Robbie Heeger\u2019s Endaoment has facilitated the donation of over $30 million of cryptocurrency to 243 different charities.<\/b> These donations come from altruistic cryptocurrency investors who are also partly motivated by reducing their tax burdens to Uncle Sam and keeping more of their profits.<\/strong><\/p>\n Born in Silicon Valley, Heeger, now in his early 30\u2019s, was exposed to entrepreneurship from a young age. Though he initially worked in big tech, he soon became so enthralled with blockchain that he dropped everything to pursue his new passion in 2018. This led him to create <\/span>Endaoment<\/span><\/a>, which he calls the first regulatory-compliant nonprofit built entirely on the Ethereum blockchain. The project allows anyone to donate one of over 150 cryptocurrencies to a charity of their choice and, in doing so, reduce their tax liabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n Endaoment represents the latest generation of blockchain giving \u2014 but it is not the first. In 2017, a mysterious figure calling themselves Pine anonymously donated 5057 Bitcoin, worth $55 million at the time, to a collection of over 60 charities. <\/span><\/p>\n These donations not only encouraged major charities to accept cryptocurrency contributions for the first time but also served to counteract the perception of Bitcoin being primarily used in dishonest or criminal activities. While the <\/span>Pineapple Fund<\/span> helped legitimize cryptocurrency<\/a> as a medium of charity, it was by no means the first. As early as 2011, Bruno Ku\u010dinskasin created <\/span>Bitcoin 100<\/span>, an initiative to donate Bitcoin to charities that would openly accept BTC.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite many charities\u2018 early exposure to cryptocurrency, few have continued to receive substantial donations on the blockchain and many even removed such donation options from their websites. The reason was simple on one level and yet complex by nature \u2014 <\/span>taxes<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Upon graduating from university in 2012, Heeger accepted a full-time position with Apple where he first worked as a content publishing quality assurance engineer before becoming a manager of production operations. As his career progressed, his fascination with blockchain technology grew and in 2018, he \u201cleft Apple with this understanding that crypto was not just something that I could be tangentially interested in anymore \u2014 it was consuming.\u201d Despite his experience at a major tech company, he saw himself as technically weak and took boot camp-style classes in solidity coding and blockchain web development.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI started brainstorming ways that I could take this new skill set and try and build something that would funnel crypto capital into non-profit organizations that otherwise would have had very little exposure to crypto,\u201d Heeger recounts of his early days. One of his initial ideas was to create a \u201cmedia chain\u201d by which to verify news content and make it resistant to censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The brainstorming paid off, as he recalled how he had made it a habit to give away a portion of his Apple stock to a donor-advised fund each year because he \u201chad stock that had tax obligations on it and I wanted to give that stock away without having to sell it first.\u201d Charity can, of course, be more than simply selfless giving, as strategic donations can often allow for both individuals and businesses to reduce their tax burdens. While selling AAPL stock before donating it would have incurred additional capital gains taxes, giving the stock to a donor-advised fund allowed him to receive tax benefits for the entire value of the stock without incurring capital gains taxes, as charitable donor-advised funds are not liable to tax.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI had crypto that had appreciated significantly and I didn\u2018t want to sell it first in order to donate it. I thought \u2018wouldn\u2018t it be cool if there was a donor-advised fund that took crypto\u2019 and that was the seed that became Endaoment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Heeger, now in his early 30\u2019s, founded Endaoment in March 2019. Its core function is to provide a tax receipt in exchange for a donation of cryptocurrency. As a <\/span>donor-advised fund<\/span>, those making donations receive \u201cadvisory privileges\u201d which means that they can suggest where they would like the proceeds of their cryptocurrency to be donated. In practice, this means that 99% of the time, funds go to the donor\u2019s desired U.S. charity of which Heeger says there are about 2.5 million. The 1% of times when the funds do not reach the donor\u2019s first choice of destination include situations where the grant recommendation \u201cis to a hate group or an organization that\u2018s not in good standing with the Internal Revenue Service, or one that presents some conflict of interest for the organization,\u201d Heeger explains<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGive us your crypto and we will give you a tax receipt that says you donated it to a 501C3 tax-exempt non-profit public benefit corporation called Endaoment,\u201d he clarifies regarding the business model.