HOW TO GET CANCELED WHILE FUNDRAISING FOR ANIMALS

The perils of Web3 Charity

In the world of NFTs, an hour is a week and a day is a year and what a decade it’s been. When I fell down the rabbit hole of this rapidly evolving technology/fad/marketplace, I was eager to see how it might translate into the work we do at Rothco, a Dublin-based creative agency.

A few months back, a group of Rothco art directors and designers had a charming idea to turn the internet’s love for dogs (endless memes, #dogsofinstragram, anything a corgi does) and harness this to help real, shelter dogs. The idea was to ‘breed’ different internet dog memes and create unique, new mutts as 3D works of art. We would then sell these 3D scenes as NFTs with all sales going to an Irish animal shelter.

I loved the idea. I’m allergic to dogs, but for once, as the creative producer, I would get a chance to lend a hand that doesn’t leave me swollen and sneezing. And with the huge surge in surrendered pandemic puppies, the timing was crucial.

THE WACKY WORLD OF NFTs

The pandemic massively accelerated awareness and adoption of cryptocurrencies. These exhilarating, ever-fluctuating, intangible, digital currencies are blowing minds and bank accounts. Over the last few years, a huge influx of money has widened the gap between the haves and have not, tech bros and tech luddites. As such, within many crypto circles, there is a sense of guilt or even unlawfulness in the air. Despite what we dubiously assume of these new millionaires, there is certainly a growing effort to “give back.” Usually, this comes in the form of a tweet, mission statement or roadmap. But, more often, projects will assign a charitable purpose with these drops designating a percentage of sales to charity. Call me Robin Hood, but the idea of connecting a charity to a digital gold rush seems like a no-brainer.

“PROJECT: NFT DOGS”

We created a complete launch campaign full of 3D doggy assets and launched a website with drop roadmap, alongside a Discord and Twitter channels to foster the community.

So we set off on our pet project, calling it NwooFT (yep, thats NFT with woof in the middle.) From the outset, we encountered a few roadblocks. Juggling audience growth strategy and addressing environmental concerns proved the priorities. So, we planned the project’s first drop with only 10 NFTs compared to the 10,000 NFT drops considered “normal.” We used the most popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea, hoping to catch some eyes with the intention to launch our second drop on the more eco-friendly but slightly fringe platform Rarible.

The beauty of NFTs is that you can create a smart contract, meaning that as a NFT sells and then re-sells to new buyers, it can automatically send a percentage back to the original creator. Or in this case, every further sale would see 20% going back to the charity. In theory, the charity would continue to benefit from a growing and active NwooFT marketplace.

Once we managed to secure the largest animal shelter in Ireland as a partner, a small team at Rothco worked nights and weekends to pull the campaign together. Beyond riches and fame, the team was focused on better understanding the intersection of Web3 community growth and charity, while opening a new source of fundraising for the animal shelter. Part donation, part experiment — mostly fun and for the love of dogs. What could go wrong?

Drop 1 explored if This is Fine Dog and Eggo Doggo had a few pups of their own. Each NFT came with a name and colourful backstory. These were all created by Gabriel Teixeira our brilliantly talented 3D artist at Rothco.

NwooFT — GO LIVE

The NwooFT project went live and the 10 NFTs sold out in less than a day. The initial social comments were sparse — industry folks giving a thumbs up and so on. A few days in, a small Irish publication posted an article on the environmental “impact” of the campaign. The Twitter keyboard warriors followed…

“Do better than this”

“Please no. Don’t do this. For so many reasons reconsider this”

“You are being scammed”

“I expect #NFT values-free, pyramid scheme bull**** from the very worst of the techbros, but not from a worthy charity. “

“multilevel marketing/ponzi/pyramid schemes”

“ PAY ARTISTS WHAT THEY’RE WORTH AND STOP DESTROYING THE PLANET.”

“You are being scammed. This will not help ANY animal.”

“NFTs are terrible for the environment, and a complete scam.”

After two days of moderate Twitter shame, the charity decided to step away from the project.” And pencils down. Sigh…

We launched the project in the Metaverse like an art gallery opening.

WHAT WE LEARNED

Ponzi — This was the loudest criticism across the board. Not all NFT projects are the same, but there does seem to be some fairly shady stuff out there. But if this was a Ponzi scheme, is the charity not on top? The project raises money and you run the risk of being caught with the hot potato, a donation you’re inherently happy to make. For critics, the irony can be missed here. Association and perception are the real risk. For a charity, controversy might not be worth that risk even if it is ill-founded.

Environmental — We all have an impact and it’s our responsibility to minimise it. We released 10 NFTs next to campaigns dropping thousands. Relatively speaking, NwooFT Drop #1 had a small carbon footprint -equivalent to one person’s car journey to work — which we have since offset. The issue here is that, at large, proof-of-work NFT’s — ie Bitcoin, Ethereum — are horrible. Charities are held to a higher standard and we should have gone with a different chain (Flow, Tezos, Avalanche) and be left with a leg to stand on.

Campaign images teasing the pre-sale and first NFT.

Transparency . We held a pre-sale. Excited to kick off the project and demonstrate interest via quick sales, people associated with the agency bought most of them. We were accused of “scamming” people (…which is some label to put on a handful of 50 euro personal dog donations.) Either way, this was not a good look. Digital currency is rooted in the idea of transparency, security, and decentralisation. Next time, we’ll have a public allowlist before the drop and put a limit on who from the project team can buy or reserve so the vast majority is available to the public.

Audience — We understood the project as an effort to teach dog lovers about NFTs and NFT lovers about a dog charity. But there is little appetite in the world of NFTs for learning — just quick conclusions and clickbait. Tension exists in the knowledge gap of how the whole Web3 world functions, and we caught the NFT conversation when it had some negative momentum around environmental impact and “speculation” scams. In this phase of the hype cycle, it is better to focus engagement with those who already understand.

In conclusion, we’re at a transitional time where Web2 and Web3 collide. We have an emerging technology that’s still a work in progress…but we’re using social media’s conflict algorithms to help understand, discuss and invite people to try. This is the Wild West, and there are certainly some cowboys at play.

NFTs are about putting a value on a digital community. They are a way to collectivise an effort. In many ways they create a market for an emotion. NFTs are more than owning a jpeg. They’re a membership card that proves, showcases and finances what you value. Emotions are subjective and NFTs are very technical, it’s no wonder this is a battlefield. Regardless, NFTs are here to stay and have lots of applications beyond artwork. But I know that as the space develops, projects that provide real emotional value and deeper utility will succeed. Let’s press on with this experiment, but in the meantime be aware it’s a dog eat dog world wide web.