice is to liquidate them once they are donated so it was agreed that our policy should mirror how we treat stock donations and vehicle donations.
The next step was to find an online tool or a company who could help us with this. My search yielded two main players in the game: The Giving Block and Engiven. The two key differences were (1) The Giving Block wanted a $2,500 a year fee plus a small percentage of each donation. They would handle all of the receipts and things for the donor. There was also a carrot that they have people who would find us through their website and just choose us to donate to. (2) Engiven, the other company, would handle all of the receipts and things for the donors and they would charge a 4% fee for handling the transaction. No annual fee. No carrot of "people will find you on our website."
While both companies had their merits, as a smaller nonprofit who is taking their first step into accepting cryptocurrency, the $2,500 annual fee was a dealbreaker. We just couldn't, coming out of a pandemic, spend donor dollars on something we just didn't know would yield any results. It's not to say I didn't like them because they did have a lot of bigger nonprofits, but I just felt like a smaller nonprofit like ours would get lost. We don't have the recognition of the American Cancer Society, for example. As information was gathered, Engiven just felt like the right decision for us at this moment. They offered an inexpensive path into being able to accept crypto. Their structure is no different than a Guidestar or Facebook where a small processing fee is charged for a donation that passes through them. It's a model most nonprofits know and are comfortable with.
While we are only accepting cryptocurrency for donations, there could be a day where we start accepting it for other things. That is, ultimately, the goal of cryptocurrency right? But, for today, we are just taking a first step and just starting with donations. Lao Tzu said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." This is our first step.
If you'd like to see how we've set it up, you can go to https://www.cmoaklawn.org/help-us-grow.html and click on Donate Cryptocurrency to learn more. When you click on the button, you'll be taken to our donation page that has a few FAQs that we think are helpful and Engiven suggested. Of course, while you are there, if you'd like to be one of our first cryptocurrency donors, we'd be ever grateful as we work through our mission: to positively impact a child's potential in life through play-based education. Learn more about us at www.cmoaklawn.org.
In the comments below, tell us if you've ever donated cryptocurrency to a nonprofit or if you are affiliated with a nonprofit (employee or volunteer) that accepts cryptocurrency, provide a link to them and why they are an important part of your life based on the work they do.
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Adam Woodworth is the Executive Director of the Children's Museum in Oak Lawn. Our mission is to positively impact a child's potential in life through play-based education.
