Alicia Maule ’07

Alicia Cepeda Maule, a daughter and granddaughter of Colombian entrepreneurs, has always been inspired to go boldly and blaze her own trail. Driven by her mission to onboard nonprofits to Web 3, she joined forces with her friend Steven Aguiar, who she met at Brown University and has worked with at the Innocence Project, to launch Givepact with the goal of providing a platform that would allow the nation’s 1.5 million nonprofits to receive crypto donations. Since 2022, the company has been backed by Outlier Ventures, CPG Pop and Consensus. She started her career as a digital strategist working for President Obama’s 2012 campaign and as an editor at msnbc.com. She joined the Innocence Project as its first digital engagement director and since 2015 has led the organization in exponential audience growth, revenue and advocacy, guiding her team to win more than 10 awards including Webbys, Shortys and Tellys. Among her numerous achievements, she is a Center for Urban Professionals Fellow, and, in 2019, she was recognized as Negocios Now 40 Under 40 class in New York City. She earned her B.A. in Africana studies at Brown University.

Cryptocurrency is a fast-growing asset class that nonprofits can accept in addition to cash, stock and real estate. However, the majority of nonprofits do not have a mechanism to receive crypto donations, which are 82 times the value of cash donations and, on average, $10,500 per donation. The majority of crypto holders are millennials and a prime audience for nonprofits to nurture. Crypto donations reached $500 million in 2021 and are projected to reach $10 billion within the next decade, providing a great new source of funding for social impact causes and tax optimizations for crypto holders.

Givepact (givepact.io) is a crypto fundraising platform for nonprofits that converts crypto donations to cash, making it simple for nonprofits to benefit from this asset class. Givepact offers three key solutions to bring seamless crypto philanthropy to U.S. customers:

And what is Web 3?
Web 3 is the ownership economy—the ability to own digital assets. Web 3 is a technological evolution from Web 1, which was the beginning of the Internet economy; think AOL, MSN and Ask Jeeves, enabling the ability to send emails and read information on the Web. Web 2 was the creator economy that allowed users to contribute through platforms like Google, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. In simple terms, you can think of Web 1 as read, Web 2 as write and Web 3 as own. Web 3 is about decentralizing power from the boardroom to the people who buy in or contribute to a product, community or currency.

Givepact has more than 500,000 U.S. nonprofits on its donation platform and can easily add any verified nonprofit to its roster.

For the last eight years, I’ve led digital engagement efforts at the Innocence Project, an organization that helps free innocent people from prison and prevent wrongful convictions. While working for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, I learned the wizardry of digital organizing that continues to guide my work. I believe social impact causes need the best tech and digital services, modeled by President Obama’s digital operation, to help accelerate growth in audience, donations and policy impact. In 2016, my college friend Steven Aguiar started the Bluewing marketing agency, and Innocence Project was his first client. He built a portfolio of consulting nonprofits in growth marketing and audience development. Steve and I became crypto investors and saw the generosity and ingenuity of the Web 3 community. We wanted to make sure nonprofits were not the last to adopt crypto payments and could tap into a new generation of donors. We then learned that most nonprofits do not even accept crypto donations and started building Givepact as the bridge between Web 3 and social impact communities.

As the Innocence Project’s first digital engagement director, I led a team that contributed to 700% growth in digital revenue, 1,600% growth in audience, the passing of dozens of wrongful conviction reform laws and the ability to use digital campaigns to help our legal team stop the executions of three innocent people: Rodney Reed, Melissa Lucio and Pervis Payne.

Susan Weingartner led College Counseling when I was at Parker, and when I was a junior, she encouraged me to consider researching Brown University for college. It was not on my radar at all. I credit Parker for my decision to attend Brown, which was the perfect school for me. I evolved as a student and leader in grand and unexpected ways. Parker instilled in me the importance of community and model citizenship, which are foundational to how I operate in the world and build teams. I picked up a passion for history in Mr. Leary’s and Mrs. Barr’s classes. They made their course work interesting and engaging. Ms. Woodbridge told me I had the analytical and diplomacy skills to be a good lawyer. While I have not earned a law degree, I do work in politics and now at a law firm (the Innocence Project). Overall, the teachers and counselors were extremely encouraging and nurturing.

I loved going to Parker every day—I don’t think I missed one. The way the schedule changed each day was exciting for me, and I looked forward to a new day. My experience at Parker set a standard for how I would select a college and work place—ensuring it would be a nurturing environment where I could achieve my best work. While at Parker, I also helped lead an initiative called Fried Chicken Fridays, where we discussed politics over a fried chicken lunch. I appreciated that Parker is one of the few schools that has mandatory student government, and I immediately became involved. I was a senator with my classmate Charlie Bitterman. The Senate was a body that could introduce proposals and make changes within the school. I also loved being on the tennis team with Coach Glenn Allen Alfred and playing softball for the first time. My little sister Laura Maule ’09 and I were tennis doubles partners and went to state together. I relied on her to take all of the high-pressure shots.

I picked up golf while living in Chicago during the beginning of the pandemic and enjoy playing and watching it. I love cooking and grilling with my mom and entertaining family and friends over a good meal. I also love watching documentaries. Now and then I also DJ, which I’ve been doing since college.

My partner Isabelle Davis is an assistant teacher in Stacy Buehler’s JK classroom, and I visited the kindergarten atrium when she worked in JK-Howe last year. I’ve loved reconnecting with Parker’s progressive educational values through her work and meeting her bright students.