From Donations to Infrastructure, Building the Rails for Impact
In conversation with EvolveNP on how Web3 is redesigning nonprofit fundraising.
By CARBON Copy Team | February 10th, 2026
EvolveNP’s mission is simple: reduce the operational friction that keeps nonprofits stuck in constant fundraising mode, and replace it with predictable, transparent, and rules-based funding systems.
To explore what that actually means in practice, we sat down with EvolveNP for an open conversation about the real problems behind nonprofit fundraising, and why, even in 2026, so many mission-driven organisations are still forced to operate with outdated tools and fragile funding models.
If you’re curious about what EvolveNPis building and why it believes fundraising should feel like infrastructure, this conversation is a good place to start.
CARBON Copy: Great to have you. We hope 2026 is off to a positive and regenerative start for you.
EvolveNP: Thanks for having me, it’s great to be here. 2026 is off to a strong start at EvolveNP. We’re making real progress as we finalize our infrastructure for launch, and we’ve been having great conversations across the ReFi and public goods space. Excited to share what we’re building and what we’re learning.
CC: I’d like to start off by asking a blunt question: why are we still talking about non-profit fundraising issues in 2026? Why hasn’t this problem been solved yet?
EvolveNP: We’re still talking about nonprofit fundraising in 2026 because the underlying system hasn’t changed. Most nonprofits are mission-first and don’t have a built-in revenue engine, so they often have to piece together funding through grants, campaigns, events, and major donors. That process is labor-heavy, unpredictable, and difficult to plan around.
Even with modern tools like AI, better CRMs, and newer payment rails, the bottleneck isn’t awareness or effort, it’s infrastructure. Fundraising still depends on the discretionary decisions of a small number of high-net-worth donors, fragmented systems, constant manual work, and after-the-fact reporting. The result is that many mission-driven teams spend outsized time “keeping the lights on,” instead of delivering impact.
CC: More specifically, where do existing non-profit fundraising platforms fall short?
EvolveNP: Existing nonprofit fundraising platforms fall short in a few consistent ways.
Funding allocation is still largely discretionary. Whether it’s a grant committee, a corporate giving team, or a platform curated campaign, outcomes often depend on a small number of decision makers or on which organizations can best capture attention at the right moment.
Platform design often reduces support to a single action: donate. That leaves little room for supporters to stay engaged over time or see clear, ongoing feedback about what their contribution enabled. There is often no built in reason to return, track progress, or stay involved.
And the experience doesn’t always feel meaningfully better than donating directly. If a platform adds extra steps, unclear fees, or a confusing flow, a reasonable person asks, why wouldn’t I just give to the nonprofit’s site? In practice, many tools add overhead such as forms, logins, campaign setup, and reporting without improving predictability, transparency, or retention.
CC: You recently published an article outlining the problems with fundraising for non-profits. Is it necessary, or even possible, for a platform to solve all of them?
EvolveNP: It isn’t necessary for a single platform to solve every fundraising challenge at once. But it is possible to meaningfully reduce many of the biggest structural problems if you focus on what can be standardized: predictable recurring support, rules based disbursements, and transparent reporting with dramatically less manual work.
Blockchain is useful here because it’s programmable and auditable. It can enforce predefined rules and produce verifiable records by default, which makes certain workflows less manual and less dependent on discretion. That doesn’t replace relationships or storytelling, but it can remove a lot of the operational friction that keeps teams stuck in fundraising mode.
CC: How important are Web3/crypto rails to this equation?
EvolveNP: Web3 rails are important because they make the system auditable and automated by default. In our model, the value isn’t hype or novelty, it’s that blockchain lets you define clear rules for how funds move, execute those rules on a schedule, and generate verifiable records without relying on manual reporting or discretionary intermediaries.
