Friends and Allies,
We’re excited to share with you the amazing projects we’ve selected as the cohort of grantees for the Genesis Round of the OpenCivics Grants Program!
Background
We received nearly 30 applications from a diverse array of incredible projects and selected 15 exemplary applicants who we feel are poised to leverage small donations for a large impact and are demonstrative of the full spectrum of decentralized civics and civic innovation.
These projects range from ecological and water stewardship to local community organizing to policy advocacy and more. OpenCivics Genesis Round is already one of the most popular rounds for crowdfunding donations this Gitcoin cycle! Let’s keep up the momentum and finish strong!
How to donate
Now it’s time to vote with your donations! Which projects do you want to see receive the largest portion of the matching pool?
For those not familiar with Gitcoin and Quadratic Funding, Quadratic Funding is a form of collective intelligence for philanthropy that relies on people like YOU to donate and vote with your crypto to determine how much of the $25,000 in matching funds each project receives.
Projects selected to be included in the round are now in a friendly competition to see who can receive the largest number of donations. Matching funds are distributed to projects using the Quadratic Funding algorithm, essentially a math equation that rewards projects that receive lots of donations more than those that receive a few large ones. To ensure that projects don’t game the system and create lots of web3 wallets to donate to their own projects, Gitcoin has created the Gitcoin Passport, an identity verification process that you’ll need to complete to ensure your donations are eligible to be considered in the matching funds distribution.
If you’ve already set up your web3 wallet and Gitcoin Passport, visit go.OpenCivics.co/genesisround to discover and donate to projects.
If you’re new to web3 and Gitcoin, visit learn.Metamask.io to learn how to set up a wallet and https://grants-portal.gitcoin.co to learn how to get started with Gitcoin and Gitcoin Passport.
Below is a summary of each project to give you a sense of who you’ll be able to donate to!
Ogallala Life
Ogallala Life’s mission is to learn, teach, and develop innovative tools that will empower communities across the High Plains Aquifer System. Their goal is to rehydrate the landscape that sustains these communities. They are strong advocates for distributed, diverse, nature-based infiltration earthworks and other water-harvesting interventions.
They successfully built over 110 NIDS structures (Natural Infrastructure on Dryland Streams) on stretches of 5 different ephemeral watersheds with significant hydrogeologic features. This year, they plan to follow up, maintain, and monitor, and expand this work.
Funding Priorities: Ogallala Life will utilize funds to advance ReFi in the areas of land use and water governance. Their goal is to develop superior tools that empower communities and other stakeholders to invest in local or regional landscape rehydration initiatives, which are nature-based. These investments will contribute to the sustainable management of natural resources.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/grantee-OgallalaLife
Ethereal Forest
PDX DAO has had major successes, including the General Forum on Ethereum Localism. They’re now focusing on building and researching tooling for local civic stewardship with meaningful inputs from diverse groups. Their work includes research, curating tools, engaging community, and global collaboration. Through community engagement, collaborative research, and p2p infrastructure, Ethereal Forest is composting the DAO that was PDX DAO in order to better serve their local community.
Funding Priorities: PDX DAO’s current greatest funding need is money down to bootstrap Borthwick House (as described in the project description) as a revenue source for the larger EF project, followed by funding to make research and community outreach contributions sustainable, and startup treasuries to seed the DAOs that will make up the PDX DAO ecosystem (prioritized in that order).
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-EtherealForest
Lattice Labs
Lattice Protocols are open-source collaborative protocols designed for solving systemic problems and civilizational challenges. They form connections between projects, programs, and protocols.
Latticework Labs is a collaborative contributing to civic innovation and focuses on implementing these protocols. They provide design processes, release schematics, and advisory services in the field of distributed technologies and systems change.
Latticework Labs aims to provide services with public benefit in the Civics Space. This is necessary utility for the Civics Space because collaborative behaviors and protocolization of collaboration between projects and protocols is not a focus of the design patterns. This set of collaborative protocols empowers civic collaboration at scale.
Funding Priorities: Lattice Labs will be using this grant to develop and release Lattice Protocols Collaborative Framework over next 3 months.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-LatticeworkLabs
viaPrize
viaPrize is a project that revolutionizes crowdfunding by introducing crowdfunded prizes. It empowers communities globally to propose, fund, and execute impactful projects effectively. This platform ensures contributors' confidence by holding funds in escrow until project completion, bridging the gap between existing public goods funding platforms. Its origins lie in testing the concept in a pop-up city, resulting in remarkable achievements like creating an AI voice for a river and delivering critical medical supplies to Ukraine. Seeking support to expand its impact, viaPrize has already distributed substantial prize amounts for various open-source projects and aims to enhance its platform for greater collaboration and effectiveness.
