Trust plays a central role in how public goods work, especially in decentralized ecosystems where participants may never meet, and where impact can be hard to quantify.
Within Gitcoin, trust seems to emerge from many different signals: past grant history, open-source contributions, community endorsements, transparency in communication, on-chain activity, or even long-term presence in the ecosystem. Different participants may weigh these signals very differently depending on whether they’re builders, donors, reviewers, or stewards.
From our perspective at Petition.io, thinking about trust has been unavoidable. As we build tools that rely on broad participation and public confidence, we’re constantly reflecting on what makes a project feel credible without relying on centralized verification or traditional institutional backing.
I’m interested to know how do newer projects earn trust without an established track record?
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@Petition.io I suppose trust can be built into a project by enforcing donated funds to flow through a transparent system.
In our case, we are using a Drip List so that donors can easily see what type of work is funded, and who the end recipients are: https://www.drips.network/app/drip-lists/41305178594442616889778610143373288091511468151140966646158126636698
With this setup, a donor doesn’t have to worry about funds being mismanaged/wasted since everything is transparent and 0% goes to admin overhead.
I believe this is how the most efficient non-profits will operate in the future.
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Thanks for sharing this, I agree that building transparency directly into how funds move is a strong way to establish trust early on. Making the recipients and funded work visible by default removes a lot of uncertainty.
From our side at Petition.io, this is something we think about a lot as well, especially how transparency fits alongside other trust signals over time, like consistency, follow-through, and community feedback.