Exploring The Benefits Of Crypto-Philanthropy With Josh Hirsch Of The Giving Block

Today's Shizzle 🔥 is all about Josh Hirsch, and he is a great friend of The Talking Shizzle Team. We start by discussing Josh's current work in cryptocurrency, philanthropy, and his work with The Giving Block. Josh explains that cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly popular, yet many still do not understand it. And while we totally agree; cryptocurrency isn't very new, but new in some ways you can put it to use for good. During the talk, we aim to identify some of these areas of the crypto landscape by asking Josh to "explain cryptocurrency like we are five" as well as #ELI5, and the amazing work being done at The Giving Block.

A little background on Josh though; he is a nonprofit lifer who has been in the fundraising space for over 15 years. He got his start working in a community center, then moved on to a small nonprofit as the Director of Development and Training. He then worked at a children's services council and a charter school for students with autism. He also worked in philanthropy for a private school for gifted students and then went to work for a nonprofit management association as their Director of Marketing and Membership. Most recently, he worked at Susan G. Komen as a conduit to care, providing resources to local hospitals and imaging centers. Then, due to the pandemic, she was promoted to Social Content Marketing Manager for Susan G. Komen, taking on channel leads for Twitter and LinkedIn. He believes that no matter what your passion is, there is a cause for you to support.

Josh was one of the early experts in using Facebook for fundraising. In June 2021, an article about using cryptocurrency for social good surfaced, which inspired Josh to learn more about the subject. After six months of research, he discovered the benefits of using cryptocurrency for nonprofits, such as donor demographics, benefits to nonprofits, NFT projects, and the various vendors available. He also found that most of their donor base was not interested in donating cryptocurrency. Despite this, they were able to get on board with accepting cryptocurrency and started having conversations with donors about it. We discuss this plus so much more, like:

📌Exploring Cryptocurrency Philanthropy and the Giving Block

📌Breaking Down Nonprofit Fundraising

📌The Advantages of Cryptocurrency Donations for Nonprofits

📌End-of-Year Giving with Giving Block

📌Exploring Modern Philanthropy: A Discussion on Crypto Currency, Blockchain, and NFTs

📌 Basics of Non-Fungible Tokens

📌The World of Philanthropic NFTs & The Metaverse

If you would like to find out more about donations and fundraising with help from The Giving Block, check out their web site here:

📌WEBSITE: https://thegivingblock.com/

And also, reach out to Josh if you have any questions here:

📌FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/JoshuaAaronHirsch

📌INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jah07/

📌TWITTER: https://twitter.com/TGBJosh

📌TWITTER: https://twitter.com/The_Dude_NFT

📌LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshahirsch/ 

Transcript

Taylor Shanklin  0:03  
Hey, hey, hey, talking shizzle listeners. You know, it's always been important for me to align our business with other companies and individuals who share our values, especially those who share a deep commitment to serving nonprofits and social impact. So for that reason, I'm super excited to announce our very first season to sponsor Keela. Keela is a fundraising and donor management CRM that is built specifically for nonprofits by nonprofit professionals. These folks really get it. Their mission is to empower nonprofits to deepen relationships, retain donors, and raise more for their cause. A several of our clients and partners use Keela and have continued to be impressed by just how easy Keela is to use, how affordable it is, and most importantly, the results they see using the platform. The Keela team is also phenomenal to work with. They are super friendly guys, and they have a continuous commitment to equity and inclusion. Now, go check them out. We got a special offer for you as Season Two sponsor of the talking shows or podcasts. Keela is offering our listeners and community 40% off their first year subscription tequila 40% You guys. That is a lot of shizzle. Think about all the other shizzle you can get done by saving that money on your nonprofit CRM. Plus, if you have under 250 records, you can get access to the keyless starter program for free. So if you are interested in learning more and booking a demo, go to keelah.co/partners/creativeshizzle/partners. 

