Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3

For episode 273 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re thrilled to welcome back Tim Stirrup, Executive Director of Better Giving, a member-powered, open-source fundraising and financial commons for nonprofits, and a nonprofit itself.

Over the last couple of episodes, we’ve been exploring the state of the impact sector, from the two funding storms hitting impact builders in The Great Funding Reset, to the resilient ways communities care for each other in our episode on mutual aid. In this conversation, we bring that discussion down to the day-to-day reality of running a no...

For episode 272 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we explore the intersection of mutual aid and Web3, picking up where our last episode, The Great Funding Reset, left off. In that episode, we explored the two funding storms hitting impact builders right now: the cooling of Web3 public goods funding, and the largest drop in international aid on record. And we ended on an important idea: that community-owned funding might be the oldest and most resilient funding model there is, because it never depended on outside money in the first place.

Long before there were foundations...

For episode 271 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we explore what we’re calling “The Great Funding Reset,” and what it means for anyone building for impact right now.

If you work in the impact space, whether you're building in Web3, running a nonprofit, or working anywhere in international development, you've probably felt it: the ground has shifted. The Web3 public goods funding boom of a few years ago has quieted down considerably, and just this month, a funding platform that many projects relied on shut down. At the same time, outside of Web3, international aid budgets are being...

For episode 270 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're excited to welcome Tiffany Wang, Head of EMEA at FLock.io, and a contributor to the Blockchain for Good Alliance, to explore how NGOs, nonprofits, and civil society organizations can harness AI and blockchain for innovation and impact.

If you work in the nonprofit or international development space, you've probably felt the pressure lately. Funding is tighter, needs are growing, and everywhere you turn, someone is telling you that AI and blockchain will change everything. But for many NGOs and civil society organizations, the real question is...

For the second installment of our series, Building for Good with G$, we're excited to welcome Sam McCarthy, who has been leading GoodDollar's work to rebuild its governance through GoodDAO. The series explores the people, projects, and communities powering the GoodDollar ecosystem.

In episode 1, we sat down with Rael, Meri, and Graven to explore a big shift underway at GoodDollar. The project started with a focus on distributing G$ as universal basic income, but its vision has since grown into creating an open economy, where G$ circulates through builders...

For episode 269 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, Drew takes a solo deep dive into one of the most pressing questions facing the nonprofit sector today: can NGOs and grassroots movements use AI for humanitarian impact without compromising their values?

Lately, whenever we talk with people working at nonprofits, NGOs, and grassroots organizations, the conversation almost always turns to AI. And the feeling in the room is usually a mix of curiosity and discomfort. Curiosity, because these tools could help overstretched teams do more. Discomfort, because so much of what we hear about AI clashes with...

For Episode 268 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're thrilled to welcome back Jimi Cohen, founder of Treegens and a world record tree planter. Jimi first joined us back in Episode 158, and so much has happened since.

But Jimi's story doesn't start with world records, or even with Web3. It starts with a love of trees. Environmentalism runs in his family, and that passion showed up early. In his university days, he went door to door in his dorm, raising money for environmental causes one conversation at a time. But he began to envision...

For episode 267 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’ve got a full house. We are joined by four guests, each representing a different piece of a groundbreaking pilot project, and together they tell a story that's an incredible example of how blockchain is changing lives and building more resilient communities.

Across Kenya, and much of Sub-Saharan Africa, informal market traders live with a brutal kind of vulnerability. Picture a woman running a produce stall in an open-air market in Nairobi. When the heavy rains come, and they're coming harder and more often, her stall floods, her customers va...

For episode 266 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to share a live recording of our workshop hosted by GoodDollar, for the GoodBuilders community. The session is called “Web3 Without the Complexity: Building for Everyone,” where we highlight five humanitarian case studies of projects that have done an excellent job turning the complexity of Web3 into a seamless user experience, while having an incredible real-world impact.

The presentation is built around a simple thesis: the projects winning real adoption aren't the ones explaining blockchain better. They're the ones that removed the need to exp...

For episode 265 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're excited to welcome Cooper Squirrell, Founder of UrVote and Veri, two companies tackling one of the most important and underappreciated problems of our time: how do you verify what's true online without giving away everything else?

We've all felt that unease. The email that lands in your inbox warning that your data may have been compromised. The intense verification process that asks you to hand over your passport, a selfie, and proof of address just to confirm one small fact about yourself. So much of...

For episode 264 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we have a special solo episode to celebrate the upcoming Ukrainian Independence Day on August 24th. We dive into what I believe is one of the most important stories in the entire history of crypto for good: the role cryptocurrency and blockchain have played in helping Ukraine persevere since Russia's full-scale invasion.

When the invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine's financial system came under enormous strain. Within days, the Ukrainian government did something no nation had done before: it posted its crypto wallet addresses on Twitter and asked the world for...

For episode 263 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're excited to welcome James Newell of the GSR Foundation, a global charity and grantmaker working to ensure that no one is excluded from the benefits of technology. Their tagline says it beautifully: inclusion powers innovation. GSR Foundation is also a supporter of Crypto Altruists and has been essential in helping us get our Web3 Impact Toolkit off the ground.

On this show, we spend a lot of time exploring new models for funding impact, and this episode dives into one of the...

For episode 262 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're excited to welcome D.G. Safeer Hopton, a lifelong cooperative innovator, author, and founder of the Global Village Co-op. With more than 50 years in the cooperative movement, going all the way back to 1970, D.G. brings a rare depth of experience in community-owned, democratically governed systems.

In crypto, we sometimes talk about decentralization like we invented it. We celebrate DAOs, decentralized autonomous organizations, as a radical new idea: communities that pool resources, share ownership, and make decisions democratically, without a central authority calling the shots. And it...

