Context & Objectives
The Solutions Development Grants Program is one of the three GG24 programs of the Targeted Development & Adoption (TDA) Domain, an allocation strategy designed to fund high-leverage development and adoption programs on Ethereum.
This round was designed to accelerate Ethereum-powered solutions tackling real-world challenges aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With a total allocation of up to $155K in milestone-based grants - slightly lower than the initial $182.5K as a result of TDA Domain stakeholder optimising internal budgets based on rounds priorities and potential - the program targeted proven, onchain MVP-stage projects capable of measurable impact and expansion into new markets.
Based on the Ethereum For The World Sensemaking Report and the TDA Domain Proposal, the program is optimised for real-world impact, scalability, and ecosystem legitimacy to accelerate the development of new SDG-aligned features or enable expansion into new markets, maximising Ethereum’s impact on global sustainable development.
Partners & Ecosystem Context
We’re grateful for the dedicated and value-aligned partners that supported the SDG Program and the larger TDA Domain. Through their contribution of resources, network, and expertise, we were able to run this program successfully:
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Gitcoin: A public goods funding platform and ecosystem enabler for open-source and Ethereum-aligned projects.
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EF Ecosystem Support Program (ESP): Supports Builders on Ethereum creating public goods for the Ethereum ecosystem.
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Celo Public Goods (CeloPG): A public goods and growth partner for the Celo ecosystem, a leading Ethereum L2 and the forefront of impact and real-world solutions.
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Ma Earth: Ma Earth shares ideas and builds tools for planetary health and regeneration—combining education with grant funding to resource those directly caring for land and life.
Program Stats
Pre-Applications: 51 projects
Full Applications: 22 projects
Number of Grantees: 19 projects
Milestone Grants Allocated: Up to $155K
SDG Coverage: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
Review Process: Human + AI-assisted evaluation
Round Design & Mechanism
The program’s primary allocation method was a direct, milestone-based grant application. Karma served as the technical backbone for registration, reporting, review, and milestone tracking. The platform proved to be an effective and versatile solution - at a very reasonable cost of $2,5k USD for this round.
Allocation Process
Pre-application Phase (2 weeks): The program started with a pre-application phase. 51 projects submitted high-level proposals, enabling quick filtering to identify 22 strong candidates that matched the program’s scope.
Our team provided recommended (but not mandatory) budget ranges at the pre-application stage to improve alignment with the project stage and anticipated impact, increasing the likelihood of approval and efficient fund allocation. Two teams made a counter proposal and went over the recommended amount, and in both cases, were able to showcase the ROI and convince reviewers of this larger budget.
Full Application & Review (3 weeks): Projects submitted detailed proposals, evaluated by human reviewers and AI-assisted analysis, which was used to verify that the human reviews were sufficiently neutral and objective.
The projects were reviewed on the following criteria: SDG Alignment, Scalability, Innovation, Sustainability, and Open-source & Onchain orientation. Each project receives a consolidated human score from 0 - 10 and a subsequent AI recommendation using the same scoring criteria.
The allocation decision where made using a step-based methodology that required higher scores and conviction to approve larger proposals. In general, scoring was allocated very strictly, meaning low scores don’t necessarily mean a project is bad; however, it does often correlate with the stage and clear opportunity of the project.
Below is a snapshot of the 19 approved projects, their request amount and the score the human evaluation score they received. In all cases, the AI review did not deviate more than 1 point from the human review, which we considered a positive sign and made us believe that the human review was sufficiently accurate.
| Est Amount | $2,500 | $2,500 | $2,500 | $2,500 | $2,500 | $5,000 | $5,000 | $5,000 | $5,000 | $6,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 4.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 6.8 | 7.0 | 5.5 | 6.5 |
| Est Amount | $7,500 | $7,500 | $12,500 | $12,500 | $12,500 | $12,500 | $17,500 | $20,000 | $20,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 7.0 | 7.5 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 8.3 | 8.5 | 8.0 | 8.3 |
Milestone-Based Allocation (4 months): Tranche payments were allocated based on verified progress via Karma. All projects received a 20% kick-off grant at the moment of allocation decision and will be able to unlock the remaining budget based on the successful submission of their milestones by March, with a retro round planned for additional rewards to top performers.
