A short personal story about finding flow, tremendous kindness, and charitable NFTs
34 days ago I bought my very first NFT on the DeSo blockchain.
It’s a geometric rhino of artist Tobias Schmid, which I will most probably never sell.
He generated a series of geometric animals to support the work of Saving The Survivors who treat endangered wild animals that have fallen victim to poaching or traumatic events. You can find more of his work and the NFTs he owns on NFTz Zone.
I love the artwork and I loved the fact that buying this NFT meant that I also get to support the work of the veterinarians at Saving The Survivors.
Whoa, I sold 5 NFTs!
Around that time, I had also gone back to draw more.
I love and always have loved drawing. It’s something I can get completely lost in. It leads to one of the deepest states of flow I can get into.
I spent my evenings drawing on paper, playing with different techniques and shapes. And I began to play more with ProCreate — one of the greatest drawing apps ever. I have been drawing so much my arm, and my back started hurting.
One night, I drew a baby rhino on ProCreate. I experimented with the brushes and colors on the app. My aim was to highlight its childishness by making it colorful and looking like a kid has filled the shape with crayons. It turned out like this:
I posted it on my DeSo profile and it got some love. So I decided to mint 5 of them as NFTs with the intention to donate 50% of its proceeds to Saving The Survivors. The next morning, all of them were sold out.
Crazy!
It blew my mind: I sold my first 5 NFTs!
Yes, I always loved to draw. But it’s been the first time I would put something on the market — and someone would buy it. Combine that with the fact that I was able to go to the Saving The Survivors website and donate 50% of what was made. Real money. Whoa!
Charitable NFTs: Art that supports good causes.
I don’t know how many NFTs are out there that help NGOs. But to me the idea of it and the potential in it are huge.
To be honest, I like it more than other types of utilities in NFTs so far.
I set the intention to find more projects that I could support with a piece of art. Unfortunately, at this point, there aren’t too many NGOs on the DeSo blockchain, yet.
More NFTs created, 19 more sold
My intention to do more charitable NFT projects and a coincidence led to another collaboration with Saving the Survivors — and 19 more NFTs sold.
One night, Saving The Survivors made a post like this:
And I thought: Yes, people should gift NFTs to their loved ones!
A side note: I know there’s controversy about NFTs’ carbon footprints — and a lot of smart people are trying to figure out how to improve that.
Do you actually know the environmental impact of sending one card for the holidays? It starts with non-recyclable parts those cards are made of, such as glitter, bows, lamination, or even mercury if you send one of those cards that play music. And then we have the carbon footprint:
A study conducted by the U.K.’s Exeter University found sending one card produces about 140 grams (0.3086472 pounds) of carbon dioxide. The U.S. mails around 1.3 billion holiday cards a year — the same amount of CO2 emissions as charging 22 billion smartphones or 22,000 homes’ energy use for one year. — https://brightly.eco/environmental-impact-of-greeting-cards/
Back to the story, though.
A brief exchange in the comments of the Saving The Survivors post led me to create 100 Season’s Greetings NFTs featuring 5 animals and a bunch of different props. Each NFT is unique.
I also decided to split up the minting on DeSo and OpenSea to broaden the reach and give people outside of Decentralized Social Media a chance to grab one of them.
So the week before last week, I sold 19 of the Season’s Greetings NFTs on DeSo. I donated a 3-digit US dollar amount to Saving The Survivors and gifted them 10 of the NFTs to raise more money directly. The support by Lisa, who works for Saving The Survivors, plus other artists and NFT collectors on DeSo was astonishing: So much Love, Diamonds, Shares, Clubhouse Events organized, and unbelievable kindness and generosity of those who bid on the NFTs.
How the story continues…
On 15th December, I minted the other 50 Season’s Greetings NFTs on OpenSea.
I was curious to see if the kindness and generosity I have experienced within DeSo extends outside of it and if there will be more bidders on these NFTs. The auction closed on 22nd December and I might write a follow-up story to answer this question and share what I learned.
For me personally, I re-discovered my love for drawing and creating something that can make people smile a little, and feel good. Finding your flow and being able to share a result from it with the world is a huge gift.
I also think it’s mind-blowing how we can expand our connections from the digital world to the real world, and support others’ hard work to help those in need.
I’d love to do more charitable NFT projects. If you know a non-profit organization that might be interested in that, get in touch at carolin @ freedomxx.com