Round Status
We’re at the halfway point of the Public Goods Tooling Development Round in GG24. Projects have entered the build phase of the round, where funded proposals execute on deliverables they set and compete for the round’s remaining $60k in Retro Funding to be allocated.
This report summarizes the round activity, performance, and learnings so far.
Context & Objectives
The Public Goods Tooling Development Round is one of the domains in Gitcoin’s GG24 funding season, designed to accelerate the maturation and interoperability of Ethereum’s public goods infrastructure. Unlike rounds focused on funding public goods themselves, our domain invests in the meta-layer - the tools and protocols that communities and ecosystems depend on to fund and coordinate their own public goods.
With a total allocation of $155,000, the round targeted tooling across five critical categories: Capital Formation, Capital Allocation, Governance & Coordination, Reputation & Identity, and Impact Measurement. Our specific goals were to:
- Increase interoperability by supporting projects integrating with shared primitives (EAS, Hypercerts, Karma GAP, OpenGrants, Safe, Hats, Superfluid, Gardens, etc.)
- Create cross-project collaborations through concrete partnerships and co-development
- Improve UI/UX pain points across public goods funding workflows
- Grow project maturity by backing active roadmaps moving tooling toward production readiness
The round utilizes Conviction Voting for proactive funding and will conclude with a $60k Retro Rewards pool in January 2026 to recognize demonstrated impact.
Program Stats (As of December 4, 2025)
Submissions & Funding:
- Pre-applications: 43 proposals submitted
- Growth Pool: 23 proposals (8 funded) - $70,800 allocated
- Pilot Pool: 20 proposals (4 funded) - $11,000 allocated
- Total proactive funding: $81,800 across 12 projects
- Retro Rewards Pool: $60,000 (to be distributed January 2026)
- Pilot Pool remaining: $4,000 (8 active proposals still growing conviction)
- Growth Pool remaining: $4
Evaluation & Governance:
- Evaluation Council: Growth Pool is governed by 9 active members from protocol teams, domain experts, and builders
- Allo Patron NFT Holders: Pilot Pool is governed by an open community of Capital Allocation enthusiasts in the Allo Capital community.
- Governance mechanism: Conviction Voting (time-weighted, continuous)
- Review process: Two-stage (Charmverse feedback and evaluation → Gardens final submission)
- Conviction growth period: 2-day half-life, 10% minimum conviction threshold
Partners & Round Design
We’re grateful to work alongside dedicated ecosystem partners who share our commitment to strengthening public goods infrastructure:
- Gitcoin - Public goods funding platform and round organizer
- Celo Public Goods - Round sponsor
- Ethereum Foundation - Round sponsor
- Allo Capital - Round sponsor and voting bloc for the Pilot Pool
- 1Hive - Round Sponsor
- Gardens - Conviction voting infrastructure and governance tools
- Greenpill Dev Guild - Community coordination (office hours & workshops) and proposal evaluation hub
- Priority Protocol Partners - EAS, Hypercerts, Karma GAP, DAOstar OpenGrants, Hats Protocol, Safe, Superfluid, Octant, and others who provided technical guidance and showcased integration opportunities
Round Mechanism & Allocation Process
Two-Tier Funding Structure
Growth Pool ($70k) - For mature teams addressing critical infrastructure needs
- Request range: $5-13k per proposal
- Evaluated by curated council of public goods builders
- Focus: production-ready tools, clear adoption pathways
Pilot Pool ($15k) - For emerging teams testing innovative but unproven ideas
- Request range: $2-3.5k per proposal
- Evaluated by Allo Patron NFT holders (open community governance)
- Focus: early-stage experimentation, novel primitives
Allocation Timeline
- Draft Submissions & Feedback (Oct 9-31) - Proposals posted to Charmverse; evaluation council provided public feedback; builders iterated before final submission
- Gardens Launch (Oct 22) - Conviction pools opened; evaluators placed support daily
- Conviction Growth (Oct 22-Dec 2) - Proposals passed threshold over 6 weeks as conviction accumulated
- Building Phase (Oct-Jan 27) - Funded projects execute deliverables and report via Karma GAP
- Retro Evaluation (Jan 27-30) - Council reviews impact reports; retro ceremony announces winners
All proposals use Karma GAP for milestone tracking and impact reporting following the Common Impact Data Standard (CIDS) framework across four activity types: Interoperability, Collaboration, UI/UX, and Product Growth.
Distribution Across Themes
Strong thematic clusters emerged, demonstrating ecosystem alignment around shared infrastructure needs:
Interoperability & Impact Infrastructure (6 projects)
- Attestation platforms, trust graphs, impact measurement tools
- Notable: TrustGraph (Safe/Gardens integration), Regen Atlas (spatial impact aggregation), Impact Cards (expert confidence scoring), CARBON Copy (funding readiness framework)
Capital Formation Tooling (
- Fundraising apps and sustainable yield
- Notable: Giveth as a Base Mini App, Solidarity Fund
Capital Allocation Innovation (4 projects)
- QF platforms, endowment models, ritual participation primitives
- Notable: Giveth QF, Relay Funder (refugee aid QF), Solidarity Fund (yield-based funding), Gyralis (participation loops)
Environmental & Regenerative Impact (4 projects)
- Reforestation SDKs, ecological certificates, impact mapping
- Notable: Silvi SDK, Ecocerts (Hypercerts marketplace), Regen Atlas
Governance & Coordination Primitives (3 projects)
- Trust-weighted voting, gas optimization, residency coordination
- Notable: TrustGraph, Gas Killer, Funding the Commons residency platform
All funded projects integrate with 2+ priority protocols from our interoperability list, creating a highly composable cohort.
