Name (or Topic/Theme) of Proposed Round:
CollabTech Round and Thresholds Experiment
We’re proposing a Gitcoin-style round, modified with a novel threshold mechanism to improve capital efficiency in generating usable outputs, and a focus on business cluster development (aka Swarm development) to deliver maximum impact for the funds-providing ecosystem. As such, this is a valuable experiment in capital allocation mechanisms, both testing a mechanism and evaluating its usefulness within a portfolio of ecosystem development strategies.
Social Handle of Your Organization:
Twitter: @rndao__
Eligibility Criteria:
In addition to Gitcoin’s core rules,
CollabTech
Projects must focus on Collaboration Tech a.k.a. tooling for organisations on-chain, DAOs, network states, and future of work (e.g. governance, identity & reputation, operations, contributor tooling). This ensures we’re capable of assessing proposals correctly.
Threshold
Projects must declare a “threshold” (minimum amount of funds needed to complete the project/feature/prototype and deliver value). Thoroughness in defining their threshold and feasibility (threshold within the range of match-funding available) will be key for approval into the round.
Project duration
To learn from this experiment, we’ll further restrict the time needed for proposals to be completed to 12 weeks. After this period, we’ll analyse the outcomes of the proposals and make the data publicly available for further research and comparing with other capital allocation methods.
This grant does not include data collection from other grant programs for compariosn, but the simple format (was the project delivered yes/no), makes it easy for other programs and researchers to collect results and certain programs are already gathering this data (e.g. Questbook grants).
Commercial viability or Public Good requirements for selection
To build commercially sustainable projects, allocating capital is not enough. Commercial viability requires thorough work of the business side of an idea (understanding the competitive landscape, planning for financial viability, etc.) and the application of innovation methodologies (customer development, lean startup, design thinking, etc etc.). Many teams lack these skills and as such require significant support such as the one provided by venture builders and accelerators. Gitcoin rounds do not provide said support, as such, we’ll focus on areas where the likelihood of positive impact is high absent support:
- Immutable/perennial public goods
- Collaborations and integrations with resources/tools/goods already shown to be valuable
- New innovations by projects already counting with the necessary support or maturity to address commercial viability.
General Criteria
Incomplete, poorly structured, unfeasible, or otherwise poorly conceived applications will be rejected.
Round History:
This round is new and experimental in nature. Our core objective is to test new possibilities for QF-based fund allocation towards ecosystem development objectives.
Team Running This Round:
Clearly identify the round operator with relevant experience, and provide detailed bios and social handle links for at least two additional team members, emphasizing their relevant experience.
- Round Operator: Daniel Ospina, Instigator at RnDAO, previously, Head of Governance at Aragon, Supervisory Council SingularityNET, consulted in innovation management for Google, BCG, Daimler, etc. x.com
- Team Member 1: Corinna Schlicht, trained Gitcoin round operator, founder at Regens Unite and Marketing Lead at RnDAO. Previously Partnership lead at the DAOist, Comms lead at Giveth, and previous career in Web2 sales. https://www.linkedin.com/in/corinnaschlicht/
- Team Member 2: Andrea Gallagher, CollabTech expert since Web1, ex-research lead at Aragon, Google Suite, Asana, Innovation Catalyst and Inuit. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreagallagher/
- Additional team members from RnDAO’s Marketing and Ops as needed.
Alignment with Gitcoin’s Mission 3 and Essential Intents 1:
Clearly articulate how the proposed round aligns with Gitcoin’s mission and essential intents.
- This round advances Gitcoin’s mission of “create tools that enable communities to build, fund and protect what matters to them”by advancing our knowledge about funding mechanisms by combining Gitcoin’s tools with a new “thresholds” mechanism.
Anticipated Size of the Matching Pool:
Clearly state the anticipated size of the matching pool, Include the funding address. And outline a clear plan for future fundraising if not already in place.
- We’re hoping to gain Gitcoin’s support in filling the matching pool with an initial amount. If successful in our bid for Gitcoin’s matching funds, additional matching pool funds will be raised through applying for Arbitrum’s grant programmes (following the same steps for the Hackathon we got recently approved). Additionally, we have discussed at length with the ThankARB programme who invited us to apply for GG21 and further discuss funding us.
Advisors for This Round:
We’re lucky to count on close relationships with the likes of DisruptionJoe, Sov, CoachJ, Ben West, and more who have kindly lent their time and helped us evolve our thinking around grant programmes and fund deployment mechanisms.
Funding Mechanism:
We are using a modified QF mechanism, with the addition of Thresholds.
Threshold mechanism
For projects applying to a Gitcoin round, the funds required to complete their project and provide a usable output vary. We refer to this minimum amount for the project to become viable as the “Threshold”. The program we’re proposing will incorporate the use of self-declared Thresholds (reviewed and approved by our grant committee) so that projects only receive funding if the donations+matching pool amount would be sufficient to meet the threshold. This ensures the program is only awarding projects that, funding-wise, have a real chance of delivering a valuable output. The donations to projects that fail to meet the Threshold are returned to the donors and the matching pool is re-allocated to others. This mechanism has the advantage of nudging projects towards minimum viable products and of reducing wastage in capital allocation.
Community Size and Engagement:
For the past 2 years, RnDAO has positioned itself as a thought leader and go-to community for CollabTech. Our last program was oversubscribed by 7,000% (70 to 1 ratio). We have gathered 1k+ unique visitors in our events and have 2k+ Twitter followers.
Type of Projects to Fund:
- See Eligibility criteria.
Estimated Number of Eligible Grantees:
- We’re expecting to approve 5-15 grantees for the round, although thanks to the usage of thresholds, there’s reduced reliance on the quality of screening and we might accept more grantees if enough qualifying proposals are presented.
Impact Assessment Plan:
Describe how you intend to assess grantee impact through methods such as Hypercerts, GAP, Deresy, etc., and provide details of the plan, including how you will measure and evaluate the success and impact of the grantees over successive rounds.
- The key assessment for the success of this round (desired impact) is the evaluation of the thresholds mechanism. We’ll collect feedback (NPS+qualitative) from grantees and donors.
- Additionally, Grantee projects will be encouraged to fill their Karma profile and required to provide updates on the completion or not of their proposed projects.
Additional Considerations:
Potential Conflicts of Interest:
None - note some RnDAO members are also directly participating in projects that could apply as grantees. Said members will abstain from participating as reviewers of the applications to the round.