Hey, hey, how are you lovely people out there. You've got a lot going on in your day with big dreams and big goals for your world. Are you ready to talk some shizzle and learn some shizzle from leading entrepreneurs, changemakers coaches and overall interesting people who like to shake things up. I'm your host Taylor Shanklin, CEO and founder of creative shizzle and I am stoked to bring you a fresh episode of talking shizzle today, this show is all about helping you think differently so that you can grow. Talking chisel is brought to you by our team at Creative shizzle where we help businesses, entrepreneurs, and social good innovators make amazing marketing shizzle happen. Check us out on the web at Creative shizzle.com Now, let's talk some shizzle

All right, what's up, folks, we are here with a another exciting episode of talking shizzle we're talking today with a very good friend. And fundraiser extraordinaire. Josh Hirsch. Josh, what is up today? You're joining us from Florida today, right?

Josh Hirsch  3:20  
Yeah, yeah. Nice sunny day. I think we were in the mid to high 70s earlier right now to 76. So nice weather a little pick up from the 40s that we've been having here, which is not something I'm used to.

Taylor Shanklin  3:31  
That sounds exquisite. I just went out for a walk with my dog and like a frozen tundra. So

Josh Hirsch  3:38  
let's be honest, you live in it. You live in a gorgeous part of the country. I mean, the western mountains of North Carolina is absolutely beautiful. So I'm very jealous.

Taylor Shanklin  3:46  
It is nice. It is nice. Well how's the weather where you are today? How's it going? 

Will Novelli  3:52  
It is wintry cold. Blustery. I can attest the mountains are amazing, though.

Taylor Shanklin  3:58  
Yeah, we'll we'll went on my walk my standard trail walk with the dog recently we had a team retreat was it just last week, it was just last week. And will and Keisha came to town to Boone. And you got that trail I took you out with lady I was I was just out there. That's why I was so now it's time to talk to Josh about crypto currency, crypto philanthropy and his work at the Givi block. And we're gonna get into that because honestly, Josh, I need you to explain it to us. Because I don't necessarily even still really understand it. And I feel like it's one of those things now where you're supposed to understand it, but most of us don't really understand it and like you're at a cocktail party. Oh, yeah. crypto. Yeah, trading a lot of that and giving them crypto Yeah, sure. Got to do that. You know, like, that's how I think most people feel about it. So I want you to help us break it down. But let's take a step back. Give us a little bit of an intro on who you are, what you do and what's been your history in the nonprofit space.

