HISTORIC NFT DONATION TO PLANT 837,000+ TREES
WoodiesNFT Donates $217,000 Worth of ETH to Trees for the Future
SILVER SPRING, MD (September 29, 2021) – Regenerative agroforestry nonprofit Trees for the Future (TREES) received a historic non-fungible token (NFT) donation from an artist collective, the UltraDAO, totaling 73.824 ETH (Ethereum) or $217,000 (USD). The donation is one of the ten largest known charitable donations by an NFT project in history.
“We’re ecstatic to be part of the growing world of cryptocurrency and NFTs and wholly recognize the exponential potential this tool has in charitable giving, international development, and so much more,” TREES Executive Director John Leary says. “Thank you, WoodiesNFT. This monumental gift will have a lasting impact on people and our planet.”
TREES trains farmers in developing countries in a sustainable farming technique called the Forest Garden Approach. Farmers are given the tools, resources, and knowledge needed to plant thousands of trees on their land, completely transforming degraded landscapes and dramatically improving their income and food security.
“With the community’s strong focus on the environment and the ability to know that they are making an actionable change, the support has been overwhelming and the excitement to see the donation made is almost palpable,” says Richard Powazynski, Woodies NFT Marketing Lead.
THE LASTING IMPACT OF A 73.824 ETH DONATION
- 1,600+ farmers will receive Forest Garden training, breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty for themselves and their families.
- 837,900+ trees will be planted by farmers in TREES projects across sub-Saharan Africa.
- 30,299 metric tonnes of Carbon Dioxide will be sequestered by these Forest Gardens over the next 20 years.
DONATING CRYPTOCURRENCY THROUGH NFT PROJECTS
WoodiesNFT is a collection of 10,000 generated characters that can be used as profile avatars created by the UltraDAO. The UltraDAO is an established artist DAO. WoodiesNFT is the first major community project by the UltraDAO and is one of the largest NFT project teams for a 10k project (all members of the DAO). Woodies is creating a story-driven, complex universe for users to interact, play games, and earn rewards through tree-inspired avatars. NFT stands for non-fungible token and is a unit of data stored on a blockchain and cannot be copied. Users purchase Woodies with the cryptocurrency Ethereum.
With a narrative centered on magical trees and an evil Logger, WoodiesNFT pledged to donate 10% of the profits to global reforestation efforts.
“A core element of our project was to include a charitable element that fit with the Woodies brand,” says Powazynski. “When we discovered TREES we immediately felt that it was the right choice. The ability for the community to adopt the Woodies and in return know that their actions would help with global reforestation efforts, helped propel the project forward and resulted in us successfully selling out the project in 30 minutes.”
“It’s been incredible to see the significant amount of support from NFT projects to nonprofits that are helping charities propel missions and make an even greater impact than they thought imaginable,” says Pat Duffy, Co-Founder of The Giving Block. “We are grateful to WoodiesNFT for their generosity to Trees for the Future and to all those in the NFT space who are making change through these unique and creative projects.”
MAKING HISTORY
TREES became one of the first environmental nonprofits to accept cryptocurrency in 2020. Powered by The Giving Block, cryptocurrency holders can make a secure crypto donation, which is then converted into dollars and directed to TREES’ programs.
“We have seen crypto donations to nonprofits soar to new heights this year and more recently there has been a fast-growing number of donations coming from proceeds of NFT projects,” says Alex Wilson, Co-Founder of The Giving Block. “This is in the top 10 NFT donations we’ve seen so far to date.”
TREES is working to plant one billion trees through sustainable farming practices by 2030. To date, the organization has planted more than 220 million. In the last year, TREES has raised nearly half a million dollars in cryptocurrency. Those funds support nearly two million trees planted, 69,885 tonnes of CO2 sequestered, and 3,865 farmers trained.
“Our donor community is critical to achieving our goals, so it’s important to us to explore new and evolving ways to give,” says Alexa Castellano, Individual Giving Coordinator at TREES. “The crypto community has made it clear that they want to utilize cryptocurrency for the good of our planet and we couldn’t be more grateful.”
Donate cryptocurrency to TREES here and become part of the positive impact.
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Trees for the Future is a registered 501 (c)(3) nonprofit training smallholder farmers in regenerative agriculture techniques across sub-Saharan Africa.
Media Contact: Lindsay Cobb – lindsay@trees.org