United Church Funds to Offer Free Cryptocurrency Exchange for UCC-Related Organizations

CHHSM partner United Church Funds (UCF) is branching into a new area of donations to assist UCC-related ministries, organizations, and local churches with their members’ charitable donations: cryptocurrency exchange.

UCF has partnered with crypto asset exchange provider Coinbase to accept cryptocurrencies from donors who elect to use those types of assets to make an outright charitable donation or fund a charitable lifetime income gift. Coinbase accepts hundreds of different cryptocurrencies, including such popular choices as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Stellar Lumens, and Dogecoin, among others.

CHHSM member ministries are invited to use this free UCF service for donors wishing to contribute via cryptocurrencies. The process is simple:

• The ministry provides UCF with the email and phone number of the donor (crypto owner).
• UCF provides transfer instructions to the donor (crypto owner).
• The crypto owner receives a unique wallet address (a long string of alphanumeric characters) that the owner copies and pastes into the crypto wallet to make the transfer. It is critical that the donor (crypto owner) provides the correct cryptocurrency name. Note: If the wrong one is provided, the assets will be permanently lost and irretrievable.
• Once the asset is received into UCF’s crypto account, it is exchanged into U.S. dollars. After fees are deducted by Coinbase, UCF will transfer the net amount into your organization’s account, which can be either a UCF investment account or the organization’s checking account.

Although the exchange from crypto to U.S. dollars is instantaneous, organizations should allow up to five business days for the net assets to settle and transfer into your account.

Matt Wagner, UCF’s vice president of institutional relationships, sees the move as an important bridge to increased options for giving. “As we seek to provide new and innovative services to our clients, it became clear that offering donors a pathway to use cryptocurrency to fund planned giving instruments was something United Church Funds should pursue,” he said. “We are hopeful that this investment in our service offerings will pay dividends for our clients through new planned gifts to fund mission.”

For additional information, contact United Church Funds, toll free, at 877-806-4989.