GM, In the spirit of learning in public, here is a recap from the GreenPill Network Community Round that we ran as part of the Quadratic Avengers cohort on a forked version of GrantsStack alongside GG19. We also ran an experiment with Hypercerts during this round, which will have its own sperate recap/learnings post coming out shortly.
Round Details and Process of Setting it up
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With a 2.69 ETH matching pool, we set out to help fund GreenPill Chapters to help them further with greenpilling their communities.
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Applications ran from Nov 2 - 15 and donations were from Nov 15 - 29 - we ran this as a community round alongside GG19
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We ran our round on a forked version of GrantsStack (manager.greenpill.network - builder.greenpill.network - [Forked Explorer page] as we were running a Hypercerts experiment alongside side it. However, you could still apply and donate from the non-forked version.
Our Grant Round Objectives
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We wanted to run a round to help reward active chapters with funding to continue their impact initiates
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We wanted to give active Chapters some space to experiment with what impact looks like in their communities and how funding might enhance that
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Our larger goal is to create public goods funding loops (Kevin’s previous post) and this was a step toward that
Set-Up
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We decided to have only 2 requirements to be eligible for this round of funding and that was the be an active GreenPill Chapter and to have minted a Hypercert. Our thinking behind this was to ensure this round was for GP chapters, who in theory had a track record of impact (Hypercert).
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With this being a forked version, we ran into some glitches that had us in a start-stop space for a few weeks. This meant there was a lot of manual time spent both on GPNs side and RG’s side. We also ran into some issues with Hypcert visibility in the backend when using the forked manager.greenpill page as a Round Operator. We had to reject half the applicants and have them reapply because not all the data was showing properly. This though is normal when experimenting with something, so it was to be expected.
Outcomes and Statistics
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There were 12 Chapters participating, all of which had to be an active GreenPill Chapter, and have minted a Hypercert to qualify.
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In total we saw $988.57 come in from donations, from 172 unique contributors who collectively made 403 contributions.
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This meant the average contributor donated to 2.3 projects with $5.75 being the average donation
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While a minted hypercert was required to participate in this round, we should have done more qualify control on the hypercerts
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Our theory was that hypercerts would play a factor in contributions received, but that didn’t fully materialize for a factor of reason that you can read more about when we will be posting our detailed learnings (I’ll circle back and add in the link)
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Running this alongside GG19 AND running our own hypercerts experiment proved to be a bit challenging (for the experiment). But overall the round saw a good amount of engagement and received a large amount of unique contributors considering we were a smaller round (12 projects total with 2.69 ETH matching)
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Impact Assessment: Evaluate the impact of the grant round in terms of its objectives.
Lessons Learned and Improvements
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As we continue to run these community rounds we will create more structure and frameworks for chapters to apply for funding/be a part of these rounds. As we grow we need some checks in place to make sure chapters are receiving funds not just for future impact but based on what they have already done. Hypercerts in theory were meant to help with this but because of lessons learnt didn’t have a fully intended impact. So we will be exploring as a community what this might look like.
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The GPN round ran on a forked version while GG19 was happening and this caused confusion as you needed to apply to the GPN round on the forked GrantsStack in order to have your hypercert appear and some chapters applied from the normal builder.gitcoin program page. This meant that while all Chapters/grantees had a Hypercert, not all of them showed up in the Explorer page. From a Round Manager perspective, there was no way for us to know where they were applying from and have then reapply from the proper greenpill.builder page. I personally even applied via the wrong builder and therefore didn’t have my Chapters hypercert show up, but could not realize this issue until after the round was live and the grant had been approved. As you can see below, even though everyone had a minted hypercert only those who used the proper forked builder page would have their hypercert show up.
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We should have set the application deadline to end when the round ended, as there was 1 chapter that didn’t make the deadline and therefore wasn’t able to participate in this round (although they were in GG19)
Reflections and what’s next
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For this being the first community round run by our network without Kevin as a round Manager, I think it was a good launching pad for how we can continue the public goods funding loop within our ecosystem.
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With us seeing 172 unique contributors this round we can start to look to increase this in time. As well we hope to see the average project contributions increase. Overall though the round brought in just shy of $ 1000 USD in extra funding for our community.
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We will be working to create more structure and frameworks for the chapters in general and about grant funding. Our goal is to help fund local communities while also maintaining our reputation and goal of being impact-oriented.
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We will keep experimenting with how we track this impact
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I would love to see us experiment with what kinds of funding rounds we run on GrantsStack. Direct - QV/QF and RetroQF (potentially with some sort of OP badge holder experiment in here)
