ImpactDAO Category Creation [Proposals Wanted] đŸŒ±

đŸ€– DAO Governance and Vision
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I think it would be great if we were able to create a world in which ImpactDAOs augment every income. Such a world would have a systemic incentive for the worlds agents (humans, AIs) to care for the commons, creating web-scale human thriving.

For those of you who have followed the work @Aleborda21 and I have been doing to map out ImpactDAOs, you know that we feel a special responsibility to help ImpactDAOs find each other. Since Gitcoin was one of the first ImpactDAOs, we feel a responsibility to create a schelling point for other ImpactDAOs. We want to create the category & support the category as it moves from invisible to inevitable.

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Category creation is creation is an ongoing exercise in tenacity, perception and positioning. Our task is to amplify the understanding of ImpactDAOs within the ecosystem, and to help ImpactDAO members find each other + support each other. It is about repeatedly creating & reinforcing positive feedback loops until the ImpactDAO category is inevitable.

I would like to elicit ideas for how to create/support the ImpactDAO category until it is inevitable.

A thriving ImpactDAO Category would itself be a public good for the space. Positive Impact is an end in itself, but it is also a means to another end - creating a positive reputation for the web3 space to everyday people.

Some ideas discussed at AMS devconnect. Posting them below to get the Category Creation juices flowin’:

  1. An ImpactDAO registry with credibly neutral governance for weighting which ImpactDAOs have the most impact
  2. Another 2nd iteration of the ImpactDAO book
  3. A certified Impactdao label (similar to certified organic label)
  4. Proof of impact / Impact certificates
  5. Impactdao social events where you can meet other impactdao leaders.
  6. A weekly ImpactDAO Digest, similar to the GitcoinDAO Digest but about all ImpactDAOs. Such a resource would allow ImpactDAOs to keep up on each others developments.
  7. Anything that helps ImpactDAOs raise money or otherwise have a sustainable economic model
  8. something else? open to ideas.

If you have ideas + want to implement them, I would like to talk to you. Please (1) join this telegram (2) post a proposal below in 500 words or less that articulates how you would attack this problem and what would have to be true for it to happen (hint: please ask for funding, I want to fund good proposals!).

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One important note: web2 category creation is sometimes icky. Its about edging out the competition, positioning yourself first, etc.

I think web3 category creation will be more inclusive and about public goods due to our commitment to practical pluralism.

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We want to use our corporate entity to drive innovation while encouraging the systemization and adoption of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and metrics. Therefore, we want to develop infrastructure for the common good and drive that development with commercially backed regenerative projects.

The IP would be more like Decentralized Autonomous Infrastructure: DAI

For instance: the Accounting department becomes a DAI that has all the SOPs as a Lego-like building block, where each department or business function can become a DAI and instantly provide those functions to DAOs as they grow and develop.

This way, starting a new company or organization is simpler by using the “lego blocks” of DAIs (the name can change - this is just an initial idea).

We believe there could be “public commons” DAIs which are fundamental to operating an entity - but there could also be proprietary or licensed DAIs that contain valuable R&D (conscious stewardship) that should be compensated.

This is the concept I would love to help birth for the world - and we are planning to pioneer this using our startup Carbon Capture Shield, Inc. Any funding and mentorship would be most welcome, as we are very new to web3 and do not have programming backgrounds - we have the vision but lack the resources and expertise to execute on this one.

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The DIAs could be sold as dApps on your Ethereum OS Dapp store!

Imagine building the organization you need, with workflows and best practices built in to each building-block/department you add.

I’m approaching this from a different perspective, but we are arriving at the same conclusions!

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ImpactDAOs: Economic Arteries for the Internet of Education

The notion of categorical ImpactDAOs is exciting and something the Learning Economy Foundation (LEF), a US-based 501c3 non-profit, has been working towards for the past 4+ years. Having been funded to conduct foundational research exploring DAOs within the context of formal education, we are now entering a new phase of organizational growth and practical pilot deployments. Given our existing momentum and global network, bridging legacy and web3 frameworks, we would love to support the process of legitimizing a global network of ImpactDAOs and help seed adoption as we move from invisible to inevitable. This support could/should come in the form of social events, content creation, and technical pilots and proofs (more linked below).

In Part I of our research, we outlined the critical infrastructure, governance, and legal considerations of DAOs in order to successfully bring multiple stakeholders together to make decisions and collaborate in an increasingly digitized and decentralized world. In Part II of our research, we will explore how to apply these characteristics of effective DAOs to the vast and diverse Internet of Education (IoE) ecosystem.

A fundamental belief of those supporting the IoE is that the future of education must be equitable and learner-centered. This new vision of education and employment is one in which data is not a source of friction, but instead, empowers individuals by legitimizing and making actionable the inherent value of knowledge and skills––all while protecting privacy. In part, this can be achieved by connecting the currently fragmented systems into a cohesive network of impact and accountability, governed by a growing mesh network of IoE ImpactDAOs.

As part of all of this work, the question of sustainable, equitable, and impactful meta-governance will continue to come into question. LEF, and our global network of partners, would be excited to work more directly with GitcoinDAO and the growing network of ImpactDAOs in order to bring emergent web3 tech, and the associated mental models, into traditional communities of education and employment.

As an initial engagement, we are seeking $5k for an evening salon and community event we are looking to organize and host in Boulder, CO on July 30, 2022 in association with the CU Badge Summit. After seeding a genesis network of ImpactDAO advocates and building a foundational knowledge base, we envision ongoing programming, content development, and open source tooling that any ImpactDAO could leverage, adopt, and/or deploy.

