Hey everyone! Giving an update here on the topic of Sensemaking…
We’ve been running structured interviews as part of Sensemaking Szn and our Strategic Sense-Making Framework. Here’s how we’re turning diverse perspectives into actual funding domains for GG24.
We needed a process that listens to ecosystem leaders, connects the dots between them, and identifies fundable opportunities that move the needle. This post outlines our process to date and what you can expect from us in the days ahead as we progress through this process.
How We’re Synthesizing
Instead of running 10 different exercises that produce incomparable outputs, we kept it simple. Every stakeholder receives the same eight core questions in a 30-45 minute session with a consistent agenda. You can view our standard interview agenda here.
We focus on what is underfunded, what is blocking progress, and where opportunities lie. We’re speaking with EF leaders, builders, round operators, and innovators of public goods.
We’re also monitoring the governance forum and have hosted a highly engaged Twitter Space. People are sharing their perspectives on Ethereum’s biggest problems and opportunities, and I’m ensuring that these views are factored into our synthesis.
With all of this taken into account, the synthesis happens in three passes.
- We tag everything: what theme does it fit (impact, sustainability, coordination, infrastructure), how often people mention it, how strongly they feel about it, and what else it connects to.
- Examine signal strength: strong signals are observed in over 70% of interviews (indicating that everyone is experiencing this pain), medium signals occur in 40-70% (a growing consensus worth exploring), and emerging signals appear in 20-40% (early but interesting findings).
- Identify non-obvious aspects: where coordination failures disrupt multiple systems, which infrastructure gaps persist, and what sustainability issues affect entire categories of systems.
From Patterns to Fundable Domains
The synthesis gives us the problems. Then we turn it over to you.
Once we identify the key problem areas through this process, we’ll publish our findings, highlighting the biggest gaps, the most pressing needs, and the opportunities that everyone has mentioned. These will serve as the basis for the funding domains that either Gitcoin will own or that we would like to see emerge from the community.
From there, we want the community to propose solutions. Instead of Gitcoin trying to solve everything, we’re looking for domain allocators, people or teams with deep expertise in specific problem areas, who will control how funding is distributed in their domain. For those who have already posted your findings to the forum, thank you! This is exactly the momentum we are looking for.
What We’re Seeing So Far
This is early, but four trends are starting to emerge:
- Impact Measurement: Projects can secure initial funding with compelling pitches, but without impact data, the funding often dries up. We need tools for tracking causality and aggregation platforms.
- Sustainable Funding worries 100% of stakeholders. We have made progress in the number of funding mechanisms, but we still haven’t cracked the code on how to translate this into sustainable funding streams for projects creating a positive impact.
- Ecosystem Coordination comes up regularly. The Protocol Guild shows one model that works, but we need more resource sharing across communities and common standards.
- Access Infrastructure is getting a strong signal. On/off-ramps, mobile wallets, and solutions for growing adoption in emerging markets.
Get Involved
We’re still synthesizing through mid-August, and we need your input in two phases:
- Now: Help us identify the right problems. Reality-check whether the patterns we’re seeing match your experience. Identify gaps we haven’t identified.
- Soon(™): Once we publish the problem areas, start thinking about solutions. If you have expertise in addressing these challenges, consider applying to be a domain allocator.
This is how we go from insights to impact. Collective intelligence identifies the problems, then domain experts allocate funding to the solutions.
Conclusion
This synthesis process changes how we fund public goods.
We’re identifying problems through collective intelligence, then empowering domain experts with proven solutions to allocate funding where it matters.
Comments and feedback welcome!