Josh Hirsch  4:58  
Absolutely. So Well, I'm a nonprofit lifer. Got my master's degree in family, Youth and Community Sciences from the University of Florida go Gators, and started off working in a community center. I was their camp director and children's program director. After about a year and a half there. I went in interview for a programmers position, a small nonprofit, and the executive director at our hour long conversation said you'd be good at fundraising. Like yes, yes, I would. Not knowing anything about fundraising. But you know, listen, I was I was young, I wanted it, you know, a job and was a chance to, to learn something new and acquire new skills. So I accepted the job as Director of Development and Training. And the first book I went out and bought was an Idiot's Guide to grant writing. And started consuming that I went to our local Children's Services Council, which had a lot of professional development opportunities, started attending different trainings. And that was back in Gosh, 2000. Mostly there. 2007 2008. So I've been in the fundraising world for 15 plus years now teams have done everything under the sun, from small nonprofits to Director of Development, Director of Marketing, you know, most times wearing that those two hats as we do in a lot of our our nonprofits, a lot of time was spent in educational philanthropy for a charter school with students with autism. So working on the, you know, ESC exceptional student education spectrum there with resources available to them, doing individual giving major gifts, special events, capital campaign grant writing, you know, annual fund, everything you can imagine, then went to the other side of ESC and worked for a private school for gifted students so still have very unique learning needs themselves. But it was interesting the funding partners that loved me at the Bombay school fraud doesn't it wasn't didn't love me but loved the cause. And the education that we were working for, didn't want to touch the students that I was working with at the at the private school because why private school, we go to privileged kids. And you know, that certainly is a misconception. But we provide a 30 to 40% tuition assistance to the students. So yes, they might not have the same needs that the students had at the primary school for autism, but there was still need for for supporting them. And I think that's what's really unique about this, this world of fundraising, is that no matter what your passion is, as a donor, there is a cause out there for you to support. So fast forward some time, I worked at a nonprofit management association, as our director of marketing and membership, and then fell into a job. And I've been very fortunate to manifest a lot of situations for me, so went and fell into a job when to go have coffee with a friend of mine. And as I did, you know, you got to take the bull by the horns, no pun intended with that nice picture of it there jailor and said, Why don't we come work for you? So she's like, Well, funny that you say that I have a Director of Communications and grants, you know, the mission impacts. So having gone from the asking side to now being a funder, working for Susan G. Komen, was an amazing experience, because having to work with the local organizations that we funded. I think there's a lot of misconception at the time is that as komen, we were doing the work and it's like, No, we're just that conduit to care, that was providing resources to those local hospitals, those local imaging, you know, centers that were actually doing the mammograms that were diagnosing the patients and working with them in writing treatment. So having to be that you know, that middle, as I said, conduits care and be providing those resources to the organization making sure that they were following through on all their reporting. And, you know, it was a lot of quote unquote, paperwork, to make sure that they were good stewards of the dollars that we were in trusting to them, that not only were they providing the care to the patients, but also we're providing the best they could with our with our dollars. So after four years there, you know, during the whole crazy time of the pandemic, I was in Orlando with Coleman, Florida at the time, and we were getting ready to launch new events. This is the Wednesday before the world shutdown the NBA stop their season that night, that Saturday, we were supposed to have an inaugural walk and there was a morning I woke up, I'm like, listen, we can't do this. Like this is just like, we don't really know what's going on. We've been hearing about this thing in China and like now starting to spread around the world. We can't take a population of immunocompromised women and men put them together for an event with with what we don't know what's going on. So Thursday, that morning was probably the most intense crisis communications in my career, having to work with our attendees, our vendors, our sponsors, everyone on the sudden say, listen, we're not having this event. So fast forward to that Friday. We're back in West Palm. We go into the office, our offices at the time, we're at a hospital we're like Alright, see you all in two weeks. We're just gonna grab some stuff and went home. Never went back to the office. And that was in March 2020. And here we are in January 2023. And I've not been back to an office since this is where I work now in my house. But I think what's been really like one of those upsides of the time is that I got a promotion. So I got a chance to go from working for Coleman, Florida and wound up working for soon as you come in the national organization, and was given a promotion to be the social content marketing manager, taking on Channel lead for Twitter and LinkedIn. I've always been that social media techie nerd video, even from my early days working for the charter school for autism. This was back when we were talking in third person on Facebook, and I just knew that social media was going to be this huge outlet, this communication channel that nonprofits could harness and really use for good. So I, you know, consumed as much as I could, you know, these are the early days when John Hayden was talking about Facebook fundraising and is still like one of the experts, you know, on it to this day, but started consuming as much as I could. And then it was last summer. So like June 2022, no, 2021 Gosh, we're already in 2023. So, yeah, June 2021, that someone sent me an article from the Chronicle philanthropy about crypto for social good. And as I do with a lot of things, I dive down a rabbit hole and started consuming as much as I could to understand about this world of cryptocurrency and philanthropic NF T's and how nonprofits can use this form of donations, this this, you know, type of giving to their benefit. What sort of demographics did a donor have crypto, you know, who was who's the holder? Who was the donor? What are the benefits to the to the nonprofit themselves? What are NFT projects doing with it put together a whole case for support for Coleman outlining other top blue chip nonprofits in the country who are accepting crypto, what are the various vendors out there using and it took me about six months to get coming to finally sign on and onboard to accepting crypto. And, you know, granted, at the time, they didn't have a donor base that we're currently saying, you know, that pounded down the door saying, Hey, here's my digital Monopoly money I want to give this to you. And this is this, you know, this widget of ones and zeros is actually worth $10,000. I want to give this to you and, and we didn't have a way to accept it. So it was a mixture of me diving down the rabbit hole and our major gift officer starting to have like those conversations with voters saying, hey, we want to donate crypto that come and finally onboarded. And with any new form of donation, especially when you're looking at a typical nonprofits donor base, being in their female mid to late 60s, a crypto donor or crypto holder, and that's not a mispronunciation. It's a term you know, hold on for dear life. It's from the OG days of Kryptos. And now it's just like type of crypto slang. So, crypto hodler is mid to late 30s is a Gen Z. Millennial educated has a high median income of over six figures. And this is the future pipeline of donors. And as we're, you know, our current population of donors start to age gracefully, we need to constantly be looking at ways that we can continue to feed the pipeline. So just really got passionate about it. And you know, as As with most most things, I manifested a new job for me and been very fortunate to be with the giving block now since early September, the crypto philanthropy education manager. So after 15 plus years of working in the nonprofit sector, I'm now a vendor I'm now part of the the dark side. Oh, that's

