[GG21 Community Round Proposal] ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ 🕊️

🌱 Gitcoin Grants
1

EDIT / UPDATE: this proposal has been edited to accomodate feedback from the comments.

Name (or Topic/Theme) of Proposed Round:

ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ

Optional subtitle: ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴀᴛɪɴɢ ɴᴇᴡ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ

(our mission is to become the 3rd attractor, resolve the metacrisis, offer a viable solution to global peace and prosperity, desingning a better system)

Social Handle(s) of Your Organization:

Twitter: @PlanetCouncil
Telegram: t.me/planetarycouncil
Mirror blog: mirror.xyz/0x315f80C7cAaCBE7Fb1c14E65A634db89A33A9637
WWW: PlanetaryCouncil.org

Eligibility Criteria:

  1. Projects already under the umbrella of ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ
  2. Project willling to join ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ

Digging deeper, what are the criteria to join? ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ has the following objectives:

  • system change
  • architecting the new world
  • operating system for the planet(s)

It means that projects willing to join need to focus on work towards system change, architecting a new world, buiilding an operating system for this planet and beyond.

No requirement for projects to be old. We encourage new :bulb::bulb::bulb:. If idea stage, please indicate it in your grant description and provide clear roadmap for the next few months.

TODO: Create a dedicated Notion page for applicants to have all the information handy.

List of question to potential applicants

  1. The purpose for existence:
    (main problem you are solving)

  2. Current size of the project:
    (full time, part time, consultants, advisors, community)

  3. Website, social links:

  4. Independent proof of legitimacy:
    (press, media publications)

  5. Funding sources / business model:
    (ideally both)

  6. How the money will be spent:
    (can reuse other grant applications, copy-paste from other stuff OK)

  7. Existing impact:
    (can reuse already existing impact reports, we want to make it easy, while learning about your previous accomplishments)

  8. Potential impact:
    (assuming everything goes exceptional well, what is your end game scenario, let your imagination run wild)

Round History:

Right after the GG20 we run the round outside of the regular Gitcoin cycle. This is the only round done by the ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ so far. Link to the explorer:

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(the numbers were rather unimpressive due to the “out of cycle” timing, even though initially we were thinking this can act to our advantage)

Now we would like to double down and continue during the media-marketing-shilling-frenzy which is GG21 :innocent:

Team Running This Round:

Role Name Relevant Experience Bio Social Handle
Round Operator Mars Ran previous round Astral Pirate Hacker Ninja @marsXRobertson on Twitter, @marsrobertson on GitHub
Operations Assosiate Greg Previous grant recipient Originally from :romania: @grigore_trifan on Twitter, @GregTrifan on GitHub
Generalist Miloje Good with tech Originally from :serbia: @FCBtc19931116 on Twitter, @milojeBtc on GitHub

Alignment with Gitcoin’s Mission and Essential Intents :

Powerful mission:

  • Gitcoin inspires a world shaped by community-led positive change
  • Gitcoin creates technologies and opportunities that enable communities to build, fund and protect what matters
  • Gitcoin exists to empower communities to fund their shared needs.
  • Network Effects
  • Community First
  • Financial Longevity

We are :100::100::100: aligned with these. Well optimised. Wordsmith sorcery.

In our operations we want to further leverage nework efforts + put community first + have financial longevity in mind as baseline to operate in the modern world.

We drive positive change through collaborative community effort, open-source from the ground-up, radical transparency as competitive advantage: less worry about OPSEC.

UN was created in 1945 after WW2… Now we have completely new set of challenges, that’s why ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ and ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴀᴛɪɴɢ ɴᴇᴡ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ. We live in the revolutionary times:

(Mars Robertson’s 5 minutes talk from unDavos illustrating the magnitude of the vision, including opening of the Paris Olympics as good meme for global peace, traditionally no war during the olympics, see “olympic truce”)

Anticipated Size of the Matching Pool:

Current status: 0.67 ETH

Link to Etherscan: https://etherscan.io/address/0x476f2d18d28fa1a4fc62ce680fa7852524eb820f

Money coming from the sales of passports: Network State Genesis

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Our plan is to dedicate all new sales of the passports towards the matching round.

