Gitcoin Grants’ First Community-Led Round: GG21 Results & Retrospective
Thank you to @umarkhaneth for your valuable input in this post. Thank you to all the council members for their input and feedback that lay the foundation of much of these reflections.
For the last few rounds, Gitcoin Grants has empowered Community Rounds to fund what matters to them through the newly rolled out governance process where communities have the opportunity to upload proposals, which are then reviewed and voted on by the external Community Council. The council votes on which rounds to accept into a GG round, and how to allocate extra matching funds from Gitcoin.
GG21 was Gitcoin’s first ever fully community-led round, meaning there was no Gitcoin-managed and run round taking center stage (OSS). The decentralization of the program and improvements to our processes were met with positive feedback; the shift towards more community-driven governance is being well-received. However, there were also some hurdles, particularly in education, communication, and the perceived impact of certain rounds. This review will highlight the overall results of GG21, what went well, where we faced difficulties, and the steps we plan to take to improve the program for future rounds.
GG21 Results
| * Overall Funding: $933k | * Rounds: 11 |
|---|---|
| * Crowdfunding: $190k | * Donors: 7.7k |
| * Matching Funding: $743k | * Projects: 517 |
Matching funds provided by Gitcoin: $370k See announcement.
| Round | Projects | Matching Pool | Donors | Donated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia Round | 89 | $75,000.00 | 3900 | $59,470.74 |
| GG21: Thriving Arbitrum Summer | 78 | $117,000.00 | 3298 | $40,184.18 |
| Climate Solutions Round | 71 | $125,000.00 | 794 | $22,050.13 |
| Real World Builders | 56 | $75,000.00 | 609 | $13,789.81 |
| GG21 DeSci Round | 49 | $39,000.00 | 390 | $11,425.67 |
| Web3 Grants Ecosystem Advancement | 57 | $100,000.00 | 543 | $10,787.77 |
| CollabTech Round and Thresholds Experiment | 29 | $30,000.00 | 319 | $10,108.09 |
| Regen Coordi-Nation Genesis | 46 | $50,000.00 | 276 | $8,449.40 |
| Token Engineering the Superchain | 18 | $60,000.00 | 350 | $5,822.36 |
| Decentralized Science and Art in Psychedelics | 8 | $30,000.00 | 33 | $3,817.14 |
| OpenCivics Collaborative Research Round | 16 | $42,000.00 | 141 | $3,784.23 |
What Went Well?
Ratio of Crowdfunding to Gitcoin.Eth Spend:
- In GG20, the crowdfunding was 55.36% of the amount pulled from our matching pool. In GG21, the crowdfunding was 51.35% of the amount pulled from our matching pool. As a goal, we will continue to aim to hit at least 50% crowdfunding comparative to the matched amount by us as a clear ROI.
Great Council Engagement and Participation:
- Decentralization of the program received positive feedback, reflecting a continuation of more community-driven governance.
Program Processes and Improvements:
- The program saw a positive response to the process improvements and the quality of rounds, indicating the success of changes implemented in the last cycle.
Deeper Community Empowerment:
- GG21 saw community round matching increased by 15% and the amount of crowdfunding in community rounds by 30%, from GG20 to 21.
- Additionally, taking a step back to look at the bigger picture shows the amount of funding to community rounds has increased by 67.29% from Round 17 to 21.
- At the same time, community rounds are seeing lower levels of sybil and farming activity, and higher engagement from the donors who do participate. Among the indicators of this are a 25% decrease in donors, an 88% decrease in the number of donors donating less than $1, and a 72% increase in the average donation amount.
- The round saw an increased diversity of rounds participating, and a broader net of collaboration between rounds forming.
What Didn’t Go Well
Challenges with Education and Communication:
- Some round operators participating in GG21 lacked experience and education on using Gitcoin’s product, leading to some confusion and inefficiencies. This means that Gitcoin has to increase its educational offerings.
- There were complaints about the timing of the rounds, with some rounds feeling rushed, and the preparation time being insufficient.
- A need for better promotion and cross-promotion of rounds was highlighted, with suggestions to improve outreach strategies from Community Rounds within their own marketing plans. It was noted that some rounds lacked effective marketing strategies, including not amplifying their funders (including Gitcoin).
- Moving forward, it would be beneficial for Gitcoin to enable round operators to be more autonomous in running their rounds, ensuring thorough preparation and actively contributing to their success.
- The median number of projects supported by donors remains at 1. This shows that we need to teach more people about how COCM works with tools like wtfiscocm.
Impact and Perception Issues:
- Despite increased funding, the impact of some rounds was unclear. This means that Gitcoin needs to bolster our own efforts around defining this.
- The impact of Gitcoin not running OSS was significant, affecting metrics and donor engagement.
- GG21 experienced a 70% decrease in crowdfunding from GG20 and a 59% decrease in funding overall. It’s safe to attribute most of this to not running the OSS program which historically accounts for between 65% and 85% of GG funding. With a return to the OSS program in GG22, we expect these numbers to fully recover.
Product Outage:
- We experienced some downtime in product at the start of the round, which affected certain rounds’ application timelines.
Opportunities for Improvement
Improving Governance and Transparency:
- Quantifying the Value of Rounds:
- We plan to introduce mechanisms to better quantify the impact of each round, ensuring that the effectiveness of funding allocations is clear and measurable.
- Clear KPIs for Community Rounds:
- We will establish clear KPIs for community rounds to track success more effectively and provide actionable feedback to the community.
Process Enhancements:
- Enhanced Education for Round Operators:
- We will implement better education initiatives for round operators on Gitcoin products and processes to ensure they are fully equipped to make informed decisions and be more autonomous with round operations.
- This will be implemented ahead of GG22 and will be mandatory for all rounds that are not experienced already in running rounds.
- We will implement better education initiatives for round operators on Gitcoin products and processes to ensure they are fully equipped to make informed decisions and be more autonomous with round operations.
Strengthening Eligibility and Enhancing Round Operator Standards for High-Impact Funding:
- Eligibility and Round Operator Requirements:
- We will refine eligibility requirements for round participation, including mandating previous successful participation and/or completion of the round operator training. This will result in stricter eligibility criteria, but this is an important step in ensuring high quality rounds and higher value add to Gitcoin’s overall goals.
- We are implementing a new threshold mechanism for all accepted community rounds applying to run alongside Gitcoin Grants rounds. Gitcoin reserves the right to bar eligibility in future rounds if the ratio of community contributions (crowdfunding) to matching funds given is less than 20% (if gitcoin provides $20k in matching but amount crowdfunded in a round is less than $4k).
- We are re-introducing a minimum matching amount from rounds wishing to participate in GG rounds that run alongside the OSS Program.
These adjustments are aimed at refining the governance structure, ensuring that future rounds are more transparent, fair, and impactful. By focusing on these areas, we hope to strengthen the community’s trust in the process and enhance the overall effectiveness of the Gitcoin Grants Program.
An exciting update: Round Operators will start receiving funding for their time spent running these rounds. The first iteration of this will kick off ahead of GG22 through a dedicated funding round (more details to come soon!).
Feedback welcome.
