Allo Mechanism Evaluation Framework

🧙 🧙‍♀️ Ideas and Open Discussion
1

Gitcoin, including Grants Labs, is making big investments in our multi-mechanism future. To date, there have been several funding mechanisms built on Allo, including…

  • Quadratic Funding
  • Direct Grants
  • Retrofunding
  • Conviction voting
  • MACI
  • Streaming quadratic funding
  • And more to come!

As we start planning for 2025 and funding more Citizen’s projects, we want to get better at evaluating the potential of new mechanisms. We’re working both to make it easier to launch to new mechanisms (launching Allo 2.1, a new data layer, and AlloKit will exponentially decrease dev time) as well as maximize the adoption and returns of mechanisms that have been launched. We’ve launched a few new mechanisms at Grants Labs this year (MACI and Retrofunding) which have informed our learnings here – both on the need to improve the dev experience as well as maximize adoption and uptake of new products.

With that, we’ve started using a Mechanism Evaluation Framework document. This is a template for evaluating a new mechanism or concept. It is designed to gather input from multiple team members progressively, ensuring a comprehensive assessment before a final decision.

Link to doc: Mechanism Evaluation Framework - Google Docs

Key sections include:

  1. Overview and Pitch:

    • A simple and technical explanation of the mechanism for both general audiences and experts.

  2. Use Cases:

    • Identification of ideal use cases, potential applications, unsuitable scenarios, and target organizations or personas.

  3. Market Presence:

    • Assessment of market competition, novelty, and alignment with the company’s future goals (e.g., 2025 strategy).

  4. Business Case:

    • A rough financial forecast for the first two years, strategic fit with the company’s goals, and a go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

  5. Feasibility:

    • Estimations on the time and skills needed to build the mechanism, identifying challenges and easy aspects of the project.

  6. Opinions and Feedback:

    • Team members provide their input, rate the likelihood of success, and offer constructive feedback, including arguments against the proposal.

This framework is intended to facilitate collaboration and ensure that all aspects are carefully considered before moving forward. We encourage citizens who are creating new mechanisms on Allo, particularly if they are applying for grant funding, to complete their own versions.

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2

Thanks for putting this framework in place. I would be happy to help weigh in on these decisions and work with the wider leadership team to ensure alignment as we evaluate these kinds of initaitives moving forward.

3

It is great to see an evaluation framework for mechanisms! From my experience operating some programs, including CeloRPGF, combining some of these mechanisms opens up exciting new use cases.

Would adding an element of the mechanism’s pair ability with the other Allo tools make sense?

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4

Thanks @LuukDAO – so excited to be collaborating with Celo on RPGF.

We do have a goal to make all of our mechanisms (eg - QF, RPGF, Direct Grants) compatible with all of our tools (eg - Checker, Report Cards) in the very near future. I hope completing that soon makes it less of a factor for the evaluation, actually! The new data layer will make a big difference in tool <> mechanism compatibility.

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