Takeaway – Nonprofits can avoid risk by accepting and immediately liquidating donations of cryptocurrency. If they are planning to hold onto virtual currency for the long term, nonprofits should make sure they use platforms that are properly licensed and registered, and figure out how virtual currency can be incorporated into the nonprofit’s larger financial strategy.
Virtual currency is gaining mainstream attention with each passing day. Nonprofits such as the American Red Cross, UNICEF, and American Cancer Society leverage platforms including The Giving Block and other services to accept a wide range of virtual currencies, as part of their overall fundraising strategies.
At our firm, we continue to work with nonprofit clients as they consider whether and how to fundraise using cryptocurrency. Here are a few questions we have been asked and other questions charities should be asking of potential fundraising platform partners.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we accept virtual currency?
For many organizations, this is an easy answer – yes. There are few risks to accepting donations of virtual currency, especially if nonprofits immediately liquidate those donations. Donors of virtual currency typically skew younger, possibly opening up a new demographic of supporters for the organization. The board should consider including virtual currency in its Gift Acceptance Policy, a document every organization should have to guide its board, executives, and staff in their development work.
Should we immediately liquidate donations of virtual currency, or hold onto them?
This is more difficult to answer, as it is based on how much risk the organization can tolerate. Virtual currency is highly volatile – its value can skyrocket or plummet within a matter of hours or days, making it a risky asset to hold onto. Whether to hold onto virtual currency is a decision that should be made with the input of a nonprofit’s board and executive team. If virtual currency is held as part of the organization’s investments, or if a donor asks the organization to hold the virtual currency as an endowment or long-term investment, the organization should consider how that fits within the organization’s overall investment strategy and portfolio, and the applicability of state laws governing the prudent management of institutional funds/assets.
One concern is volatility – few organizations want to see their donations halve in value. For many organizations, the potential upside isn’t worth the potential risk.
A second concern is regulatory risk. As the Chinese central bank, SEC, FINCEN, IRS, and other domestic and international regulators grapple with how to regulate virtual currency, the liquidity and accessibility of virtual currency markets is up in the air. Even major players like Coinbase and Ripple have been subject to or threatened by regulatory action.
Charities are often cautious when holding virtual currency, concerned that the regulatory environment could shift in a way that devalues or freezes their holdings. If a nonprofit is using a virtual currency account on a platform that is subject to an SEC action, for instance, the platform might be forced to freeze transactions until such time as the SEC allows it to continue operations.
Organizations that are highly diversified and have the financial cushion to absorb a zeroing out of their virtual currency donations, taking into account the diversification of risk across the organization’s entire investment portfolio, might be comfortable with the risks of virtual currency. The potential upside of assets like Bitcoin are hard to ignore – despite volatility, Bitcoin’s value has been on a consistent march upward. Other coins, like Ethereum, have not been far behind. If your organization is willing to take the risk, and has considered the prudent investment regulatory considerations, you can create a wallet at a prominent, legally-compliant platform, and park your virtual currency there and “Hold On for Dear Life” (HODL, as some in crypto-world like to say).
Fortunately, the major virtual currency fundraising platforms allow immediate liquidation of donations. Again, this is the option chosen by most nonprofit organizations. As I mentioned above, nonprofits should include virtual currency in their Gift Acceptance Policy and Investment Policy to help guide their development professionals as they consider whether and how to accept virtual currency donations.
How do we treat virtual currency for accounting purposes?
Despite continued regulatory action in other parts of the crypto market, IRS rules around donations of virtual currency have been relatively stable. Since 2014, the IRS has been clear that virtual currency should be treated as property. A taxpayer donating virtual currency they have held for more than a year may deduct the fair market value of the currency at the time of its donation, similar to other forms of property, such as publicly-traded stocks. This provides a tax benefit to donors who invested in virtual currency in its infancy – they can support their favorite charities without being taxed on the gains they’ve enjoyed on paper.
This consistent treatment from the IRS means that charities can rest assured that they can accept virtual currency in the same way that they can accept donations of appreciated stock or other forms of property. The accounting department or external accountants should be able to handle booking donations of virtual currency without much trouble. A caveat is that, in a nonbinding FAQ, the IRS has said that nonprofits must fill out Form 8282 whenever the nonprofit sells, exchanges, or otherwise disposes of its virtual currency. This is a departure from the IRS’s treatment of virtual currency as akin to stocks, which a nonprofit can sell without filing Form 8282. While not insurmountable, nonprofits and their fundraising platforms should discuss how to operationalize capturing the information required for filing Form 8282.