Exact logistics of the sales plan: TBD TBC WIP

Advisors for This Round:

:warning: NOT CONFIRMED :warning:
:warning: NICE TO HAVE :warning:
:warning: IDEAL WORLD :warning:

Reputable, trustworthy, experienced, knowledgeable, well-connected.

We had a number interactions across multiple channels but they are not informed yet about me asking them to become advisors.

Asking for forgiveness, while retroacticely asking for permission: become ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ advisors, please :innocent:

EDIT / UPDATE: the contact has been initiated but no official confirmation.

Potential additional list of advisors:

As a thought experiment we would like to invite “red team” and anti-advisors from organisations with questionable ethics:

  • Koch family (funding climate denial)
  • Sackler family (responsible for opioid epidemics)
  • Petro states
  • Military-industrial complex
  • Bilderberg Group

Reason logic rationale: our main objective is system change. Some entities that benefit from the current toxic system might be against revolutionary policies. “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” - we would like to work together and find a path forward that is serving entire humanity, that’s why in our work we need to address concerns coming from all areas of the political spectrum.

Funding Mechanism:

At the moment of writing: not set in stone. Depending whether we will become TOP5 and receive matching. EDIT / UPDATE: Most likely QF with some adjustments / experiments.

Experiment :one:: “Winners decide”, top 20% of the projects distribute 20% of the allocated funds. Detailed description and rationale here: Beyond QF quadratic funding: comments, suggestions, ideas 💡

Experiment :two:: We intend to introduce minimal funding cut-off to ensure funds are prioritised wisely. It behaves symmetrical to funding cap.

Previously, to ensure projects receive a sizeable amount, the selection was done at the application phase. We don’t want to act as gatekeepers. We want to encourage participation.

Source: Observations from Ma Earth’s first quadratic funding round

In our research of others rounds, we repeatedly heard the complaint from projects that they received such small matching amounts in the end, it wasn’t necessarily worth the time involved in promoting it to their communities. That’s why we decided to go with 23 grantees, from a pool of ~50 qualified applicants. We wanted to ensure that once the $100,000 was divided up, it would still be meaningful for each project relative to their efforts.

Community Size and Engagement:

  • Low.
  • Need to learn the nuances / technicalities / rituals of community engagement.
  • Need better messaging and partnerships to get on the radar.
  • Need to focus on online marketing.
  • Or maybe allowing it to grow organically, bit by bit?
  • Previous approach of “community of communities” and hyper-networker didn’t succeed
  • Current numbers:

We are hoping that participating in GG21 as one of the featured community rounds will allow ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ to accomplish much bigger reach.

Type of Projects to Fund:

Already under the umbrella of ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ or willing to join. Our eligibility crtiteria, our objectives and the type of projects to fund are aligned. Good selection of projects can be seen in the previous round, link to the explorer](Gitcoin | Explorer).

Other characteristics that we will appreciate among projects:

  • Maximum impact.
  • Building civilisational infrastructure.
  • Technology stack that is better than the current status quo.
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The world is so ready for the upgrade:

  • education
  • media
  • healthcare
  • climate
  • justice
  • governance
  • accounting for value

Example: x.com/WeDontHaveTime/status/1750813829951627574

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(now the work on accounting for full cost of the products / goods / services continues as Impact Evaluation Foundation)

Estimated Number of Eligible Grantees:

Approximately 20-30 in alignment with the previous round.
Up to 40 assuming other ecosystem participants decide to apply and join ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ.

Impact Assessment Plan:

Karma GAP.
We will encourage grantees to provide accurate description of their activities, over time this will build large dataset and will help with evaluation of other projects.