Without those rails, you can build helpful software, but you can’t reliably create the same rules based funding workflow with the same level of transparency and automation. Web3 can turn recurring support, disbursement logic, and reporting into infrastructure, and it can give supporters a clear, ongoing way to stay involved through transparent, verifiable participation rather than one time campaigns.
CC: Switching gears a bit, there are, broadly speaking, two sides of the fundraising coin. The one most talked about is allocation. What is less talked about is capital formation. Simply put: where is the money going to come from?
EvolveNP: Traditional capital formation leans heavily on major donors or corporations because it’s efficient, relationship driven, and often tied to established philanthropic incentives. We approach the question differently by focusing on broad based participation. Our goal is to make it easier for everyday supporters to contribute consistently, stay engaged over time, and see transparent outcomes.
In practice, that means making recurring support feel simple and trackable. Supporters can participate through a one time action, while the system routes ongoing funding according to predefined rules, with verifiable reporting so they can stay connected to progress over time.
CC: A follow-up question: how realistic is it to replace the firmly entrenched intermediaries in the non-profit funding value chain? Can a decentralised system interface directly with sources of capital?
EvolveNP: It’s unlikely that decentralized systems fully replace the entrenched intermediaries in nonprofit fundraising in the near term. But it is realistic for them to add a new layer of infrastructure that organizations can tap into alongside existing channels, especially where lower fees, transparent reporting, and rules based execution reduce friction.
A decentralized system can interface directly with sources of capital, but adoption tends to be gradual. The most realistic path is to start by serving communities that already hold and move value on-chain, then expand as trust, usability, and compliance expectations mature. Over time, as these systems prove reliability and demonstrate clear benefits, capital formation mechanisms can become more direct and more widely accepted.
CC: To that end, no discussion around non-profit fundraising is complete without talking about accountability, in terms of both financial and impact reporting. Is there an accountability loop out there that would be acceptable to sources of capital? What would it look like?
EvolveNP: A credible accountability loop has two parts: financial reporting and impact reporting.
On the financial side, Web3 rails make transparency much easier because transactions are publicly verifiable. If fundraising, custody, and distributions are designed to be observable, anyone can track what came in, where it moved, and what was disbursed, without relying on after the fact reporting or opaque intermediaries. That creates a real audit trail by default.
On the impact side, on-chain data can show where funds went, but it cannot fully explain what the funds accomplished. That requires a complementary reporting layer from the nonprofit. The most credible loop is hybrid: on-chain verification for the movement of funds, paired with clear, time bound documentation that ties spending to outcomes.
In our protocol, we treat that second layer as a requirement. Nonprofits that receive funds commit to providing tangible evidence of how funds were used and measurable progress updates, so supporters and sources of capital can see both the financial trail and the real world results.
CC: Lastly, what is the ideal outcome we should be looking for? Do we want any proven non-profit to be able to raise the necessary funding for operations and growth?
EvolveNP: The ideal outcome is that any proven nonprofit with a track record of measurable impact can access predictable, recurring funding without living in a constant cycle of fundraising. That means leaders spend less time chasing the next campaign and more time leading, operating, and solving the problems they were formed to address.
On the supporter side, the goal is to make participation simple, transparent, and ongoing. People should be able to support the missions they care about, stay connected to progress, and see verifiable reporting without friction or confusion.
Ultimately, we want to reduce the operational burden and uncertainty that holds mission driven organizations back, while expanding the number of people who can participate in sustained impact.
CC: This has been very informative, thank you. What's the one takeaway you'd like to leave our readers with?
EvolveNP: If there’s one takeaway from this conversation, it’s this: the future of fundraising isn’t about louder campaigns or better storytelling alone. It’s about better systems. That’s the shift EvolveNP is working toward: turning fundraising from manual effort into shared infrastructure.
If you’re in the Web3 public goods, ReFi, or impact community, whether you’re a nonprofit, a builder, or a supporter, they would love to collaborate! The next generation of fundraising won’t come from one platform alone. It will be shaped by an ecosystem of partners designing better rails for impact.