History
During his 10-year stint at The Walt Disney Company as a senior software engineer and producer, Prof. Newton Lee served as a steering committee member of the Disney VoluntEARS Leadership Council until 2006.
The Disney committee evaluates financial requests and call for volunteers from numerous nonprofits including The Boys and Girls Club and Special Olympics, to name a few. Due to budget constraints, Disney is unable to accommodate all the worthwhile nonprofits competing for the same limited resources.
501(c)(3) Nonprofit Institute
In 2004, Newton Lee founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Institute for Education, Research, and Scholarships (IFERS) with initial support from music legend Quincy Jones and Disney VoluntEARS. Today, IFERS serves as a fiscal sponsor for more than 150 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and worldwide.
The 501C3 Coin cryptocurrency is designed to encourage collaboration instead of competition among the 1.6 million registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the U.S. and their fiscal projects worldwide. In 2022, Newton formed a crypto development team to formally launch the 501C3 Coin cryptocurrency and expand its mission to include a dedicated nonprofit blockchain and NFT marketplace.