For episode 261 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we have a special solo episode in store where we explore why the United Nations is going all in on blockchain and cryptocurrency, highlighting some of their most exciting projects from agencies like UNICEF, The World Food Program, The UNDP, and the UNHCR, that are leveraging web3 tools to drive humanitarian impact.

We walk through why the UN has embraced blockchain and cryptocurrency, the real-world impact they're having on millions of people around the world, and what other NGOs, nonprofits, changemakers, or activists can...

For episode 260 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're excited to welcome Sharonda D., a registered nurse with 20 years at the bedside, a tech builder, and a member of the crypto community. She's helping launch the Crypto Community Fund for Healthcare Access in partnership with Sostento, a nonprofit dedicated to helping uninsured Americans reach the care they need.

I want to take you back to 2021. PPE had run out. Everywhere. And nurses and health workers showed up to their shifts anyway, putting themselves at risk because that's what the job asked of...

For episode 259 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Inès d'Haultfoeuille, Chief Operating Officer of Egregor, a non-profit dedicated to catalysing social and environmental transformations, playing roles that range from accelerator to venture philanthropist and strategic advisor. Their team is truly global, and their work reaches across climate, education, social justice, civic engagement, and more.

If you work in the nonprofit or impact space, the last few years have been brutal. Funding is being cut. Donor priorities are shifting, sometimes overnight. Geopolitical instability is reshaping whe...

For episode 258 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Shannon Lanigan, Heenal Rajani, and Marvin Paul of All In For Sport, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on a mission to create a “coordi-nation” to support projects that advance inclusion and empowerment through sport.

This episode is part two of an ongoing conversation, so let me set the stage. In episode 245, we sat down with the team at SuperBenefit to explore their Reimagining Power series. That conversation was about the theory and the possib...

For episode 257 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we welcome Erik Balsbaugh and Carole House of Open Frontier, a non-profit advocacy organization and a leading voice on how digital currencies, Artificial Intelligence, and emerging technologies can empower underserved communities and advance the values so many of us care about: inclusion, accountability, and financial freedom.

A few episodes back, I released a solo episode on AI, the hype cycle, and the principle of "do no harm." And the response really moved me. It clearly struck a chord, because so many of...

For episode 256 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Martin Simms and Aaron Rafferty, co-founders of WYDE, a social impact exchange built on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2, where transaction-based fees are directed into verified charitable grants for hunger relief.

They call themselves an "Impact Exchange," and the model is built on a concept called "contributory consumption," where everyday financial activity like crypto trades or even debit card purchases generate charitable impact by design, rather than relying on one-off acts of generosity. At th...

Today we’re excited to kick off a brand new series: Building for Good with G$, where we will explore the people, projects, and communities powering the GoodDollar Ecosystem. We’re thankful to our friends at GoodDollar for partnering on this series, and in the coming episodes, we’re going to take you deep inside one of the most interesting ecosystems in the Web3 for good space, exploring everything from universal basic income to public goods funding, and the builders and communities creating real value on the ground.

So let me start with a quic...

For episode 255 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we're doing something a little different. No guest, no interview, just a conversation about something that's been on my mind: the parallels between crypto's hype cycle and the moment AI is in right now.

A few years ago, we were told crypto would change everything. It would bank the unbanked, topple corrupt institutions, create generational wealth, and solve humanity's hardest problems. Some of that came true. A lot of it didn't. And along the way, the noise, the scams, and the booms and busts drove people away and...

For episode 254 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Alison, Director at Buddies for Paws, a charitable initiative within the BONK ecosystem that's leveraging blockchain technology to support animal welfare and wildlife conservation worldwide. Every donation made through Buddies for Paws is matched 100% by BONK, and to date, the community has raised almost $600,000 for animal welfare.

What makes Buddies for Paws special isn't just the model. It's the storytelling. Through their "guardian animals" program, donors can follow specific animals like Bani the elephant, who was struck by...

For episode 253 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Maksym Zalevskyi , Founder of GEN Ukraine, the Ukrainian branch of the Global Ecovillage Network. GEN Ukraine is a grassroots network of over 60 ecovillages, family farms, and intentional communities across the country. Since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, these communities have become sanctuaries for displaced families, solidarity centers, and hubs for ecological regeneration.

What makes this story particularly interesting for our audience is how Web3 fits in. GEN Ukraine has built partnerships with projects like Arkreen for solar energy tr...

For episode 252 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome Paul Glavin, a contributor to 1Hive and Gardens, a bottom-up governance framework for Web3 ecosystems. Gardens provides coordination infrastructure and funding mechanisms designed to help communities fund public goods in a way that's healthy and sustainable.

In today’s discussion you’ll learn:

🗳️ How conviction voting – a time-weighted voting mechanism where support grows stronger the longer it's held – is changing the game for community coordination

💸 The power of streaming proposals, where funds co...

For episode 251 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, we’re excited to welcome David Machuche and Victor Muhagachi of NEDA Labs, and special Co-Host Jon Ruth of The Solar Foundation, for the final episode of our series exploring the Solar Savings Circles pilot in Tanzania. Today we go under the hood and explore the technology layer behind this partnership.

In today’s episode you’ll discover:

🌍 How NEDA Labs is building digital infrastructure for savings groups in Tanzania, including a Digital Hub called Washika DAO and a...

For episode 250 of the Crypto Altruists podcast, Drew Simon, Founder of Crypto Altruists, takes listeners on a guided tour of The Quiet Revolution - five specific frontlines where crypto is functioning as humanitarian infrastructure, creating real impact, for real people, all over the world.

Each one tells a different story. But together, they paint a picture of something much bigger: that crypto’s most important chapter isn’t about speculation or market cycles. It’s about building systems that work for the people traditional systems have failed.

In today’s discussion you’ll learn:

💸 How...