Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren’t just being used to make crazy amounts of money in digital art sales. Fortune magazine and NFT artist pplpleasr are also using them to create a charity that will help develop journalism and journalistic independence.
650,000 in donated ethers
The craze around non-fungible tokens is bringing a flood of new money into the sector. As a result, NFT artist pplpleasr wanted to give back some of the money he generated from his digital art sales.
As reported by Coin Telegraph, among others, the artist partnered with Fortune magazine to donate more than $650,000 in ethers (ETH) to journalistic organizations.
This donation is actually from an auction of magazine covers in the form of Fortune’s NFTs, made by pplpleasr. This sale of Ethereum-based tokens raised a whopping 429 ETH, or $1.3 million at the close of the auction, which took place on the NFT OpenSea marketplace. In fact, half of the revenue from this sale was redistributed.
4 journalism groups helped by crypto sales
The donated amount was split into 4 equal endowments of $165,000 to the following organizations:
- Reporters Without Borders;
- The GroundTruth Project;
- The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN);
- The Committee to Protect Journalists.
“It’s no secret that the economic support system for great journalism has been challenged over the past two decades, and that journalists around the world are increasingly under attack by oppressive and authoritarian regimes.”
Alan Murray, CEO of Fortune magazine
The donations were processed by a crypto-centric charity platform called Endaoment. This DAO-like organization had raised $2.5 million in funding as recently as last June.
These first 4 donations will not remain isolated, as they are actually just the first grants from the Fortune Journalism PleasrFund. The latter will accept donations in cryptocurrencies, and then redistribute them in $25,000 increments, to organizations chosen by Fortune and pplpleasr.
While this is the first time the sale of magazine covers transposed into NFTs has been used for donations, other famous magazines have already gone the NFT route. Playbloy magazine is also exploring NFTs after partnering with the Nifty Gateway platform, and TIME magazine has already issued some.