Funding Priorities: ViaPrize will allocate this grant towards applying to accelerators and fellowships while transitioning its codebase to TypeScript for increased open-source participation. They plan to launch a more web3 native platform, extending their infrastructure to support platforms like Gitcoin, Optimism, and Giveth in facilitating public goods funding. Additionally, ViaPrize aims to integrate account abstraction, streamlining wallet login via email and password and enabling credit card contributions to smart contracts, simplifying the onboarding process for web2 users.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-ViaPrize
Bloom Network
Bloom Network empowers 30,000+ people across 26 Local Hubs in 11 countries to spearhead grassroots climate actions. From food security to watershed care, they’re scaling up global regeneration led by local communities. Their digital platform, crafted by over 100 local organizers, bridges the capital gap to grassroots-led climate repair.
Funding Priorities: Bloom Network are in retroactive funding mode at this time. Grant funding would go toward completing the final payments for our smart contracts development (total $5,000 owed), and the core of our web2 app ($1,324 owed). Funds in excess of that will be put toward our core team for integrating the smart contracts - all of this infrastructure is for the purpose of paying Local Bloom members for civic innovation activities such as watershed repair and protection, local microclimate restoration, food security, and economic justice. And helping them learn from one another and access broader public support in the process.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-BloomNetwork
ReCommon
Building a platform for regenerative community land acquisition and governance, ReCommon leverage web3 technologies to secure communally stewarded lands. Their RegenCLT model and Commons Credit system facilitate resilient bioregional communities. The Commons Credit is a means for activating capital to acquire property that is held in bioregional trust, to be stewarded by the community, and used regeneratively for generations. The ReCommon platform that weaves all this together, with a governance portal and an impact dashboard that connects the property level, to the bioregional level, to the global level.
Funding Priorities: ReCommon will utilize grant funding to further the development of the ReCommon platform, which includes property-level impact data, and bioregional governance for land held in Trust. In particular, the governance structure follows the Regenerative Community Land Trust model, designed to take land off the speculative market and place it into place-based control, to be used regeneratively for generations to come. We are ready for another push on our governance documents, to codify and implement the many learnings that we've gleaned over the past 2 years since initially incorporating.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-ReCommon
The Commons Economy Roadmap
The Crypto Commons Association is launching the Commons Economy Roadmap in January 2024. This project, backed by a network of organizations, aims to promote 20 promising Blockchain4Good projects over 6 months. The goal is to transform the roadmap into a decentralized research & development protocol, fostering the growth of the Commons-Centric economy.
Funding Priorities: The Commons Economy Roadmaps seeks funds to generate a knowledge base of Blockchain4Good projects that includes a practical knowledge base and documentation of collective infrastructure that advances the systematic growth of a Commons-centric economy.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-CommonsEconomy
DAO Coalition
The DAO Coalition is a pioneering organization dedicated to advocating for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). The Coalition represents the voices of the DAO ecosystem and aims to bridge the gap between the rapid innovation in the DAO ecosystem and the establishment of relevant legal clarity.
Innovation in the DAO ecosystem has been outpacing the rate at which legal clarity is established, leaving entrepreneurs, investors, and changemakers uncertain about how to proceed compliantly. The DAO Coalition intends to shed light on these matters by tapping into the insights and opinions of various DAO communities and advocating on their behalf.
Fundraising Priorities: DAO Coalition’s primary objective is to continue integrating various web3 tools, with the aim of creating a robust open-source civics suite. As they progressively build out this suite, they will begin onboarding Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) into the Coalition. Concurrently, they are preparing to raise funds for lobbying activities, which will commence as soon as their 501c4 status is finalized.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-DAOCoalition
RadicalxChange Foundation
The RadicalxChange Foundation is a global movement for next-generation political economies, founded by economist Glen Weyl in 2018. RadicalxChange is committed to advancing plurality, equality, community, and decentralization through upgrading democracy, markets, the data economy, the commons, and identity.