Taylor Shanklin  13:41  
a dirty word. Josh, vendor, dirty word.

Josh Hirsch  13:47  
I know I know, it may be a dirty word, but it's an exciting word because I'm able to take everything that I've learned the last 15 years in digital communications and fundraising, applying it to this new form of giving because crypto philanthropy has really been around since late 2017. It was in December 2017 where this pseudo anonymous character known as pine pineapple, was on a Reddit forum and basically said I have more wealth than I know what to do with I want to give it away and this was someone who you know bought into Bitcoin and when it was I mean, he's on the dollar and amassed a massive fortune. So they started this fun glow pineapple Fund started a website and 24 hours they you know, at a mask like 10,000 applications or something like that. And when all was said and done, they distributed something around $55 million at current value at that, you know, depending on where you look at Bitcoin at the time Bitcoin right now is let's say $20,000 Last year at this time, it was like $60,000 Now as with any currency, without with as with any asset, the way that that's look as a cryptocurrency is very akin to stop. If you have a gift acceptance policy for stock and Once again, this is not financial advice, consult your attorney and consult your accounts. But basically cross out the word stock and replace it the word crypto. And that can like be the essence for a beginning of a gift acceptance policy when it comes to stock once again, and if a non financial advice, contact your attorney and accounts, but this form of giving, as you said, Taylor, you're out at a party or you're you know, having a having a good time sipping on a brewer tools, I'm like, Hey, tell me about crypto philanthropy, you're like, I don't know anything about it. But you do know something about it. You do know about stock gifts, you do know about the benefits of non cash asset donations. But here we're talking about more much global power of giving, we're talking about a market where you're not shutting down to five o'clock on a Friday, because the stock market closes, the quote unquote, market for crypto is ongoing forever. And you can make a global impact in a matter of seconds, because the way that gifts are done is through the blockchain technology. So once again, ones and zeros, I go to your website, you have a nice widget from the giving block on there, I sit there and say, Okay, I'm really passionate about purple payments in Nepal. And I want to support your organization, because you're the foundation for purple pandas in Nepal, and you're located up in the Himalayan Mountains. And you've got this rare breed of purple panda that only exists there. And I'm a donor here in Florida. And I really believe in the importance of preserving purple pandas in Nepal, if I went on your website, and I said, You know what, let me make a credit card donation, it's going to take days for those funds in your account, it's going to take larger fees from processing it. Whereas if you had that nice widget from the giving block on your website, I can go on there and say, I want to make a gift of one Aetherium in the span of less than 45 seconds to a minute, depending on how fast the confirmations take on the blockchain, that one Aetherium is now hitting your account. And because you work with a given block, you don't have to worry about any of the processes, it's automatically being liquidated into Fiat. Because just as you would do with a gift of stock, depending on your gift acceptance policy is immediately liquidating that gift of stock. So that donor gets that value at fair market value when they donate it. And you're getting that that amount in dollars, or in this case, Fiat, you know, for traditional currency, if you will, into your account. So same thing with crypto, I don't need that one. Aetherium, which today, let's say you valued at $15,000, I as a donor get the donation benefit of making a $1,500 gift to you, you as the organization automatically get those funds into your account in the span of seconds, you know, we're talking about so you have that Aetherium ready to go with what you want to do if it's then liquidated and converted into cash immediately and that cash is in your account ready to go almost by the next day?

Taylor Shanklin  17:49  
Is that something that the gimme block helps do like the liquidation part of it? Or like explain that how that works? How do you get it turned into cash?