EDIT / UPDATE: Initially we planned to use Impact Evaluation Foundation (IEF) but not ready for prime time: https://impactevaluation.foundation/

Additional Considerations:

We are big fans and supporters on Gitcoin, long term supporters, here for the long haul, playing long term game.

Previous bunch of suggestions on the gov forum: Beyond QF quadratic funding: comments, suggestions, ideas 💡

Also a suggestion to bring transparency to the process: GG21 Community Round Eligibility Criteria - #4 by mars

Potential Conflicts of Interest:

No shady affiliations.
No conflict of interest.
Other than being a human and having clear incentives for :earth_americas::earth_africa::earth_asia: to survive (and thrive)

Compliance and regulatory statement

If for any reason some of the proposed mechanisms are making us with the eligibility criteria in the current form - GG21 Community Round Eligibility Criteria - we are more than happy to make necessary adjustments based on the feedback from the reviewers.

We intend to fully comply with the round requirements, Allo, passports, quid pro quo, etc…

Further questions comments

Here publicly on the forum and if no reply in 48 hours please follow up on the ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ chat: t.me/planetarycouncil

In the next couple of days I will be offline (meditation retreat) coming back online week commencing 29th July: I have informed the team to be responsive.

I will endevour to catch-up with onboarding / any other regulatory training (complete security training with Gitcoin’s security consultant) / any other requirements immediately upon my return.

2

I @mars! Thanks for the proposal and your interest in running in GG21! A couple of things:

Are you planning on contacting these individuals to be advisors? I would highly recommend that you first contact those that you wish to participate in your round, and not rely on this post alone to gain attention/traction.

IMHO I would personally not go about it this way, and I don’t believe it’s best practice.

I would advise that you at least list the funding mechanisms you are considering and why.

How exactly are you measuring impact? Through which methods/metrics?

I also recommend that you download our recently launched Grants Canvas to help guide you! It’s an excellent resource to outline objectives and scope for a round. Also, we linked to our Round Operator Runbook in the eligibility. Did you take a look at that? It’s another very useful guide to help you set yourself up for success!

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Hi @mars unfortunately at this stage, I am unable to accept your application due to the fact that it’s incomplete. If you’re able to adjust it according to my feedback please do so by Tuesday July 16th.

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Of course. I did it already.

Of course. I was determined to meet the deadline (now extended) and the process of reaching out / communication with the ideal would-be advisors could have been better.

Of course. From the GG21 Community Round Eligibility Criteria:

Definitely need to meet the criteria, that’s why the funding mechanism needs to be compatible with the Allo Protocol, that’s non-negotiable. WIth that said, some experiments that we would like to conduct as part of the round.

Experiment :one:

Experiment :two:

For example, we can pick an arbitrary number of $420 as the minimal funding cut-off, anything less will be returned to the pool and redistributed among those who pass the threshold.

This is to avoid noticeable effort of reporting on the round for smaller grantees.

Experiment :three:

ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ team and advisors to direct grant a portion of the funds.

All of the three (thrall) experiments can run in parallel and are aligned with QF while addressing the shortcomings and enhancing the participant experience.

A bit of history. Previously I was working on BaseX.com but for a variety of reasons decided to pivot as Impact Evaluation Foundation. From the opening blog post:

My personal vision for IEF is to measure / report / evaluate / quantify full cost of the product goods services, especially in the context of climate and metacrisis.

Measuring the true cost, redefining value: one of the most impactful pressure points to realign civilisational prorioties. It’s both political and technical, I think there is political will but no robust technology exists yet…

The question about the exact specifics / methods / metrics. In the simplest terms: self-evaluation combined with fact-checking (data gathering) on the ground, see objective 2 from this proposal:

Develop a comprehensive training program for impact evaluators to ensure they have the necessary skills and knowledge.

