Press Release: Immigrant History Initiative Receives $25k Grant from Community Fund and Landmark NFT-based Donation To #StandWithAsians |
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For Immediate Release: May 26, 2021
Media Contact: Kathy Lu, [email protected] NEW JERSEY — May 26, 2021 -- Today, Immigrant History Initiative, Inc. received a $25k grant from a new community fund organized by a groundbreaking new partnership between the Stand With Asians grassroots movement and Endaoment, a community foundation and the first cryptocurrency-backed 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. The grant will be used to support community programming for Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in the Northeast, including Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. “We are thrilled to be an inaugural grant recipient of this groundbreaking new fund,” said Kathy Lu, Co-Founder of Immigrant History Initiative. “This funding will enable us to dramatically expand our services and programming to under-served AAPI populations in the Northeast, including continued development of anti-racist resources focused on combatting anti-Asian hate.” The Stand With Asians Community Fund is intended to provide support to the AAPI community, and was seeded by an initial donation of $660,000 in cryptocurrency (263.5 ETH) from renowned digital artist Pplpleasr's March auction of a non-fungible token (NFT). This initial donation has been distributed through separate grants throughout the month of May based on applications from across organizations serving the AAPI community. “We’ve identified groups that can make an immediate impact within the AAPI community,” said Tian He, co-founder of Stand With Asians. “We have a preference for smaller nonprofits and grassroots organizations as they are more likely to be underfunded and can act more quickly to identify the areas of greatest need.” The fund reflects an innovative new approach to philanthropy, which harnesses the wave of momentum behind cryptocurrency, NFTs and a growing desire within the cryptocurrency community to support charities and important philanthropic causes. "There is a lot of money in the cryptocurrency space right now so if there is anything I can do to help funnel some of that to help those in need, it would be my way of showing allyship as well as inspiring positivity towards the NFT space," said Pplpleasr. Stand With Asians, Endaoment, Pplpleasr, and the NFT-auction facilitator Uniswap are working together to identify and distribute individual grants to the winning community groups and nonprofits. “We are proud to partner with Stand With Asians and stand up against oppression of the AAPI community,” said Endaoment President and CEO, Robbie Heeger. “It’s gratifying to realize that, through Endaoment’s technology, we can provide cryptocurrency donations in a simple and efficient way to groups that are in need of timely assistance.” Individuals in the general public will also be able to contribute to the community fund in over 150 cryptocurrencies. As more funding is raised by the broader crypto community, more grants will go out to organizations who applied for the grant program. Grant recipients are required to provide a 3-month report of the grant’s impact on the community they serve. ## About Immigrant History Initiative, Inc.: Immigrant History Initiative is a nonprofit organization seeking to fundamentally change how we learn, talk, and think about race, migration, and social justice as a global society. IHI pursues this mission by providing comprehensive education resources that center on the histories and lived experiences of immigrant communities and people of color. IHI’s model has four key components: 1) multimedia curriculum & course design, 2) anti-racist resource development, 3) community engagement and empowerment, and 4) equitable education support. For more information, please visit https://www.immigranthistory.org/ About #StandWithAsians: Stand with Asians is a grassroots organization that drives awareness of the challenges facing the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. It was formed after a friend of cofounder Tian He was brutally stabbed in the back in Manhattan’s Chinatown simply for being Asian American. Channeling their hurt into action, a group of friends decided to organize a day of action on March 26, which activated elected officials, influencers/celebrities and business leaders across the nation with 12 hours of live streaming content and 24 hours of audio content. For more information, please visit https://www.standwithasians.com/ About Pplpleasr: Pplpleasr is a digital artist known for her collaborations with DeFi protocols such as Aave, Sushiswap, Yearn Finance and more. In the past, she has worked on movies such as Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman as well as the Diablo IV cinematic. Most recently, she is known for her work on the Uniswap v3 animation. About Uniswap: Uniswap is a protocol for trading ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. It removes intermediaries and unnecessary forms of rent extraction, allowing for fast, efficient trading. Uniswap prioritizes decentralization and security above all. The protocol has facilitated over $135bn in trading volume, and is the most popular application on Ethereum (by transaction count). Uniswap ranks as one of the largest cryptocurrency spot exchanges in the world. For more information, please visit uniswap.org About Endaoment Endaoment is a California Public Benefit Corporation based in San Francisco, federally tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3), serving as decentralized finance’s Community Foundation. It provides Donor-Advised Funds through its web-application, enabling users to donate any major crypto to nearly any U.S. nonprofit. By creating a robust DeFi Community Foundation entity, Endaoment hopes to encourage the charitable giving of cryptocurrencies and the adoption of cryptocurrency |