Impact to Watch For
Novel Interoperability Patterns
- The cohort is pioneering new composability models - TrustGraph’s bidirectional trust signals, Giveth’s Base minikit integration, Solidarity Fund’s embedded KarmaGAP endorsements, and multiple teams building EAS attestation workflows that become queryable infrastructure for other tools.
Real-World Adoption at Scale
- Several projects serve active communities today: Giveth (25k+ donors, $5M+ raised), Silvi ($100k+ reforestation campaigns across 9 regions), Ecocerts (Celo marketplace with verified stewards), Relay Funder (refugee aid in Kenya/Uganda).
Governance Innovation
- Three projects (TrustGraph, Gas Killer, Gyralis) are testing alternatives to token-weighted governance - trust-based permissions, computation abstraction, and ritual participation proofs.
Cross-Chain Public Goods Infrastructure
- Projects are building on Celo, Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Gnosis Chain, expanding public goods tooling beyond Ethereum mainnet while maintaining interoperability.
Collaborative Growth
- Cross-project innovation in round proposals has been substantial - on top of the ecosystem benefits from the work, this should also expand the potential funding sources for future rounds as the interconnected project network blooms.
What’s been working
Conviction Voting Enables Thoughtful Allocation: The time-weighted mechanism has proven effective in preventing controversial proposals from passing before further discussion between evaluators. Voting has been dynamic, with discussion between evaluators sparking changes in support from voters, and projects that have passed showed sustained support and genuine confidence over time throughout these dynamic shifts.
Two-Stage Feedback Process: Charmverse draft phase → public council feedback → iterate → final Gardens submission worked well. Proposals iterated and improved through this process, particularly around budgeting, growth metrics, and clarity on UX pain points and interoperability execution plans.
Active, Diverse Evaluation Council: Council members brought deep expertise from protocol teams (Hats, Superfluid, OpenGrants, Gardens), funding operations, and ecosystem building. Multiple reviewers created custom evaluation frameworks and held async review sessions.
Strong Interoperability Alignment: Nearly all funded projects integrate multiple priority protocols (EAS, Hypercerts, Karma GAP, Safe). The cohort naturally formed collaboration opportunities.
Tooling Showcases + Office Hours: Live presentations from EAS, Hats, Superfluid, and OpenGrants helped builders understand integration opportunities and shaped proposal quality, and Office Hours have sustained good attendance across months showing strong community participation and interest in the round.
What hasn’t worked
Scope Clarification Needed Throughout: Many proposals initially framed work as “public goods” generally rather than “public goods infrastructure” specifically. Evaluators spent significant time clarifying that we fund the meta-layer (tools for PG communities) not end-user public goods projects.
Late Proposal Submissions: Most proposals arrived in the final week (Oct 24-31), compressing evaluation time. Earlier outreach could have distributed submissions more evenly.
Timeline Pressure: 3-week proposal window was aggressive. Projects had limited time to iterate, and evaluators felt rushed during peak review periods.
Process Insights for Future Operators
Finalize Round Details Earlier: We announced the round October 9 with proposals due October 31, and without Retro Funding criteria announced yet. A 6-8 week runway would improve proposal quality and reduce last-minute evaluation load.
Make Scope Crystal Clear: Explicitly communicate “meta-layer only” in all materials. Provide 5-10 clear examples of in-scope vs. out-of-scope proposals early.
Stagger Conviction Pools: Consider launching Pilot and Growth pools on different dates to spread evaluation work and give builders more time to observe the mechanism.
Next Steps
Building Phase (Through January 27): All 12 funded projects are now executing deliverables. Teams will report on their completed deliverables via Karma GAP and will be evaluated on their effectiveness using the CIDS framework (Interoperability, Collaboration, UI/UX, Product Growth metrics).
Remaining Allocation: 8 active proposals continue growing conviction in the Pilot Pool for the remaining $4k allocation.
Impact Reporting Deadline (January 27): All funded projects submit final deliverables, impact reports, and evidence links. This includes:
- Live integrations and deployment links
- Adoption metrics (tx volume, integrators, user analytics)
- Documentation and public facing announcements of work completed
Retro Rewards Evaluation (January 27-30): Evaluation Council reviews impact reports against the Retro rubric emphasizing real outcomes: live integrations (30%), usage/adoption (30%), peer evaluations (20%), docs/replicability (10%), sustainability (10%).
Retro Ceremony (January 30): Announce $60k in performance-based rewards to top performers based on demonstrated impact.
Final Retrospective (February 2026): Comprehensive post-round analysis including builder feedback, impact assessments, and lessons for future public goods tooling rounds.
This report was authored by @paul2 and @Oba-One - for questions or to follow along with the rest of the round, join us in the Round’s Telegram or check live proposals at app.gardens.fund