SIP Cohort 2 Opportunity 3: Web2.5 SimpleGrants Platform

General
1

I’ve experimented with doing Quadratic Funding in web2 communities twice:

  1. Downtown Stimulus - a $50k QF round from Q2 2020
  2. FundOSS - $95k web2 OSS QF round from 2021.

I would like to revive these experiments and build a codebase that can be reused multiple times to run QF experiments for non-EVM communities. (Gitcoin is already servicing EVM communities with Grants Protocol)

Such a tool would need to be

  1. modular, it could handle multiple payment types (fiat, zcash, any non-EVM based community)
  2. open source, it could be forked by anyone
  3. well documented
  4. well maintained
  5. get the core jobs to be done, done
  • grant crowdfunder - wants to fund a grant
  • grant owner - wants to get funding
  • ecosystem owner - wants to setup a matching pool

Market opportunity

At founding, Netflix famously wanted to be a streaming service, but because broadband internet was not built out yet, they had to start out with DVDs by mail to build market share. A web2 QF/grants tool is our DVDs-by-mail opportunity to prove that these tools work outside of web3 and can help regenerate the world of everyday people.

I am certain that there are lots of QF opportunities for web3 and web2 era communities that dont have access to the EVM because I have had conversations with many of them. I have 6 warm leads for partners who want to use this product in Q2 2023.

What would the tool look like?

I am looking to build a web2 Grants platform that simplifies the facilitation of funding public goods in local communities.

Here is what Im thinking the architecture could look like:

A platform that hosts grants, with a plugin architecture that allows various

  1. capital allocation plugins (eg quadratic funding, dominance assurance contracts, etc)
  2. checkout plugins

This platform would have easy ways to publishing to/subscribing from grants registries in the web3 ecosystem, allowing easy transferability of grants from each paradigm.

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The main “customers” for this platform would be

  1. Grant owners - who want to get funds
  2. Grant contributors - who want to give their favorite projects funding
  3. (optionally) ecosystem builders - who want to support ecosystems of public goods

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The application would need to have the following.

  1. Create Grant Flow
  2. Checkout Flow
  3. Add Matching Funds Flow
  4. Analytics Module to track contributions

From a technology perspective, we are looking to build this “right”. That means good docs, good test coverage, responsive design, maintainable codebase, etc. I’ve already validated the market for this with two throwaway builds (1, 2) and we want to invest in a solid codebase to host future web2 grants campaigns.

If you are a builder, please submit your application on the gitcoin bounty here.

2 Likes
2

As a participant in the pilot round, I’m particularly interested in a platform that could not only revive FundOSS, but be used for other purposes (software specific fundraisers, interest areas, location based, etc.).

So will all that be possible with this platform? Is it a work in progress or is there still a need for builders?

3

we’ve got a working platform up at https://simplegrants.xyz/ but so far do not have a pilot customer / funder for it!

we designed it to be well documentd and reusable for other purposes too :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

For those who are interested in contributing to the project, you can check out the code here! The entire platform is open sourced :smiley:

2 Likes
5

Great to know!

So based on your experience and previous involvement with the FundOSS pilot: 1) would you recommend rebuilding on the new platform instead of the existing/broken one? 2) do you have a rough idea of the time/cost it would take to replicate/improve the functionality the FundOSS platform offered?; 3) assuming we get buy in from some of the larger groups/collectives in the Open Collective ecosystem, are there potential opportunities to partner/pool resources (talent and funds) with y’all?

6

Awesome! We forked and hope to contribute and extend assuming we can move forward with a couple funding programs in the Open Collective ecosystem.

Would love to explore collaboration opportunities!

7

would love to support! wanna email me kevin@supermodular.xyz and we can figure out next steps.

1 Like
8

Sent you an update to a previously sent email - hope it makes sense!

9

Also left a followup comment in the related FundOSS issue since we can’t really evaluate options and discuss next steps w/out looping in some/all of the other original organizers.