Donor Advised Funds with Zach Bronstein

Today we’re talking with Zach Bronstein, the COO of Endaoment, a donor advised fund (DAF) provider in decentralized finance. Endaoments mission is to encourage charitable giving of cryptocurrencies. Before Endaoment, Zach spent five years at Morgan Stanley in the finance department. Before that, he says his life revolved around non-profit involvement. He found that Endaoment combined those two parts of his life. He was especially excited about decentralized governments and the compatibility of smart contract architecture. Furthermore, he was able to take his skills from being a teacher to both Morgan and Stanley and Endaoment. He found that he could take complex concepts and train others effectively. He says that so much of what he does is chatting with non-profits about what Endaoment provides and introducing them to the cryptocurrency world.

Zach explains a donor advised fund (DAF) as the most tax efficient vehicle for making donations. He says DAF’s are not new or specific to crypto. In fact, they’ve existed for more than half a century and were created by the IRS so that folks with a lot of assets could easily donate to charity. Before DAF’s you would have to sell your asset, pay capital gains taxes on it, then you could take what was left and donate it. With DAF’s you donate the asset directly to charity, the charity liquidates the asset and no one pays capital gains. All big banks have a DAF platform, basically built out of a sister 501c3 entity that they match. The only way to go through the process is to use a DAF that already exists.

When a donor wants to give some cryptocurrency, most charities don’t know what to do with it or how to accept it. They get overwhelmed with having to get set up with a fiat on ramp, learning to use digital wallets, etc. Things get complicated quickly, and Endaoment wants to make it as simple as possible to both donate crypto and to receive crypto as a charity. Endaoment offers two forms of payouts; they can receive funds as USD into their bank account, or they can receive funds as coins and do what they want with that. Most folks opt for the USD because it’s what they’re most comfortable with. Others are excited to have an opportunity to get into crypto, where they can either further invest or cash out.

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The Fortune Teller podcast is a discussion between industry leaders in blockchain and financial technologies. The podcast focuses on the development of blockchain-based financial services and outlines the current state of the industry and future predictions for the adoption of decentralized finance. Go to www.teller.finance/