Public perception has been a priority for companies around the world for as long as they have existed. But globalization and technology have increased the importance of efforts intended to improve public perception by making communication global and instantaneous. With most companies now trying to show they just don't pretend to do good but actually do it, blockchain has proven one of the most efficient tools in this endeavor.
The benefits of using a decentralized ledger to store and process transactions in a secure and efficient manner are widely known. However, it is the transparency that such a ledger brings that has proven most beneficial when it comes to auditing the charitable efforts of companies when it comes to financial donations. However, cryptocurrency has proven to be limited when it comes to other areas that go beyond direct charitable donations.
The increasing popularity of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has allowed the blockchain space to become increasingly relevant in the world of charity. By using NFTs, organizations and individuals are able to take action for the common good in a more varied way than cryptocurrencies would allow by themselves. While a market for NFT consulting and advisory has been around for years, there are now firms specializing in supporting charitable efforts.
One of these companies is ViciNFT. Since its founding in 2021, ViciNFT has been helping names like Kathie Lee Gifford, Michelle Phillips, Jon Fisher, San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay, Negro Leagues Baseball Musem, and Sam's Anchor Cafe in Tiburon to launch their own NFT projects. What do these projects have in common? All of them come with a mandatory charity component that saw up to 25% of their proceeds donated to charity.
"We're in the business of NFTs for the common good. Many charities do silent auctions, for example, in the sale of a piece of art," said ViciNFT's Co-Founder Bill Gladstone in an interview with Grit Daily. "NFTs give them a chance for a second run at it so that they can continue to raise more money."
Until now, most NFT philanthropic ventures have been closely related to the world of art with news like that of Mamas & the Papas' vocalist Michelle Phillips, who auctioned iconic NFTs and dinner for charity in 2021. However, with charity-specific cryptocurrencies like Vicinity (VCNT) now available, companies like NFT are looking to expand their reach beyond the space of NFT art. The company has raised $1.8 million dollars for charity through NFT sales, on revenues in the 8 figures.
Notably, the company is also working on top-of-class security products for NFT fraud identification, consistent with the founding team's enterprise-software background. Jon Fisher, whose last company was acquired by Oracle, Vit Kantor who consulted for the ubiquitous SWIFT cooperative, and Rich Smith (ex-Microsoft) lead engineering on the team, with an emphasis on security products.
Cofounder Bill Gladstone, who ranks as one of the top literary agents globally following hundreds of millions of copies of "For Dummies" books sold, drove the bulk of the company's robust revenues in its first year on the back of his client Rolodex.
Cofounder Jordan French, arguably the company's only crypto native before ViciNFT's founding, started at TheStreet covering Bitcoin and consulted for what is now OneOf, as early as 2017. He raised the company's profile in late 2021 after selling Miami Blockchain & NFT Summit to Mana to form NFT BZL, and in 2022 hosted the Media Stage, an official satellite event to CoinDesk's Consensus Festival, along with ever-popular CryptoMondays and Lou Kerner. Kerner and French hold roles at Quantum Economics, the boutique crypto research firm.
With the NFT craze now long gone, the speculation that prevented the entirety of the NFT space from being taken seriously has disappeared. This is in contrast with donations to nonprofit organizations, which are expected to surpass the $100 billion mark this year. With companies like ViciNFT facilitating the merging of NFTs, cryptocurrency, and charity, the time seems ripe for a new charity paradigm.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of techtimes.com