At the same time the technology behind IEF is not ready, at this stage it is proposal-ware, while Karma GAP is already operational. I think it is sensible to stick with Karma GAP until better tooling is developed elsewhere. We can also use “best of both worlds” approach: using Karma GAP platform while accounting for impact using a variety of metrics, including: Seven generation sustainability - Wikipedia

Impact evaluation is a massive problem waiting to be solved and regen / ReFi / Web3 communities are leading the field. We are determined to use the best tools for the job and accomodate feedback.

Weekend in nature, hardly any signal, returned :house_with_garden:, replying to your feedback / questions / comments now, happy to provide any other responses as needed.

5

Hi @mars I haven’t seen you update this proposal yet with my feedback. It needs more work to be deemed complete and eligible.

6

I’m a little bit confused / unsure / uncertain. Can you please reiterate your feedback? I thought that in my previous post (just above) I have replied to pretty much every single comment. Here is the only comment that I did not reply:

I treated that comment as general recommendation, FYI, for future reference. A lot of material relates to running the round / after the round, while at this stage we are a proposal only.

:one: What exactly needs to be addressed?

:two: Are there any additional formal criteria that we need to meet?

:three: Are we good enough to pass your scrutiny and be admitted to the Community Council vote?

EDIT / UPDATE: “update this proposal yet with my feedback” - now I see… I should have used :pencil2: button to edit the original post, as opposed to answering in the comments. Obvious :brain: once you know it… Or maybe you meant something different, there is more to that?

EDIT / UPDATE 2: Original post updated.

It is the Gitcoin / stewards / council / community who are the boss. ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ is relatively new / niche / unknown organisation and we are determined to make necessary adjustments.

EDIT / UPDATE 3: Original post updated (once again)

Also the notification about my personal logistics. I have informed the team to be responsive on my behalf.

7

I see that your advisors are still not confirmed, after the deadline for proposals.

If you (the main round operator for this round) will not be available to do onboarding etc next week, I’m afraid it won’t be aligned. Onboarding also includes onboarding your own community and ensuring that you’ll adhere to Gitcoin’s timelines.

And because the rest of your team aren’t active here (not best practice to ask the Gitcoin team to follow up in a TG channel), and your advisors haven’t been confirmed yet, I am suggesting that you further work to flesh out what you’d like to achieve with running a round (see resources I linked in an above comment) and come back to the drawing board in a future GG round!

I think with some work, alongside experienced round operators and advisors, you can set yourself up for greater success.

8

I haven’t seen “activity of the team on the forum” as a judging criteria.

They are briefed and informed to check regularly here.

The recommendation to follow-up on the group chat as a backup is kind of obvious, no offence intended, basic politeness and courtesy, due to the fact that I will be offline. I booked that meditation retreat months ago (surely before GG21 timing announced) and I didn’t take my chances to cancel it, especially with the uncertainty whether the ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ will pass your scrutiny before being presented to the vote.

Some of them haven’t.
Some of them have.
It was intentional to present a broad spectrum of people we value, appreciate, who would be a good set of well-connected advisors.
There was no ambiguity.
I also liked the mindset of “forgiveness not permission” of doing it. I genuinely saw no harm in that approach. Maybe not the best but not the worst either.

My personal timing (main round operator) of being away is definitely an issue. If that can be worked around: great. Recording and catching-up with the onboarding call sounds pretty manageable.

9

As mentioned, the fact that you (the main round operator) will be unavailable during key times for this round, it creates too much misalignment.

10

Back online if needed.

My departure, combined with radical honesty (as opposed to “winging it” and sending team as replacement) wasn’t the best strategy.

EDIT / UPDATE: no longer needed I suppose.

EDIT / UPDATE :two:

Need to figure out a word for losing something that was never yours in the first place.

Getting into TOP5: almost impossible

Getting into TOP10: definitely doable

I didn’t expect the rules to change. Had I knew that TOP10 will receive the matching I would reprioritise that mediation retreat. Such a lesson. Accepting reality as it is, applying to relevant rounds with various projects under the ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛᴀʀʏ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴄɪʟ umbrella :open_umbrella: