Our Mission & Values
Our mission is to manage and encourage charitable giving of cryptocurrencies.
Endaoment aims to serve as the standard-bearing Community Foundation for the decentralized finance community.
Our goal is to reflect the values and vision of this community and center on the following:
INCLUSION - We elevate diverse voices. We are most impactful when our organization and our work include people from varied backgrounds, opinions, and perspectives. We are stronger together.
ENGAGEMENT - We create systems that encourage philanthropy as well as heightened involvement between grant recipients and donors. We have the most power when we work closely with one another.
RESPECT - We listen deeply and treat each other with kindness. We ask for and seek to understand the ideas of those both within and outside of our community.
THROUGHPUT - We focus on moving donated dollars from donors to nonprofit organizations with minimal fees and overhead. We aim to align our organizational incentives with those of the DAF holders, allowing us to focus closely on impact.
COLLABORATION - We learn from and with our partners to achieve meaningful impact.
PARTICIPATION - We achieve our strongest impact when we work together to determine best practices surrounding governance and oversight. We are building an organizational model that leverages new ways to collaborate and enhance our collective ability to do good in the world.
Organization Funding Policy
Endaoment does not fund organizations that, through their mission, activities, or partnerships endorse or promote any form of bigotry, violence, spread misinformation, or extremist views like racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and ethno-supremacy, to name a few. Endaoment’s Board of Directors retains the right to make the final determination regarding any organization’s compliance with this policy.
Endaoment has partnered with The Horizon Forum and their research-based risk-mitigation tool designed for Community Foundations. This tool is a database of 501(c)(3) nonprofits that are widely considered by academic, journalistic, and advocacy organizations as being involved in hate activity. It’s important to us that we are transparent with our donor community and promote donations to organizations that are positively advancing, and not harming, our society. Through this partnership, we source data from the following organizations’ lists of hate groups as a preventative measure to ensure donor safety and proper use of granted capital.
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Southern Poverty Law Center
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Anti-Defamation League
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Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative
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Counter Extremism Project
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Political Research Associates
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Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
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Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
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Council on American-Islamic Relations
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Hate Groups and Extremist Organizations in America: An Encyclopedia
Any grants made from any Funds at Endaoment as well as any other funding from Endaoment generally will go through an additional diligence process if directed towards an organization that appears on one of these lists.
In order to be eligible for funding, organizations must abide by this policy and must also initiate a process to develop organizational guidelines, policies, and procedures consistent with it if they otherwise would be ineligible. There can be no uniform set of policies or procedures that are applicable to every organization. Organizations are expected to adapt this policy to their unique circumstances.
This policy is not intended to discourage the presentation of a wide range of perspectives aimed at appealing to a broad cross-section of the community. Endaoment will review its policy and supporting guidelines with each grantee, address questions unique to that grantee, and explain how implementation of the policy and guidelines can be a benefit to the grantee and the community. Endaoment will also be bound by this policy in its own partnerships and co-sponsorships.
At every opportunity, decisions surrounding these policies will be communicated via public forums and using our community-driven communication channels (Discord, Twitter, and others).
Organization Due Diligence Criteria & Verification Policy
In addition to Endaoment’s Organization Funding Policy, Endaoment has specific requirements around what kinds of organizations may receive grant recommendations from our Donor-Advised Funds.
In order to pass preliminary due diligence & appear in our portal, an organization must:
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Be a 501(c)(3) Public Charity or Private Operating Foundation in good standing with the IRS
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Be verified on the IRS Publication 78 roster of organizations
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Have a Business Main File (BMF) on record with the IRS
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Not be a Private Non-Operating Foundation
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Not be a Private Foundation
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Not be a 509(a)(3) Supporting Foundation
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Not be on the U.S. O.F.A.C. watch-list
If an organization meets the above criteria, it will be eligible to appear on our portal and receive Grant Recommendations. Once a recommendation has been made, the Endaoment staff and Board of Directors will evaluate it against our Organization Funding Policy & No Donor Benefit policy and determine if the recommendation is acceptable.
In order to claim an organization and become the verified owner of the organization’s profile, a user must:
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Be a fiduciary or responsible officer or director at the organization in question (eg: CFO, CEO, Treasurer, Secretary, or President)
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Provide their name, address, and contact information
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Verify via official or public-facing organization marketing materials their affiliation with the organization
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Provide an Ethereum wallet address or U.S. Bank Account information for the Organization
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If providing an Ethereum wallet address, the user must conduct a video chat phone call with the Endaoment staff to confirm their identity and control over the provided Ethereum wallet address
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If providing U.S. bank account information, the account holder must be the name of the organization or its parent organization.
Should a user meet these requirements, Endaoment will verify the organization’s status on the Endaoment portal and pass any escrowed grant awards to the organization’s desired destination account.
Enforcement of Policy
In the event of a perceived violation by a grantee of Endaoment’s policy, the CEO, board chair, and officers will promptly review the situation, speak to the grantee, obtain the facts, understand the context, make a determination as to whether a grantee has violated the policy and – if it is determined that a grantee has violated the policy – take appropriate steps consistent with this policy. Where a grantee’s overall body of work has been consistent with Endaoment’s core values, the grantee will be urged to swiftly address concerns that have been raised as a result of a specific program.
Endaoment reserves the right to suspend funding and sponsorship, particularly in any case where it determines that an egregious policy violation has occurred, there has been a sustained pattern of violating the policy, or insufficient remedial measures were implemented. The enforcement of this policy will be gradually seeded to Endaoment token holders as governance and oversight of Endaoment is decentralized.\