With the growing popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to promote artists’ work, Matt Landon created The Hedgie Fund to raise autism awareness.
The Hedgie Fund is a trait-based NFT collection of “Hedgies” that makes use of the sets, props, and characters developed for Sam the Hedgehog, an animated short film advocating autism acceptance. Maan Creative in Johannesburg is putting it together.
For 0.05 ETH each, Maan has algorithmically designed 8,128 Sam ‘Hedgies’ for NFT beginners and aficionados to mint. All revenues from The Hedgie Fund will be used to finish the film and provide grants to autism-related charities and causes, with the goal of promoting global autism acceptance.
“NFTs are digital representations of ownership of various items, with one of the most popular use-cases being to represent art. Purchasers buy, sell and
trade for a number of reasons, but rarely do NFTs fund real projects with real purpose. By purchasing a Sam ‘Hedgie’, collectors can become part of something meaningful that has intent and that raises awareness and funds for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD),” explains Landon.
ASD affects about 1 out of every 68 persons. Sam the Hedgehog was created in 2014 to increase autism acceptance awareness. The film, however, is only partially completed due to the incredibly high expense of animation. After observing how popular NFT trading has recently become, the project’s producers saw an opportunity to finish it and have it displayed at film festivals throughout the world.
“We realized that we could use the existing assets from the film, a mixture of hand-drawn characters and practical, hand-crafted sets, and engage those who are interested in NFTs and wish to support autism acceptance. Not only will the owners who mint our NFTs own a beautiful image, but they will also be linked to a real project and cause,” says Michael Clark, co-director at Maan Creative.
Aiming to have an impact
Owners of a Sam Crypto ‘Hedgie’ for 0.05 ETH will contribute to the funding of the Sam the Hedgehog short film and have early access to the film while it is being submitted to independent film festivals – before it is made available to the public as a free resource. They can also have their name, pseudonym, .eth name, Twitter handle, or Ethereum public address mentioned or thanked in the film’s closing credits, and they might even get a cameo appearance.
The NFTs will be available to mint from 2 April – World Autism Awareness Day.
“While only 8,128 NFTs will be available to mint, we could have had up to 1.9 million different variations. This, as we have created a host of different traits such as Sam’s ears, the props, glasses, etc, and each will be mixed and matched after assigning various rarity values to each trait,” says Landon
“While we are not the first to consider how to use NFTs beyond just owning a piece of artwork, we do believe we will be the first to finish an actual animated short film funded by NFT minting. Of course, we considered alternative forms of crowdsourcing, and even traditional finance, but that only gets one so far.”
“Using the popularity of NFTs just felt right, as we are creating unique pieces of art for collectors to own and trade while also becoming part of a far larger effort to raise awareness for Autism acceptance and do good,” says Landon.
“The film project has such a rich world with so many thoughtful details and the NFT project provides another avenue for us to showcase this world that will probably get lost in the film. For example, the way Sam arranges his building blocks meticulously by the color – a subtle clue to his autistic nature,” says Clark.
To get involved visit the Hedgie Fund website or follow The Hedgie Fund on Twitter.