Josh Hirsch  17:58  
I think what's what's really nice about working with giving block in that aspect is that we manage the entire process, we say okay, we've on boarded the purple pandas from Nepal Foundation, here's your widget code that you're going to put on your website. Here's the recommendations of what content to put on your site, because you're going to go you're going to create a separate landing page or integrate purple pandas foundation.org/donate Crypto, that way you're optimizing it for SEO, you're gonna say, Here's keywords for impact that are going to drive your website when people are out there searching, donate crypto comma purple pandas. And based upon our research and best practices, we're saying, listen, here's some SEO items that you want to make sure that are on your page. Here are the various things because a crypto donor is very concerned about the ROI and impact of their gift. Whereas traditional like saying, Okay, I'm going to make $100 gift to your donation because I really believe in purple pandas of foundation of Nepal, whereas a crypto donor says, I believe that it's so much but I want to know, what is my gift going to do? What is going to happen? What's the direct impact? It's a little different thinking. We've always talked about the impact in fundraising and how it benefits but this is much more microcosm for a crypto donor, when they want to know what's gonna happen when they're given that's a crypto donor is very much digital and native. And they're digitally oriented. So that's the way that we need to be talking to them and presenting our content as such. So the giving block will immediately liquidate that that donor because once again, a lot of crypto donors in this world want to remain anonymous. So assuming that they are not remaining anonymous, they provide you an email address, and sometimes maybe even your contact information. They're going to immediately get that acknowledgement receipts. So they've got that tax receipt. And if their gift is greater than a certain amount where they're 500 or 5000, they're going to get form 8282 or form 8283 automatically processed and provided to them from a tax deduction perspective. Now granted, this is more for us based nonprofits. tax benefits aren't the same for our international clients. And we work with 2000 Plus clients globally. So that the tax benefits isn't always the driving factor to a donor necessarily. But here in the US, we know that with most fundraising that q4 to the end of the year, December timeframe, see that spiking giving because people are planning their end of year given?

Taylor Shanklin  20:24  
What an end of year giving look like on the giving block? Like, was it big this year? Are you seeing it getting bigger and bigger? Or like, what's the trendline? Looking like on this stuff? Like how much are we actually starting to see people really given this way?

Josh Hirsch  20:41  
In 2022, we processed over 15, five zero $50 million in donations, that was down from 2021. But granted, it's much more of a bear market. This year, however, we saw a volume and donation, amount of increase, so more gifts, but at a lower amount than previous year. So between, you know, being it being a bear market between the FTX fall out, there was certainly a hit from it. But to still see, you know, five zero $50 million in a gift process. It's just showing this the true sticking power and impact that these donors can make with their gifts, not just where they live, but where they want to make impact globally.

Taylor Shanklin  21:24  
And so can people give crypto like what are the different types of coins people can give?

Josh Hirsch  21:32  
Yep, we accept over 100 different types of cryptocurrencies, the major ones that you can imagine being Bitcoin or Aetherium, or Stila to granddaddies at the mall that we see the highest volume, but there's more coins out there that you would even imagine that some people you know, will accept and support.

Taylor Shanklin  21:49  
We'll probably read about this on Reddit, I'm guessing. Well, do you read about much of this on Reddit? I know, Will was Will was educating me about Reddit more this past week at our retreat.

Will Novelli  22:03  
Right? I yeah, I was trying to trying to show all the good parts about writing and all the good things you can gain from it, or the insights you could find out. There's also a lot of bad stuff too. It's just that it's just a microcosm of the internet, I would say. But yeah, that's really cool. Except 100 different currencies, 100 different coins as well. Are they all a theory on base.

Josh Hirsch  22:27  
So their theory is just one type of cryptocurrency so we there they're all that said, there are some on the different chains polygon, you know, being mad at different stuff. We also recently this year within q4 started accepting gifts of credit cards so we can process your credit card donations as well, and gifts of stock. So we've significantly simplified the process if you have a donor that wants to make a gift to stock through our widget on our website as well. And we've seen increased volumes and gifts of stock and credit cards as well. So now it's not just you know, a cryptocurrency that we process we're now as we like to say modern philanthropy, and providing gift opportunities for all depending on how you as a donor want to give from your non cash assets.

