Mona Foundation NFT Story

Mona Foundation's NFT Story

Mona Foundation has always valued the important connection between art and social progress. In fact, most of the initiatives we support integrate art and music as essential elements of a child's education. When non-fungible tokens (NFTs) began to trend in 2020, we were already avid supporters of the crypto community and interested to see how this new community of digital artists would make their mark.

Mona Foundation actually has a lot in common with the philanthropy-oriented NFT community. We both:

Promote the arts as an essential element of personal and social transformation – We know that education is key to change. But to be transformative, education needs to include art & music, and teach lessons of equality, ethics, and service alongside math, science, and humanities. The experience of Mona's partner organizations in 26 countries over more than two decades amply demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach.

Make creative use of technology for social good – Leveraging the use of accessible technologies and the growing capacity of local communities developed through our long-term partnerships, Mona's reach has grown from 430,000 to 801,000 students since 2020, even as our partner organizations battled COVID-19 and transitioned to online learning.

Are passionate about bringing people together to build a better world - We bring together a global community of changemakers: donors, nonprofits, and businesses; and work with proven local partners to address the root causes of poverty through education and girls empowerment.

This may explain why, in December 2020, Mona became one of the first nonprofits globally to benefit from an NFT sale when @_Dkleine donated the proceeds from the sale of his Star Wars/Zombie-inspired piece "I find your lack of flesh disturbing...” (shown below). In the months following, several more NFT artists arose to support Mona's mission to educate children and empower girls, including @TheGlitches, @WorldofUmans, and @PPPandas.

When our partners at The Giving Block minted NFT Tuesday in 2021 to celebrate NFT philanthropy, we were honored that ShibGF selected Mona as the designated non-profit for their NFT Tuesday auction of “#ShibaGirlSquad - #58 Rocket Racer” (photo right). Bought by Saitama_OG, the NFT auction raised $1,017 and trained 4 teachers to teach technical skills to rural girls, enabling them to lift themselves and their families out of poverty and lead lives of their own choosing.

In Summer 2022, we were again honored and super grateful to dynamic American artist David Choe for donating a portion of proceeds from the incredible, interactive NFT project based on his iconic Munko whale character. Over the course of the project, David minted and sold over 7,500 unique Munko NFTs.

His $65,000 donation will enable 100 young women in rural India or 350 indigenous Maya girls in Guatemala to thrive, lift their households out of poverty, and transform their communities - impacting 100 people for every girl educated. Wow! It also gave an amazing boost to our new $1M Crypto Fund for Gender Equality.

We are so grateful for this wonderful community of generous and fascinating supporters!

Are you an NFT creator? Here’s how you can give to Mona Foundation:

Create and mint your NFT.
Auction your NFT on your preferred platform like you normally would.
Set the payout address as our cryptocurrency wallet.
Contact us at info@monafoundation.org so we can collaborate to make the most of your generosity.

Visit Mona’s Crypto page to learn more about our most innovative way to donate.

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Mona Foundation is on a mission to alleviate global poverty through support of grassroots initiatives that focus on education and gender equality, directly impacting three of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (1, 4, and 5) and indirectly supporting many others.

"No matter what it is that you want to combat: racism, the environment, economics, or healthcare – lack of education is at the root of that, and so Mona Foundation supports education all around the world."

– Rainn Wilson

According to a recent article in CoinTelegraph, “Blockchain technology and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have been instrumental in funding these [SDG] goals during 2021 — declared by the UN General Assembly as the “International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development”.

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To learn more about NFTs: see The Giving Block post on Nonprofits & NFTs Explained: A New Vision for Charitable Fundraising

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