There are currently 1.6 billion people living without safe shelter. A problem of this scale requires innovative solutions, which is why we are passionate about using technology to accelerate impact. 

We also believe change is an open-source pursuit. As we pioneer solutions to end global homelessness, we share them with others in hopes of transforming the entire global housing sector. The problem is too large for us to fight it on our own with traditional methods.

It will take many technological breakthroughs to end global homelessness. 

We’re most known for our breakthrough of 3D printing homes for those who need them most. That’s just one solution. We’ve also created an inclusive design curriculum so every community we build is human-centered. But there’s one category often neglected when thinking about innovation: funding. 

New Story relies on donors to put our mission into practice. We know to accomplish our ambitious goals, we need many partnerships that support us through donations. We also know the traditional models of giving leaves many funding opportunities on the table. 

One way we’re utilizing new fundraising opportunities is by partnering with the crypto community: 

The Pineapple Fund

In 2017, New Story received an anonymous donation from The Pineapple Fund, which was “an experiment in philanthropy with cryptocurrency wealth.” 

In total, 5,104 BTC was donated to 60 different charities, which at the time equaled $55,750,000 USD. At the time of these transactions (which you can read more about here and here), 220 BTC was sent to New Story with a value of $2 million. This is New Story’s largest single donation to date.

The Pineapple Fund was the first time New Story accepted crypto, and we converted the Bitcoin into USD to put the funds towards growing our team and investing in R&D projects like 3D printing.

Crypto is an investment in the future. 

We believe in the power of blockchain because it aligns with our core values. It is transparent, secure, and reduces costs. 

Our 100% promise is that you will know where every dollar of your donation goes — a promise easily empowered by blockchain. 

We were inspired by the Pineapple Fund’s note, “If you’re ever blessed with crypto fortune, consider supporting what you aspire our world to be.” 

At New Story, we embrace and quickly adopt new technology that will accelerate our impact. So we had to ask ourselves, how can we engage the crypto-community more?

The XRP Community

One of New Story’s long-time supporters, Ramon Ramentol, helped us answer this question when he led New Story’s first peer-to-peer crypto campaign. He called it One More Home, “leveraging on the Internet of Value to help New Story Charity build One More Home for a family in need in El Salvador.” 

The campaign focused on XRP, which is a digital asset built for payments owned by Ripple. Ramon used a Twitter bot to collect donations through a digital wallet, and once the XRP community reached their fundraising goal, he donated 100% of the crypto directly to New Story.

There were more than 100 micro-donations, totaling $30k over the course of Ramon’s campaign. 

In concert with Ramon, we decided to hold the donation for about six months. This initial donation converted from XRP to USD ended up totaling $52K. 

With no additional effort, New Story gained an additional $22k. This increased the campaign’s impact and allowed New Story to build five homes total, providing housing for more than 20 people in El Salvador.

Future Projects

Innovation rarely reaches the people who need it the most first, and we believe that needs to change. 

Is there a world where we can donate, build, and provide end-to-end digital mortgages in crypto? We think so. Is the technology there yet? Maybe not, but neither was 3D printing, and we managed to partner with ICON and Echale to create the first 3d printed community in the world.

We aspire to use crypto technology to pioneer solutions to end global homelessness, and we can’t do it alone. We need innovators, dreamers, and builders to join us. 

The crypto community continues to inspire and impress us. We can’t wait to involve them more in our mission to continue building a world without homelessness.

Do you have an innovative idea for how we can better partner with the crypto community to impact some of the world’s most vulnerable families? 

Please reach out to maggie@newstorycharity.org.