Taylor Shanklin  23:13  
But the credit card donations are not being then turned into cryptocurrency that's been sent like, yeah, that's just a standard credit card donation.

Josh Hirsch  23:23  
Exactly. We're just providing opportunity through our widget for you that donor to give the way that you want to support.

Taylor Shanklin  23:31  
Okay, okay. Got a couple more questions on like, taking a step back about some common definitions that people should know and understand in this world of crypto philanthropy, crypto, currency, the blockchain. Like are there any other terms you feel like that are common terms people should really understand like I even like NFT non fungible token, you know, there's still so much like what is that? Every time I read about it, I think I understand it. And then I realized I really like a golden girl and I just don't get it. I think the

Josh Hirsch  24:09  
easiest way to explain NF TS is its cryptocurrency with pretty pictures. So it's a JPEG that lives on the blockchain that has a value associated to it. That is non fungible, meaning that it's not just like a one for one with like $1 for $1. So you've seen specific NFT projects that are very philanthropic minded, that have taken to this form of donations and have built into their smart contract itself, the wallet for a nonprofit, that every time an NFT is purchased, a portion goes back to that organization. At the same time a royalty when that NFT is sold. We'll also go back to that nonprofits are supporting. I first really learned about this world of filament I began FTS, through a project called Women in weapons. The artists Her name is Sarah Baumann. Really talented artists young Jack, she is a double mastectomy, pre survivor of breast cancer. That's just something that I've learned about her after the fact, and just impressed me even more. And so we actually had her all the time at Coleman's podcast. But as soon as their NFT sold out, and it was like 1960s ish, like art deco, kind of like empowered women holding different weapons, hence, the name women, the weapons immediately turned around, made it 25 eath. So 25 of theory of gift to the Malala Fund at the time, that was worth about $100,000. So real power in these JPEGs because that's really all it is just pretty pictures that are on the internet, that can not only just give happiness to someone who collects it as an art enthusiast, as an art collector as an art investor, because I might buy once again NFA non financial advice, consult your attorney or your accountant, this pretty picture today may be worth one Aetherium. Tomorrow, it may be worth three Aetherium or tomorrow, it may be worth point three Aetherium. It's a very fluctuating market. That's the thing is a lot of nonprofits that get into this have to have some sort of risk aversion, which is one of the reasons why in their gift accepting gift acceptance policy is they automatically will liquidate their gifts of crypto because they don't want to play the market. They don't want to say listen, I got this gift of Aetherium today, and it's worth one thing, whereas tomorrow, it could be worth two. But the next day, it could be worth none. So most nonprofits don't have that risk aversion and will immediately liquidate it as such.

Taylor Shanklin  26:49  
So NF T's are mostly for art. I mean, that's been my understanding. So far.

Josh Hirsch  26:56  
There's a lot of utilities that can be built into the NFT itself. So for example, Gary Vaynerchuk,

Taylor Shanklin  27:03  
I love Gary Vee, and he talks a lot about NF T's and I'm like, I still kind of understand and kind of don't.

Josh Hirsch  27:10  
So a perfect example is an NF T project that Gary has called fly fish club, fly fish Club is a dining experience, it's going to be a physical location in New York City. And the only way that you can get a table or a reservation to this dining club is being a holder of the NFT project itself. So while the art on it, maybe. And it's more about the utility tied around it and the experience that you derive by being a holder of that NFT. So think about it like a club, you know, that's a reason why board API club blew up like it did in March 2021, where once again, the art is kind of an of these like dopey looking apes where, you know, they might have lasers, they might have like gold teeth or whatever. But it was about access, it was about being part of a club that others could be part of and what those benefits by being a part of the club allowed you to why they're worth a quarter of a million dollars or even more depending on their rarity. You know, I think right now the floor on a board API club is let's say 60 Ethereum, so 75 to $80,000 for a JPEG. And by doing that, you're able to say, Hey, I'm an ape order. I'm an ape. I'm part of the Glubb. I'm crazy. I just spent $75,000 on a JPEG, but it's about that access. And it's also about like, Listen, I'm going to buy this JPEG at 60 Aetherium. Valued at 75,000. Tomorrow, it can be worth 62 weeks, and I just made an extra three grand in the span of 24 hours. I'm going to sell it and take my winnings and go on.