In total, the pre-application and review phase spanned approximately 5 weeks. The first kick-off payment was made soon after. The program will last slightly more than 4 months, meaning over 80% of the time and resources from grantees will be post-decision and approval, which we believe is great development and highly effective relative to traditional programs where projects spend months in the proposal and review stage.
Distribution Across Themes
Some key themes emerged in the SDG program. Many projects that share categories are building on top of comparable infrastructure in terms of EVM-compatible blockchain, protocols and user-interfaces, which positively impacts their effectiveness and collaboration potential.
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Financial Inclusion & Economic Empowerment: Minilend, EthicHub
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Environmental Sustainability & Climate Action: Wayst Recycling, Silvi Protocol, DeCleanup Network, GainForest, The Regen Atlas, Regen Claims Engine, Impact Certificate Minter, Bhutan Soil Information System (BhuSIS)
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Energy & Clean Technology: Suno
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Decentralised Governance & Civic Infrastructure: Gardens, DAVINCI by Vocdoni, Citizen Wallet – Comunifi, Canvassing, Sov Seas
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Impact Report and Tracking: CARBON Copy, Karma
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Donor to project matching: SwipePad
Impact to Watch Out For
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Automated, effective, and labelled impact reporting: The projects in this program cohort are all leveraging and building solutions that make impact reporting smarter and more efficient. This creates a highly promising foundation for impact-based funding and increases the chances of attracting more resources in future programs.
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Global Scalability of Models: Many projects are replicable across geographies, offering Ethereum infrastructure as a backbone for sustainable development. After this program, we hope to continue to support successful projects in their further expansion beyond their initial region(s).
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High-Leverage Innovations that leverage Tokens: Tokenisation has the potential to accelerate many of these innovations once they are sufficiently mature. We’re investigating the best ways to help projects expand in an effective and valuable way.
Learnings: What Worked, What Didn’t, Process Insights
What Worked:
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Pre-application filtering streamlined review and focused resources.
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Recommended budget ranges increased approval likelihood and the number of grantees.
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Milestone-based grants ensured accountability and impact focus. It allowed us to approve quicker, as in the case of failure to deliver, limited resources would be lost.
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Karma provided transparent tracking and public reporting.
What Didn’t Work / Gaps:
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The available budget is insufficient to fund all high-quality projects, indicating strong unmet demand.
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Most projects lack native token integration, leaving scaling opportunities unrealised.
Process Insights for Future Operators:
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Continue pre-application filtering to manage review workload.
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Consider high-conviction support for top-performing teams, potentially via a dedicated For The World Fund.
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Maintain public milestone tracking while integrating impact verification tools like Karma and Hypercerts.
Ecosystem Gaps & Emerging Opportunities
Below are the top ecosystem gaps and opportunities we identified during the SDG program:
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Funding Demand > Supply: Many high-quality projects could have benefited from more funding and resources. There is a clear and growing supply of real-world solutions being built on Ethereum
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Tokenisation Potential: Projects could leverage token models for adoption, engagement, and additional funding. We identified many teams that could grow their project by leveraging tokens for growth and are actively working on creating resources and tokenisation paths for them.
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High-Conviction Support: Targeted support for top teams could accelerate outcomes and ecosystem adoption. Many teams still lack enough capital and support to truly “break out” and become self-sustainable and scalable projects. Providing this support to the best teams can have a huge impact on the Ethereum ecosystem and the world. We’re committed to making this happen.
Recommendations
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Increase future budgets or co-funding to accelerate the development of high-quality SDG-aligned projects.
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Explore a For The World Fund to invest in high-performing teams and unlock token-based growth.
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Further refine selection and milestone processes based on insights from this round to improve speed, efficiency, and impact. Consider splitting this program into multiple initiatives that are optimised for specific project stages.
Next Steps
For the coming four months, we’ll continue leveraging Karma for milestone verification, transparency, and data-driven ecosystem learning - providing hands-on and awareness support along the way. We will also allocate additional perks and rewards in March 2026 based on project impact and publish a final impact report at the end of the program.
We’ll also work with existing and prospective partners to explore the right strategy to further progress Ethereum For The World and the TDA Domain initiatives in 2026.
Our gratitude
A warm thanks goes out to the program supporters, donors, reviewers and donors - thanks to your efforts, we’re able to continue to accelerate real-world developments on Ethereum.
This is just the start!