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Thank you for the bids on Grifter #659. One of three rats in the collection and without doubt the most pretty. \u2014 XCOPY 🏴 (@XCOPYART) December 23, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Suppose Fred bought 1000 ETH at $3 for $3,000. At $3,000 per ETH, he now has $3 million worth. Presuming a 33.33% capital gains tax, he would owe the government about $1 million upon sale, being left with $2 million for himself. Alternatively, he could choose to donate 250 ETH to Endaoment, which would issue him a tax receipt for the equivalent of the $750,000 donation \u2014 which would count against and fully cancel out his $750,000 tax liability when selling the remaining 750 ETH, meaning he would be left with $2.25 million, with $750,000 sent to the charity of his choice and zero going to the IRS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The talk of the <\/span>IRS<\/span><\/a> reveals a bottleneck: In order to maintain its status as a U.S. tax-exempt public interest corporation, Endaoment can only issue grants to <\/span>501C3<\/span><\/a> charities registered with U.S. authorities. This means that while many local charities outside the U.S. would not be valid recipients of donations, various international causes can still be targeted as many of the charities act globally.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2018ve done a lot of work in Sub-Saharan Africa and Afghan refugee relief, and donations to\u00a0<\/span>organizations\u00a0that do work in Europe and all over the world that just have US 501C3 entities that they use as fundraising vehicles for donors in the U.S.,\u201d Heeger clarifies.<\/span><\/p>\n Though Heeger notes that he \u201ccannot solicit services to people outside of the U.S.,\u201d people outside the United States have used the Endaoment software to make crypto donations for which they receive U.S. tax receipts just as any American would. Success in getting tax deductions in such international cases is far from guaranteed, and Heeger notes that not all countries issue tax deductions on the basis of charitable giving. Many users have asked about the possibility of creating tax receipts that meet the requirements of various governments, as the tax systems of many countries consider self-directed donations as societally desirable and therefore encourage them by granting tax reductions based on registered donations.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2018ve seen people in Japan, in Australia, in the U.K. and in France come and use the site in order to effect impact \u2014 They have taken on the burden of figuring out how they prove the deductibility with their local regulators themselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Heeger sees many opportunities for future expansion including to charities in other countries which he believes would upgrade the number of options from 2.5 to over 7 million charitable organizations. It is clear that his mind has never left Silicon Valley, as he characterizes the project as a \u201cminimum viable product that supports straightforward crypto giving of any crypto asset to any U.S. nonprofit as dollars.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Heeger grew up in California\u2019s Palo Alto in the early 2000s, which he describes as an intense and highly competitive environment where various parents of his classmates would \u201cshow up on keynotes for the iPhone or some Google service.\u201d The setting made for an environment with lots of access to and encouragement to use and experiment with new technologies, with tech companies often using the schools he went to as testing grounds for new products.<\/span><\/p>\n Driven by a passion for storytelling, in 2008, Heeger began studies in broadcast and digital journalism at the University of Southern California. He specialized in publishing technology, inspired by what he saw as a \u201cdisruption of the legacy media institutions by the internet\u201d causing a change in the way people got information. He also grew interested in ethics such as the need to balance profitability and the journalistic duty of honest reporting. Soon, he found himself running iTunes\u2019 social media channels as an Apple intern.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI really loved the triangle of business, technology and ethics, and having to try and find balance between those three key drivers \u2014 journalism had that in spades.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Throughout his studies, he worked for the campus TV news station, where he eventually oversaw 25 reporters and other staff as a multimedia director. In 2010, Heeger had \u201ca real eye-opener\u201d when he traveled to Tanzania to volunteer as an English teacher at a rural town on the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro through an organization called Cross-Cultural Solutions. Though he looked for teaching methods that would help the children gear up for their future in a competitive world, he saw that providing a Palo Alto-style education was a \u201cchallenge when you\u2018re trying to do work in a space that\u2018s chronically underfunded.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 2021 was a breakout year for @endaomentdotorg<\/a>, from major gifts 💰, to #NFT<\/a> powered #philanthropy<\/a> 🖼, to fiscal sponsorships 📜 and beyond! 🚀<\/p>\n Learn about the community behind nearly $30 million in #CryptoPhilanthropy<\/a> in our full Annual Impact Report: https:\/\/t.co\/OYAKGgFc3v<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/rd8OD3Nxuk<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Robbie](\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/magazine-Robbie-Heeger-Endaoment.jpg\")
Endaoment<\/h4>\n
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All proceeds will go to the Grifter Fund in collaboration with @endaomentdotorg<\/a> 🙏
Check out all the auctions: https:\/\/t.co\/hpSUANo3Dl<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/OJ5Ktei1QB<\/a><\/p>\nHere\u2019s how it works in numbers<\/h4>\n
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Born in Silicon Valley<\/h4>\n
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