Some hot news this morning coming from a major activist group.

Greenpeace USA has announced their United States-based operation will begin accepting bitcoin donations today, becoming one of the first major international charities to accept the digital currency.

The organization has offices in forty countries, and operations on a budget exceeding $200 million annually. With a variety of focuses, Greenpeace aims to educate the public on issues like commercial whaling, deforestation, genetic engineering, and more.

To make the acceptance happen, Greenpeace has partnered up with Atlanta-based BitPay, a company that processes bitcoin payments on behalf of other companies by allowing them to instantly convert the digital money to local, fiat currency.

“As a completely independent organization, we do not take money from corporations or governments and rely primarily on individual donations,” said Mr. Ben Kroetz, Greenpeace USA Director of Online Strategy. “BitPay’s reputation as a trusted and secure third party bitcoin payment processor made it easy for us to begin accepting bitcoin thus opening us up to new markets and donors.”

[ot-video type=”youtube” url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVu9eawb1QY”]

Greenpeace is heavily reliant on donations in order to continue their mission, and traditional avenues of accepting these donations often end up with 3 percent of the amount donated lost to processing fees.

By accepting bitcoin, Greenpeace effectively receives 100 percent of what was donated, which in turn will go toward current campaigns the organization is working on here in the US.

“BitPay strives to bring bitcoin to nonprofits like Greenpeace,” says Elizabeth Ploshay, Non-profit Account Manager at BitPay. “For each bitcoin donation Greenpeace gets 100% of what is being donated increasing the amount of each donation received.”

The Greenpeace USA donation page can be found by following this link.