Questions to Ask a Fundraising Platform
Now that we have considered some of the frequent questions nonprofits ask their advisers, let’s consider questions nonprofits should ask a prospective fundraising platform as part of their due diligence.
Are you registered as a professional fundraiser?
Fundraising is regulated in most states, with each state using its own regulatory regime. Individuals and organizations that support charities are often subject to laws regulating charitable solicitation (here’s an excellent overview from my colleague Tracy Boak). Charities are affected by these regulations and are obliged to make sure they only partner with organizations that are properly registered and licensed, if required.
Many fundraising platforms (both traditional and those dealing with virtual currency) take the position that they are not professional fundraisers, due to the way they structure their platforms and services, e.g., because they don’t affirmatively solicit donations on behalf of any charity and don’t take custody of donations. Regardless, a platform should be able to tell you why it isn’t subject to fundraising registration requirements. By asking the question, nonprofits can rest assured their fundraising platform partner is on top of its compliance obligations.
Are you registered as a Money Service Business or Money Transmitter?
Money Service Business (MSB) and Money Transmitter (MT) regulations are implemented at the federal and state levels. Their purpose is to weed out fraud and money laundering in the money transmission business. Generally speaking, MSB and MT laws create licensing structures that require licensed entities to do some due diligence on their customers, including “KYC” (know your customer) and “AML” (anti-money laundering) requirements.
Since 2013, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has applied money transmitter regulations to some entities within the virtual currency ecosystem. According to FinCEN, if a person or organization accepts money or another instrument with monetary value from one person and transmits it to another person, that person may be classified as a money transmitter under federal regulations. (A comprehensive rundown of FinCEN’s guidance is found here). This means that any entity that accepts virtual currency from one party and transmits it to another party could be considered a money transmitter subject to the federal rules. The same rules apply if the entity accepts virtual currency, converts it to fiat currency (i.e., U.S. dollars), and transmits the fiat currency to another person or entity.
FinCEN does provide some exceptions, including those entities that only provide network access or serve as payment processors, exceptions which largely do not apply to crypto-fundraising. Whether a person or entity will be treated as a money transmitter is a facts-and-circumstances determination, but FINCEN clearly intends to define money transmission broadly and interpret its exceptions narrowly (see the discussion on pages 12-22 of the guidance linked above).
Nonprofits considering crypto-fundraising options should ask the potential partner whether it is registered as a money transmitter. If not, ask how they ensure that their services aren’t used inappropriately – do they work with a partner that is a licensed entity? Who does their KYC and AML compliance work?
Do you accept anonymous donations?
Anonymous donations are nothing new – charities have received anonymous donations large and small since long before the birth of cryptocurrency. But many charities are wary of the “dark side” of cryptocurrency and its reputation (rightly or wrongly earned) for facilitating illicit activity. Nonprofits should check with their potential fundraising platform to confirm whether they allow anonymous donations. If so, ask whether the donations are anonymous to the platform, or only to the charity. If the donation is anonymous to the platform, ask whether and how the platform ensures the anonymous donations aren’t connected with illicit activity. The answer may be that the platform does not, or cannot, do anything else to ascertain the identity of donors who wish to remain anonymous. If that is the case, the nonprofit should consider whether it is comfortable with the risks of accepting anonymous donations.
Those risks are generally the same as accepting any other high-value anonymous donation – that a donation of virtual currency could be traced back to illicit activity or a potential clawback, if the virtual currency that is donated doesn’t belong to the donor. One difference with anonymous donations of cash or other types of property is that the virtual currency environment is highly transparent, even if it may be highly anonymized. Bitcoin transactions are viewable on the blockchain, even if the participants in the transactions may remain anonymous.
Do you issue donation receipts? Do you fill out Form 8282? Will we get a donor list?
One of the core tasks in charitable fundraising is issuing receipts to donors. Donors need to keep those receipts on file, in case they want to claim a charitable deduction. Many platforms will create automatic receipts. Nonprofits should confirm that the receipts issued by its platform partners are compliant with IRS requirements, and ask for copies for your records.
Nonprofits should also ensure that the fundraising platform will provide you with a list of your donors, to make sure you can build out your donor base.