Funding Priorities: RadicalXChange aims to continue their exciting project of building a system of partial common ownership for art (and beyond) and continue their research and advocacy for better and more values-aligned systems of money, power-sharing over property, collective control of information and data, and more.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-RadicalxChange
Mechanism Institute
Mechanism Institute is a think tank developing digital-age institutions. Its centerpiece, the Mechanism Library, houses 130+ mechanism design patterns and 300+ implementation examples. They’ve introduced tools like the Mechanism Impact Measurement tool, the Mechanism Design Canvas, and new cryptoeconomic primitives. They also conduct Mechanism Seminars for practical strategies.
Funding Priorities: Mechanism Institute aims to further develop their Mechanism Library by expanding the existing repository of coordination mechanisms and case studies. They also plan to enhance their Forkable Tools by refining their Mechanism Impact Measurement tool and Mechanism Design Canvas. They’re also developing new Cryptoeconomic Primitives, not only mapping out the design space of existing mechanisms but also filling the gaps by advancing new mechanisms that aid with governance, identity, value capture, fundraising, and more. Lastly, they plan to conduct specialized educational seminars and workshops.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-MechanismInstitute
pact.social
Pact.social is an open-source dApp for Petitions, Manifestos, and Open-letters, or “Pacts”. It respects user privacy, doesn’t sell data, and promotes Pacts through user advocacy, not marketing tools. It rewards users for bringing new signatures to a Pact, fostering community growth. It also offers features like onchain signature for Manifestos, AI and automation for communication, and a Podcasts stream.
Funding Priorities: Pact.social’s roadmap includes infrastructure improvements, third-party services like Mailjet and Paperspace, and the hiring of freelancers for communication, marketing, and legal reviews. The company also invests in an additional developer to bolster its technological capabilities and cover administrative costs and tech audits.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-PactSocial
Pairwise
Pairwise is an open-source voting dapp that simplifies community voting by allowing users to choose between two options. It’s designed to be user-friendly, converting subjective inputs into objective outputs. It aims to improve decision-making in DAOs and promote community engagement. Pairwise can be used for prioritizing grant proposals, decentralized curation and ranking, and user research.
Funding Priorities: If funded, the grant will be strategically utilized to execute a comprehensive roadmap that includes platform development and interface refinement, weighted votes and Snapshot integration, decentralized storage and ENS integration, and creating mechanisms for incentivizing voters.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-Pairwise
Re-Public
Re-Public is an open-source software aiming to give individuals control over their personal data. It removes intermediaries between a person and their data, empowering individuals to express their will through their data. Re-Public provisions a private cloud for each user, allows secure sharing and selling of data, and offers a unique SDK for developers. It’s a solution for asserting data rights through control.
Funding Priorities: The team is planning to release a prototype user interface for user management of their private cloud. This will be followed by the launch of a new mobile app that connects to the private cloud, enhancing accessibility and convenience for users. In a move towards transparency and community collaboration, the mobile app will be open-sourced, allowing developers worldwide to contribute to its development and improvement.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-RePublic
ZK DeCiv Toolkit
The ZK DeCiv Toolkit by Holonym Foundation is a decentralized civic advocacy tool. It enables robust digital voting, censorship-resistant crypto fundraising, and private identity verification. It’s built on zero-knowledge tech and multiparty computation for privacy and resistance.
Funding Priorities: The team is engaged in a variety of activities. They are involved in software development and research and development. They’re also prioritizing outreach, connecting with new use cases and partners to expand their network.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-ZKDecivToolkit
WaterUnity Network
WaterUnity Networks (WUN) is launching its beta phase. It’s an online and in-place social framework for collaborative advocacy and networking, focusing on water stewardship. WUN uses the Watershed Wisdom Councils Concept (WWCC) to connect regenerative communities and implement restorative projects.
Funding Priorities: WaterUnity Network’s goal in 2024 is to launch into the beta phase of this initiative by organizing our core council to attract, engage and train tight teams of Water Stewards in a few of the world's most vital river basins.
Donate to this project: go.opencivics.co/Grantee-WaterUnity
We’re honored to be managing a grants round with such incredible projects alongside our Round Partners @banklesschick and @clinamenic. Please consider donating and look out for another email when the round closes to see the results. You can also donate to OpenCivics directly as part of the Web3 Community and Education Round.
Public goods are good.
In Us We Trust,
OpenCivics Stewards
Benjamin (@omniharmonic) & Patricia (@polyparkinson)