Detailed proposal here
Further inquiries: taylor@learningeconomy.io

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[Comment, not a proposal]
Thinking about ImpactDAO cartography/categorization as a site of theory and experimentation. Protection and proliferation of the commons (discussed in the discord re: Kim Stanley Robinson) is a framework that contains environmental impact while going beyond it. This kind of mapping could be imaginatively prescriptive rather than descriptive (e.g. okay, we’re doing environmental impact, what other ways can we protect and proliferate the commons?)

A good example of an experimental cartographical realm, a new continent ig you will, is “againt Anthropological Chauvinism.” This is the basic idea that humans (typical of ideologies of supremacy, this often reduces to mean simply white men) are center or even sole possessor of metaphysical Substance and thus the only categorical “End in itself.” Unravelling this prejudice means considering many other types of entities as valid, and it implies a free, intuitive, almost improvisational relationship to category and a respect for the mystery of entity-ness. Examples: earth systems (ecosystems, weather systems, geological systems), species, animals considered in their individuality, viruses, transcendental states, mathematical concepts, cultural concepts and affects (memes) emergent human entities like corporations, nations, artist communities, tribes, families, couples, human/nonhuman fused entities like cities, food production systems.

Humanism: advocating justice for and harmony and accord between, humans;
Suprahumanism: advocating justice for and harmony and accord between entities, broadly conceived.

I should note that this verges or even dives into magical thinking, and that can be intoned in two ways: the sort of magical thinking that defies rationality and eventually devolves into reaction, cult like behavior, violence, potentially fascism; b, the kind of magical thinking that we might associate with some indigenous or nonwestern cosmologies, and which imply pluralism and mutual respect. I think many of us who are more scientifically minded reject the second path for fear of the first. I think the second path can be supplemented/armed with the tools that have best protected us from the first (rigorous rationality, free discourse and empiricism).

This is just one example, hopefully more on the far-out side. Such creative cartography/frameworking could result in new notions of alignment/common mission, i.e.: (given above) arts aligned with environmental impact aligned with research in complex systems. Other creative cartographies could be more granular, intersecting specific subsystems of many impact spheres, or could be temporal in nature, event specific (i.e. the war in Ukraine as environmental and humanitarian crisis). More alignments/frameworks, more plural webs of resonance, alliance, coalition, interconnectedness
 cartography as discovery.

Tl;dr: category creation can be prescriptive, suggestive rather than just descriptive and retrospective; there’s a lot of value to be gained from thinking of it as its own important site of experimentation.

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Just sharing my thoughts


Category creation

I agree with the goal of category creation. Although I’m not sure ImpactDAO is the right term.

ImpactDAO differentiates DAO from ImpactDAO. I don’t think it’s a good general term for “web3 charity.”

We need a term that is understood by the general public. Neither “DAO” nor “impact” works IMO.

A couple of articles against “impact:”

“(47%) of adult Americans are unclear about what ‘charity impact; means.”

-Wise Giving Wednesday: What does “Charity Impact” Mean to the Public? | Give.org

“Have you ever been in a meeting with a potential donor in which, without prompting from you, he or she uses the word impact? Probably not, right? And the reason: It’s our word, not theirs.”

-https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/features/the-sustainable-nonprofit/has-the-word-impact-lost-its-impact

DAO isn’t even understood within web3, let alone amongst the general public. Granted, we are in the first inning of this new paradigm.

More specifically, I don’t think centralization and autonomy will be the defining characteristics of web3 social impact orgs. Many organizations will actually just be one person. There will be a coming wave of “creator charities.” Is one person and a donor base a DAO? And if so, wouldn’t that make every creator today a DAO? When does it become a DAO? Once you add tokens? Voting? Web2 software already automates many org functions. It’s all a bit fuzzy to me.

I think the important positioning and category creation terms will speak to the UX difference between nonprofit and web3 charity.

(I did read your great thread about DAOs btw).
https://twitter.com/owocki/status/1524069606855303168

It comes down to whom the term is for. If it’s only for people already in web3 x social impact, then maybe ImpactDAO can work. If it’s for a broad audience, I’d consider a new term.

I’ve been using the term “web3 charity.” I don’t love it but I haven’t thought of anything better yet. I’m going for a broad audience.

I’m curious, what does this mean?

I don’t understand how a governed registry could do this. There are already millions of organizations. And web3 will create tens of millions more.

In your proof of impact post, you have a hypothetical report card with different scores. This feels highly subjective.

Curious to hear more of your thoughts on this. I think donors voting with their money is the only thing that works at scale.

The work of the organization should speak for itself. A key feature of web3 charity is organizations directly proving the impact of each donation.

We shouldn’t need some authority, even a decentralized one, to give out seals of approval. The nonprofit label has been counterproductive to the social sector over the last century.

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hey all ; thanks for the submissions so far. i’m evaluating them with a few friends over the next couple weeks + will get back after that.

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I came across this library of Impact NFT content/projects that might be useful: Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

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do any of the submissions above have a gitcoin grant for their project? id love to fund them during GR14 (which ends june 23rd). i still have funding to give out, but not nearly as much as i did before the market crash

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hey all, thanks again for the discussion + for the proposals.

we posted about the next step for this initiative here => Impact Certificates [Proposals Wanted] 📄 - #29 by owocki