Taylor Shanklin  28:50  
So could I buy an NF T download the JPEG, I ship it off to some printer and put it on my wall back there right next to that bull.

Josh Hirsch  29:04  
You could in theory, not own that JPEG right click save that picture and print it out. But you don't own that JPA you don't have the value associated with it. So you're not going to be able to benefit from the utility or club membership from it, as well as the investment value of saying it's worth one Aetherium today, but tomorrow it's worth to a theory. But yes, you could take any artwork that you either own or don't own and put it on your wall behind you.

Taylor Shanklin  29:39  
That's I could do that.

Will Novelli  29:42  
It might not make the owner of that artwork happy though.

Taylor Shanklin  29:46  
No, I meant like I would buy it right. I mean I really sound old and like the fuddy duddy when I'm asking these questions, but I think I'm asking these questions because I think a lot of people are in my shoes were like, really get it But I am asking the question, so Hey guys, this is talking chisel. I don't know, I don't get this stuff. I'm like, it's hard for me to wrap my brain around why people spend money on this. But you're explaining like part of the why behind that. And it's helpful to get that context.

Josh Hirsch  30:20  
Well, good. I'm glad that this is an educational experience for you, Taylor.

Taylor Shanklin  30:24  
It's totally educational. I'm gonna go eat some cashews though, after we're done here to like refuel my brain. This conversation is still wrapping my head around this stuff, it's still it's taking a lot out of it's gonna need to refuel afterwards. Okay, so any other common definitions are things we should understand.

Josh Hirsch  30:46  
So smart contracts, smart contract is at the heart of what the NF T is. That's what basically a developer and engineers in there putting together the lines of code that are allowing you as a wallet holder with your cryptocurrency to purchase the JPEG, that lives on the blockchain. And that smart contract is what I interact with as that holder of the crypto.

Taylor Shanklin  31:08  
Okay. All right. Can I get it as a PNG file?

Will Novelli  31:12  
Some may come as a PNG file. Yes.

Taylor Shanklin  31:15  
An AI file?

Josh Hirsch  31:18  
Probably not in the Illustrator file now.

Taylor Shanklin  31:21  
Okay. Darn it. Well, now we know

Will Novelli  31:25  
that unless you create

Josh Hirsch  31:26  
the project, maybe, yeah, there was there was a project that I saw recently, that's incorporating AR augmented reality. So basically, you take out your own with the NFT that you own, you can then project it in AR into the world around you. So I could see there being in the future utility tie behind that sort of AR components, you know, making stuff up here, I want to see what the couch may look like in my house. And I own a NFT that is of this really cool couch, and I could buy on Amazon. But instead I'm going to own it as an NF T and then I'm going to project it via AR It's a really bad example. But you get the idea of ways and use cases eventually that we could see something like this being or you buy a NFT of a Banksy. And yeah, if Banksy ever did an NFT project, it would sell out instantly because Banksy is the most mysterious and probably most well recognized artists out there as well. You could not be in art and you hear the name banks. You're like, Oh,

Will Novelli  32:33  
I've heard of it. He just tagged the bridge in Philly the other day.

Josh Hirsch  32:36  
There's such great documentaries about banks. Yeah, there are a lot of Banksy. I was in New York City back in December or November whenever was giving a presentation that the United Way or the United Nations and you know walking down the street there was like a masked man not saying anything selling bankruptcies, you know, or what appeared to be a games near like, my husband 60 bucks on this and find out that it really is a Banksy and be like, I'm holding something that's worth 5000 We're not just going 60 bucks on a piece of garbage. Listen, it happened before where, you know, there was an old man selling paintings on the side of the road and park and it turned out to be really Banksy. So, I mean, you know, it's a crazy world out there crazy world.

Taylor Shanklin  33:20  
What I want to know is how much might someone pay to go to the yacht club in the metaverse.

Josh Hirsch  33:25  
So I think the term Metaverse we don't realize how much like your kids do your kids play Roblox? Taylor.

Taylor Shanklin  33:34  
I think they just started playing that. They would have had a Roblox party with their friends here the other weekend.

Josh Hirsch  33:40  
Yeah, I think in your kids right around that age for Roblox or Minecraft. Those are two perfect examples of a Metaverse where you go into a world that's virtual, you're interacting with people around you. You have the ability to build you have the ability to create, you have the ability to have goods and services of an ecosystem within this world. That's all it is. That's all the metaverse is. So at the core, our kids who are 10 years old or younger are going to be the geniuses that are running this world in 1520 years because you know what? They've been living in the metaverse between Minecraft and Roblox for years now. And we're just still playing cat.

Taylor Shanklin  34:24  
Yeah, my son actually built this going back to all the talk about pandas earlier. My son built this amazing panda sanctuary in Minecraft one time he was like, like, he just kept going, adding more trees and adding more pandas and they were just so cute. It was kind of funny at the same time, I'm looking at him like, what is it? Alright, Josh, to close us out, give us you know, one tip for an organization that's thinking about getting into crypto philanthropy and like just needs a little nudge to get over the edge. And, you know, as you said, grab the bull by the horns and just do it.

Josh Hirsch  35:08  
You know, I would say you need to look at yourself internally and say, Do you have the resources to push a new form of donation? Are you going to be able to provide the resources to communicate properly to your donors and donors that you might not realize that you have that would want to support you this way? I think that's the key first thing that you need to look at, then obviously, reach out to us online, set up a demo, have a conversation with one of our specialists and see if it really is right for your organization. Because I'll be honest, it isn't right for every organization, you need to know that. Are you at the right place with your internal staff and supports. Are you ready to be able to communicate it properly to take this leap into this next world?

Taylor Shanklin  35:52  
Well, you got a crypto joke for us crypto dad joke, of course,

Will Novelli  35:55  
you know, I got in mind.

Taylor Shanklin  35:57  
I'm doing on Reddit right now. Dad jokes.

Will Novelli  36:03  
Don't give away my secrets. Yeah, so you know, Bitcoin crashed in 2018. Right? December? Not really. A crash went to an all time low, ATL all time low. Well, Superman lost everything. We call it his crypto night.

Taylor Shanklin  36:19  
Oh, that was terrible. I think that was my least favorite work of yours ever. Hey, but he's still smiling folks. Alright, Josh, if people want to find you online, get in touch. Learn more, what's the best way to reach you?

Josh Hirsch  36:39  
You can find me on Twitter Tgb. Josh, easiest way to find me. It's my professional getting blocked Twitter. You can find me on LinkedIn. I do a lot of just lurking on Twitter these days after having worked and lived and breathed social media for two and a half years. It's tiresome to want to post and share your own content. So I do a lot of just like watching and learning. There's some great hashtags out there, depending on whatever your subject is. But Twitter is where the world of crypto lives and that's where the world conversations happen.

Taylor Shanklin  37:16  
Good to know. Well, thanks so much, Josh Hirsch. It's been a pleasure. I learned a lot. I learned hurdler. I feel like a hurdler is the like a crypto currency cowboy or cow girl that would ride that bull? That's a hurdler

that is definitely a holder. For all of you

folks listening I've got a big bull piece of art in my in my office. It was not formerly an NF T. It was just purchased at some store somewhere one day when I saw it and liked it. All right, well, we'll see you next time on a another episode of talking chisel. Until then, go get some shares hold on people. Will Hey there. That was fun. I love how much mind blowing and mind opening shizzle our guests bring to us with every episode. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. Make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast player so that you don't miss a beat of the talking shizzle podcast. And if you're listening on Apple, be sure to let us know what you thought and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from our listeners so that we can bring you all the good juicy Business Growth shizzle that you would like to hear about. Get in touch with us and follow along at Creative shizzle.com or email us at podcast at Creative shizzle.com Until next time, keep making your shizzle happen